The Old English Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Boethius's De Consolatione Philosophiae

Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, written in Latin around 525 A.D., was to become one of the most influential literary texts of the Middle Ages. The Old English prose translation and adaptation which was produced around 900 and claims to be by King Alfred was one of the earliest signs of its importance and use, and the subsequent rewriting of parts as verse show an interest in rivalling the literary shape of the Latin original. The many changes and additions have much to tell us about Anglo-Saxon interests and scholarship in the Alfredian period. This new edition is the first to present the second prose-and-verse version of the Old English text, and allows it to be read alongside the original prose version, for which this is the first edition for over a century, and the introduction and commentary reveal much about the history of the text and its composition.

The edition contains critical texts of both versions; a translation; a full introduction examining the manuscripts, the composition of the prose text and of the subsequent verse, the language, the authorship and date of the two versions, the relationship to other texts of the period and later uses of it, and the nature and purpose of the work; a detailed commentary exploring the relationship to the Latin text and to the early medieval commentary tradition; textual notes; and a glossary.

M.R. Godden has been Rawlinson and Bosworth professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University since 1991, and has published widely on the writings of King Alfred and Alfric, and on Piers Plowman. He is editor of the journal Anglo-Saxon England and currently working on a further research project on Boethius, funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
Susan Irvine studied at the University of Otago, New Zealand, and the University of Oxford. She was Darby Fellow in English Literature at Lincoln College, Oxford, from 1987 to 1992. She has been teaching since 1992 in the Department of English at UCL, where she is now Professor of English. She has published widely on Old English poetry and prose, including editions of homilies, Beowulf, and the Peterborough Chronicle.