The Consolation of Philosophy Philosophy cannot give complete consolation, therefore, Lady Philosophy’s main aim is to restore Boethius’s relationship with God, who can provide true consolation. While philosophy provides a path for humans to contemplate how the world works, it ultimately provides Boethius consolation indirectly by pointing to Christianity. In The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius defines a human as, “A rational and mortal creature” however, Lady Philosophy implies he is missing something and declares, “Now I know the other, in fact the greatest, cause of your disease: you no longer know what you are.” She believes that Boethius is in so much distress not primarily because of the difficult situation he’s facing in prison, but because he has forgotten in part what it means to be human, “A rational and mortal creature” created by good and loving God in His image. After her diagnosis, Lady Philosophy begins to cure Boethius through reason and dialogue, but ultimately strives to restore his relationship with God as the root of his dilemma comes from a lack of faith in God. Similar to a doctor referring a patient to a specialist, Lady Philosophy shows Boethius that he needs to turn to God in his despair in order to receive full consolation. As such, Lady Philosophy’s remedy consists of her using reason and philosophy to point out that Boethius the answers to the questions he has is derived from an understanding of God. In Book 3, Lady Philosophy asks, “What do you think we should do when we are looking for the foundation of the highest Good?” to which Boethius replies, “We should call upon the Father of all things. If we leave this out, we can’t make a proper beginning of our work.” Here marks the point, in the middle of the novel, where Boethius begins to turn to God for him in his dire situation. At this point, he is beginning to understand that God is source of all good and blessedness, rather than abiding in material goods and earthly views of happiness such as fame and wealth. For the rest of the book, God comes up more frequently in their dialogue and the conversation shifts to a more faith based discussion. The Consolation of Philosophy seems to end abruptly, leaving the reader to
Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet in the 16th century, at a time when the role of the woman was to be subservient to men and act as a wife to their husband and a mother to their children. Women were expected to conform to the expectations of society, and were seen as possessions by their fathers and husbands. Fathers arranged their daughters’ marriages, usually for financial or social gain for the family. In Romeo and Juliet, the unfair treatment of women is conveyed through characters such as Juliet, a young girl who is growing up within the expectations of society, and Lady Capulet, who represents a traditional side of love, and values social position rather than men themselves.
Sacrificed the truth, beauty and the right to think, happiness and comfort is just indulgent, it is the discomfort brought by the misery, responsibility and the bonding give us the weight of life. The world is full of people who try hard to gain happiness, and we all have at least one time the idea of living in a perfect world, a world without pain, without misery, without getting old and without cancers. We always ignored the importance and the beauty of uncomfortableness, just as a quote in this book said, “Stability isn’t nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand”. After read this book, I started to be more objective at those bad things I used to hate, to understand the significance of art and to be grateful to this imperfect world we are
The Book of the City of Ladies During the renaissance many different views of leadership surfaced. Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies, Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, and William Shakespeare’s Richard III each present distinct views of what would make a good leader during the renaissance period. Shakespeare and Christine de Pizan’s views align most closely with Plato’s.
Plato was born in Athens, Greece around 427 B.C. He was always interested in politics, until he witnessed his mentor and teacher, Socrates, death. After learning of the callousness of politics, Plato changed his mind and eventually opened up The Academy, which is considered if not the first, one of the first Universities. Students at the Academy studied many different fields of science, including biological and astronomical. The students also studied many other fields, such as math. Plato developed many views that were mathematical in nature. He expressed these views through his writings. According to Dr. Calkins of Andrew University, "Timaeus is probably the most renowned of Plato's thirty-five dialogues. [In it] Plato expresses that he
Aristophanes and Agathon were peers in Ancient Greece. Aristophanes was the master of comedy, and Agathon was the master of tragedy. They traveled in the same circles and are present in the same works. In looking through the comic lens at Agathon in Aristophanes’ Women at the Thesmophoria, the reader is presented with a portrayal of an effeminate man with a flair for the dramatic and a queenly attitude. Aristophanes’ Agathon is a comic character to be laughed at, a man that is more female than male. In looking at this view of Agathon, Greek views of homoeroticism are brought up and Agathon’s reputation and character in the world of Ancient Greece is brought into question. How much of
An unlikely candidate to dispute the unfair, misogynistic treatment of women by men and society, Christine de Pizan successfully challenged the accepted negative views that were being expressed about women by the all-male literary world of her era. Part of Christine’s uniqueness stems from the time in which she lived, the middle to late 1300’s. The lack of a positive female role model to pattern herself after made Christine a true visionary in the fight for the equal rights of women. Her original ideas and insight provided a new and more intelligent way to view females. Pizan’s work, The Book of the City of Ladies, provided women much needed guidance in how to survive without the support of a man.
Women in the medieval times were cast into very distinct roles. There was a strict code of conduct that was followed. They were to be submissive to their husbands and follow their lead. A woman's place was also in the home and the responsibilities of cooking, cleaning, sewing, etc. fell into their domain. Women who deviated from these cultural-set norms made for interesting characters. Chaucer's use of women and their overstepping their boundaries and typical roles in society make them most memorable.
Prior to and throughout the late middle ages, women have been portrayed in literature as vile and corrupt. During this time, Christine de Pizan became a well educated woman and counteracted the previous notions of men’s slander against women. With her literary works, Pizan illustrated to her readers and women that though education they can aspire to be something greater than what is written in history. Through the use of real historical examples, Christine de Pizan’s, The Book of the City of Ladies, acts as a defense against the commonly perceived notions of women as immoral.
In St. Augustine’s Confessions and Dante’s Inferno, the central characters in their respective narratives are presented a message from which induces distinct reactions. More importantly, their reactions are reflections of their perspective concerning the Christian outlook
Book IV is the turning point in the theodicy, in the first chapter Boethius is truly puzzled by the presence of evil in the world. "But the greatest cause of my sadness is really this - the fact that in spite of a good helmsman to guide the world, evil can
"When you say Man," said Oedipus, "you include women too. Everyone knows that." She said, "That's what you think." These lines, from the ending of Muriel Rukheyser's poem "On Oedipus the King, Myth," comment on the significance of women both in the play and in society. Though the character of Oedipus suggests that women are equal, the issue of the true role of women is brought up in the poem, and is raised in Sophocles' play.
In 17th century Euro-America Puritan society believed that men played a patriarchal role upon women, and that this role was instituted by God and nature. The seniority of men over women lay within both the household and the public sphere. The household, immediate family living in the same dwelling was subject to the male as head figure of the house. The public sphere also known as the social life within the Puritan community consisted of two echelons. These echelons consisted of formal and informal public. The formal public consisted of woman and indentured servants. Women were to stay within the informal public and stay in the shadows of the men. The government held large ties with the church in the 17th century. Though women were
Many different interpretations can be derived from themes in Euripides's The Bacchae, most of which assume that, in order to punish the women of Thebes for their impudence, the god Dionysus drove them mad. However, there is evidence to believe that another factor played into this confrontation. Because of the trend of male dominance in Greek society, women suffered in oppression and bore a social stigma which led to their own vulnerability in becoming Dionysus's target. In essence, the Thebian women practically fostered Dionysian insanity through their longing to rebel against social norms. Their debilitating conditions as women prompted them to search for a way to
“ The belief that women were inherently inferior in intelligence, strength, and character was so persuasive that for men like Knox, a woman ruler was almost a contradiction in terms” (“Documents for Chapters 5&6”). In the 16th century, women were looked upon as a gender that should stay in the house and work, not have power and rule over a country. Discussing the govern of Queens during the 16th century, such as Mary Tudor, Lady Jane Grey, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I, allowed prejudices to be lessened but never completely be erased. No matter how these four notable ladies came into power, the accomplishments they overcame, achieved and wrote about proved to be great and substantial in making history as it is written today.
With the speaker’s use of metaphors and Greek allusions, the idea of constancy in failed relationships is reworked to combat the misogynistic conception of female inconstancy. In Joan Kelly’s “Early Feminist Theory and the ‘Querelle des Femmes,’ 1400–1789,” she claims that female querelle writers “reject[ed] the distorted image of women” (Kelly 20) in religious texts and amatory poetry because women were often depicted as capricious “creatures” that men could not trust to be