Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
4-2023
Publication Title
Literary Theory & Criticism in the Later Middle Ages: Interpretation, Invention, Imagination. Essays in Honour of Alastair Minnis
Pages
220-248
Publisher Name
Cambridge University Press
Publisher Location
Cambridge
Abstract
The Consolatio philosophiae of the Roman statesman and philosopher Boethius (fifth/sixth century) was read and studied intensely in medieval western Europe and repeatedly translated into vernacular languages. Medieval commentaries on this text and translations of it claim attention today as case studies in a history of reading, for they exemplify the practices of medieval literary scholasticism. In an English context, the final flowering of this reading tradition may be placed in the year 1556, when John Cawoode printed a new translation of the Consolatio by a ‘George Coluile, alias Coldewel’. The translator remains unidentified. The translation is a medieval throwback in its treatment of Boethius’s text. Whereas subsequent English translators of the Consolatio separate text from commentary, Colvile permitted these categories to interpenetrate. He transmitted a wealth of exegetical material traceable to a commentary on the Consolatio attributed falsely to Thomas Aquinas. Pseudo-Thomas’s commentary and Boethius’s Consolatio were often printed together after their editio princeps in 1473. Colvile probably worked from a book printed in Lyon between 1486 and 1498.
Recommended Citation
Cornelius, Ian. “George Colvile’s Translation of the Consolation of Philosophy.” In Literary Theory & Criticism in the Later Middle Ages: Interpretation, Invention, Imagination. Essays in Honour of Alastair Minnis, edited by Ardis Butterfield, Ian Johnson, and Andrew Kraebel, 220–48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108698351.013.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
© The Author, 2023.
Included in
Classical Literature and Philology Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, Medieval Studies Commons, Renaissance Studies Commons
Comments
Author Posting © The Author, 2023. This is the author's version of the work. This material has been published in revised form in Literary Theory and Criticism in the Later Middle Ages: Interpretation, Invention, Imagination by Ardis Butterfield, Ian Johnson, and Andrew Kraebel, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108698351. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution or re-use.