Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Cicero's speeches
Literature and different cultures
Cicero in the modern world
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Cicero's speeches
The Art of Courtly Love, Consolation of Philosophy, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Part 1: Consolation of Philosophy, written by Boethius 1. Boethius was a popular member of the senatorial family. He was a philosopher that agreed with Plato that government should be solely in the hands of wise men. After becoming consul, charges of treason were brought against him. He lived in a time in Roman society when everyone was mainly Christian. He was an Arian Christian and believed that Christ was neither truly God nor truly man. Because of his beliefs, he was seen as a heretic in the eyes of the Roman Church. This religious controversy was the root of many of Boethius’s beliefs and writings. 2. The literary genre of the Consolation of Philosophy is a satura. A satura is a combination of poems and prose. The model for Boethius’s work is Augustine. A lot of his work parallels Augustine’s beliefs and readings (especially in Book 5). Cicero was also a model for Boethius. He was a philosopher that had many ideas that Boethius agreed with. The work is structured by a combination of poems and prose. Book 1 starts off with a poem and alternates prose and Book 2-5 starts with a prose and alternates with poems. The prose is considered the story part and the poem summarizes the prose. They are very much like saying the same thing in two different ways. The poems were often Boethius’s response and the prose was Lady Philosophy’s consolations. 3. The benefits of bad luck are that it makes a person stronger because when a person has bad luck, they don’t necessarily emphasize the importance of material and human desires. It is only without these things that a person has the potential to find true happiness. Without bad luck a person ... ... middle of paper ... ... Sir Gawain prays for it, and a green garter that saves the knight from death. Also, the Green Knight gets his head chopped off and picks it up as if nothing happened and rides off on his horse carrying it. All of these examples are of magic and make believe and could never really happen in real life. 9. The poet may be telling the Knights of the Garter to remember that Sir Gawain survived because he lived by the codes of honor and respect that were so important for the knights to live by. As each knight at the Round Table is asked to wear the green garter, they are asked to remember the Sir Gawain’s courage and honorable behavior. Bibliography: Beowulf. Trans. Seamus Heaney. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. Richard Green. New York: The Bobbs- Merril Company, Inc., 1962.
Sir Gawain steps in to take the challenge after King Arthur first agrees to participate himself. Sir Gawain wants to bring honor to Arthur and asks permission to take his place. Gawain knows that he is not the strongest, smartest knight but the loss of his life would not be as bad as if King Arthur loses his life. King Arthur agrees to let him enter this game and gives him a weapon to use against this Green Knight. King Arthur says to Sir Gawain, "Keep, cousin what you cut with this day, and if you rule it aright, then readily, I know you shall stand the stroke it will strike after." (372-374) Gawain, with his weapon in his hand, is now ready to take part in the game.
While Gawain fails to accept the truth about his immoral identity, he also fails to maintain a sincere and truthful relationship with God. Camelot believes that Gawain is a perfectly chivalrous and Catholic knight, when in actuality he is an actor with an impure thought. Gawain is driven by selfish motives; he only considers what is best for him and as a result, uses God as a vehicle to get what he wants. Gawain acknowledges God when he desires comfort and “crosses himself, and cries on Christ in his great need,” of a castle (761-761). Likewise, Gawain prays when he wants protecting; his shield, decorated with the highly symbolic Pentangle and Virgin Mary, is the ultimate Holy accessory for his battle. Gawain only regards God when he is either wishing for comfort or for safety. Furthermore, Gawain strays from Catholicism completely by expecting the green sash to save him in the fight. Believing that the magical Pagan article will truly redeem him, demonstrates fear and proves Gawain lacks faith in God. Gawain lacks morals when abandoning Catholicism for a Pagan artifact, and when he does pray to God his spiritual motives are impure and
Lady Bertilak’s deceptive seduction of Gawain demonstrates this truth and illuminates her motive in seducing Gawain as her flirtatious behavior that “urged him so near the limit” (1771) is clearly an attempt to reacquaint Gawain with his natural feelings. In Camelot, men and women are so civilized that their emotions appear false and manufactured. By seducing Gawain with spontaneity and passion, Lady Bertilak strips Gawain of this control over primal urges. While Gawain attempts to resist these urges that contradict his courtly ways, his submission to kiss lady Bertilak and eventually accept her chastity belt reveals that he has submitted to his natural feelings. With such an orderly and distinguished knight proving vulnerable to his emotion and temptation the author imposes the idea that perfection in terms of morality and way of life is unattainable as feelings cannot be controlled. Lady Bertilak further clarifies the intent of her relationship with Gawain by shaming him for “refusing to love a lady”(1779-1780). This shame is clearly unwarranted as Lady Bertilak is breaching moral statues herself by being unfaithful to her husband; however, the claim does succeed in connecting her seduction of Gawain to the ideas of empathy and genuine affection, revealing the statement as selfish manipulation motivated by the lady’s desire to expose Gawain’s most natural emotions. By
Gawain, Arthur’s knight who takes the Green Knight’s challenge, is portrayed in different lights as the story progresses. Descriptions of fabric and clothing are integral to this portrayal. When he is departing Camelot to find the Green Knight, Gawain is depicted as a virtuous, chivalrous knight bravely facing his fate. His clothing, therefore, is red, symbolizing courage, and bears a gold pentangle, a symbol of virtue. This is described in lines 636-639, “On shield and coat in view/ He bore that emblem bright/ As to his word most true/ And in speech most courteous knight.
I was given the task to make a decision concerning the confession of Alexandros of Nicomedia regarding his Monophysite beliefs. After carefully studying Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, and closely analyzing his arguments, I was able to come to a conclusion. Boethius would argue that the correct thing to do is punish Alexandros to push him to reform himself rather than just senseless torture, given that wicked men technically do not exist, wicked men are already punishing themselves and wicked man can reform themselves by suing the right punishment.
Consequently, this should not bring him comfort since he is unable to understand it. To fully trust and find comfort in what Lady Philosophy tells Boethius, he must have faith not only in the reasoning of Lady Philosophy but also in a good God. One cannot reason himself to see all things working out for good, they must have faith. Only Providence is capable of seeing how exactly everything works out in the end, humans are left with limited knowledge and the capacity to have faith and trust in God. This is the situation Boethius is left in. His situation is dire, and Lady Philosophy is attempting to help him by reasoning him through a series of assumption to cure him of his sorrow. But in the end, Boethius must have faith to find true
When Arthur's court was challenged by the Green Knight, Gawain alone offered to take the cup from Arthur's hands. He showed pride and courage greater than all - by coming forward. The poem is filled with opportunities in which Gawain inevitably was forced to face difficult decisions. During his travels he had every opportunity to turn around, especially when the rain and cold and desolation became fierce. Gawain, however, continued on his way. Three times did the lady tempt him and twice he managed to neither offend her with discourteousness nor accept her amorous advances and defile his chastity.
Sir Gawain stands up for he believes that his uncle should not take on the Green Knight while so many others, as mentioned earlier, are able. Gawain is successful by not only standing for what he believes in but also in defeating the Green Knight. The Green Knight plays the role of the tempter in this scene. He first tempts the court, but is defeated. Sir Gawain overcomes his first
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume A. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 162-213.
In The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius uses good vs. evil argument in an objective, metaphysical view, on an abstract level. Good being the all-powerful God and evil being nothing. Parallel to that view, there is good vs. bad, which is presented from a human viewpoint. While the good has similar meani...
The Consolation of Philosophy is written by Boethius while in prison awaiting for his execution. It starts out with Boethius talking to lady philosophy and she starts to tell him about the philosophical view on Christianity. She begins by explaining that the vagaries of Fortune visit everyone and she has came there to "cure" him of all his suffering and sickness he is feeling through this troubling time. Boethius's view is more of a philosophical point of view meaning that he uses reasoning and experience to base his view of God. He doesn’t understand why bad things happen to good people and why good things happen to bad people. Boethius had a hard time understanding that God would allow good people to have a troubling life. Boethius has a
...howing cowardice and not giving it to the Host, Sir Gawain is only nicked in the neck. This shows that there was no danger, as no adultery was committed, but Sir Gawain still committed a lie. Each blow represents the way Sir Gawain responds to the Lady in the seductions. In each scene the animals that are hunted represented the Lady and her style of seduction to Sir Gawain. Sir Gawain returns to the round table and is able to show his fellow knights about Cowardice and that even the strongest man can have flaws. Sir Gawain's fellow knights don a Green Sash in remembrance of Sir Gawain and his act of heroics.
Boethius's idea of a simultaneous God that could remain omnipresent without propagating or condoning evil became a cornerstone in Christian theology during the medieval ages. The Consolation soothes the reader not because it provides a theological proof, but because it reveals that injustice will never be rewarded by the truly virtuous God. In the Consolation of Philosophy, reason represented by Lady Philosophy comforts the imprisoned Boethius that in a world created by an eternal, emanating God, bad can never overcome virtue and goodness.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem which tells the tale of a knight who undergoes trials-testing the attributes of knighthood-in order to prove the strength and courage of himself, while representing the Knights of the Round Table. One of King Arthurs most noblest and bravest of knights, Sir Gawain, is taken on an adventure when he steps up to behead a mysterious green visitor on Christmas Day-with the green mans’ permission of course. Many would state that this tale of valor would be within the romance genre. To the modern person this would be a strange category to place the poem in due to the question of ‘where is the actual romance, where is the love and woe?’ However, unlike most romances nowadays, within medieval literature there are many defining features and characteristics of a romance-them rarely ever really involving love itself. Within medieval literature the elements of a romance are usually enshrouded in magic, the fantastic and an adventure. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight follows Sir Gawain over the course of one year, from one New Years to the next, as was the deal he and Bertilak, the green knight, struck.
The Medieval poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, presents a denunciation of changes to the chivalric code which could lead to its destruction. By comparing Lady Bertilak (the archetype of depravity and lust) to the Virgin Mary (the archetype of chastity and purity), the Gawain poet points out the incompatibility between spiritual love and the courtly love which had undermined the values behind chivalry. In its essential nature, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a warning to its aristocratic readers that fraternizing with women must be forbidden so as to avert destruction of their way of life.