Category Archives: LITERATURE

LITERATURE: Plato’s Symposium and Phaedrus – On Love

Posted on February 24, 2006 by susan

Well, this is what I’ve decided on as my next classical reading, mainly because they’re short, and I’m just reading them online. It just seemed to make more sense to take this journey up through the centuries–though of course, the … Continue reading →

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LITERATURE & NEW MEDIA: The Consolation – Final Finale

Posted on February 24, 2006 by susan

Happy news: The three a.m. dark garage spirit  has returned with some of its meandering sometimes deep and sometimes ridiculous ponderings.  Besides Boethius’ explanation of the senses picking up empirically on the things around us, he points to reason and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Consolation of Philosophy – Finale

Posted on February 23, 2006 by susan

Boethius is depressed, understandably so since he has worked himself in a standing of political status and reputation as a man of principle, and yet he sits in prison facing execution by the same state he has championed. Philosophy, once … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Next Up in the Classics

Posted on February 23, 2006 by Susan

Before I do a formal finale on The Consolation of Philosophy I’m deliberating between Longinus’ Essay on the Sublime and Descartes’ Discourse on Method and Related Writings.  While I’m trying to work through my reading list chronologically, I do have … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Consolation – Lessons

Posted on February 22, 2006 by susan

Wow.  Just finished the final Book V, and realized that it covers much more than a simple rationalization and proof of both God’s divine knowledge and man’s free will.  Though that be a heavy question, in my own half-ass way, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Consolation – Free Will

Posted on February 22, 2006 by susan

This is a more difficult subject, at least in following the words of Philosophy, and I will probably read it through before raising it here, but two things that struck me, for my own unraveling of them: "When the human … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Consolation – The Question of Chance in an Orderly World

Posted on February 22, 2006 by susan

Book V tackles the aspect of Chance, and Philosophy acknowledge the word according to Aristotle’s definition in Metaphysics IV.30, without giving it a place of existence outside of the order of Providence: "Whenever anything is done for one reason, but … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Consolation – Our Lot in Life

Posted on February 22, 2006 by susan

I had finished up Book IV, and found that I’d not posted.  Then realized that it was likely since I had accepted Philosophy’s discourse without much argument.  Basically, two things come of Book IV; first, "He only gives it to … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Child of God – Melody

Posted on February 22, 2006 by susan

Before I knew it, I was up to page 15, but this, the opening line; a run-on sentence that reads like a song: They came like a caravan of carnival folk up through the swales of broomstraw and across the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Child of God

Posted on February 21, 2006 by susan

I can’t stay away from him any longer.   There’s no reason to keep denying myself as some sort of repression of a little happiness.  I’ve been down a long time, and it’s either a cream cheese and chocolate bits-filled chocolate … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Consolation – Providence

Posted on February 21, 2006 by susan

There is a grand plan for order: "This divine mind established the manifold rules by which all things are governed while it remained in the secure castle of its own simplicity.  When this government is regarded as  belonging to the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Consolation – A Dose of Faith

Posted on February 21, 2006 by susan

Ah, a very good answer from Philosophy in the discussion of understanding the punishments or evils visited upon men of good virtue:  "But, you ask, what worse confusion can there be than for the good to enjoy prosperity and suffer … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: Format

Posted on February 20, 2006 by Susan

For the first time I’m reluctant to select from the pile.  There is no doubt that even as I’m catching up on the lit journals, I’m torn between the many other anthologies I have stacked up and the novels that … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Consolation – Philosophy and Theology

Posted on February 20, 2006 by susan

It is clear that Philosophy leads Boethius’ through a series of steps that point to a real happiness in seeking God, and attempts to answer the question of bad things happening to good people.  "It is no wonder," Philosophy answered, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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LITERATURE: The Consolation – Logical Progression

Posted on February 20, 2006 by susan

This logic may follow, but it is based on a premise that I don’t quite see as solid: "Perhaps it may strike some as strange to say that evil men do not exist, especially since they are so numerous; but … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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