Influence of Boethius on Troilus and Criseyde
Around 524, the Christian philosopher Boethius awaited his death. During the last stage of his life, he composed one of the most influential writings of the Medieval period: The Consolation of Philosophy. C.S. Lewis says of the work, "To acquire a taste for it is almost to become naturalized in the Middle Ages" (Lewis 75). Over 800 years later, Geoffrey Chaucer, one of the most highly praised authors in the English language, would draw upon Boethius to compose his finest work, Troilus and Criseyde.
The most important Boethian influence Chaucer extracts is the intensity of something being increased or decreased by the knowledge of its opposite. Boethius' main discussion of this concept is in books three and four deal where he deals with the problem of evil. The question at hand is, "How can evil exist in a world with an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God?" If God is all-powerful, is anything impossible for God? If God is all-good, can God commit evil? After much discussion, Boethius concludes that evil is a lack of good and those who commit evil lack something. He writes, "so it is plain that those who are capable of evil are capable of less" (Boethius 110). He continues, "Therefore the power of doing evil is no object of desire" (110). Thus "the power of doing evil" is a lack of "the power of doing good." Boethius can know what evil is only when he first realizes how to determine good.
Chaucer states problem in this way: "Everything is known for what it is by its opposite"(Chaucer 14). Chaucer's main examples of this phenomenom deal with the sweetness of joy and the bitterness of suffering. First, sweetness is made sweeter when one has tasted the bitterness of suffering. "And now sweetness seems sweeter, because bitterness was experienced" (79). When one experiences extreme bitterness, the slightest fading of that suffering brings ecstasy. On the other hand, bitterness is all the more bitter when one has tasted the sweetness of delight. Pandarus says, "For of all fortune's keen adversities the worst kind of misfortune is this: for a man to have been in good times and to remember them when they're past" (86-87). If one has tasted a high degree of sweetness, a lower degree sweetness is not as satisfying. This line of thought seems to be directly from Boethius.
Functional Areas of a Chosen Business The different functional areas within the business of Sainsbury’s are as follows: * Customer Service * Retail * Marketing * Trading * Finance * Human Resources * Administration * Payroll I shall not write about what each department actually does within Sainsbury’s: Customer Service This is basically the majority of Sainsbury’s workforce. This involves general duties to be carried out on the shop floor such as checkout assistants which are there for customers to pay for their goods, General Assistants are multi skilled between checkouts and stocking shelves for maximum availability of products for customers. Stock control is another type of customer service Sainsbury’s have.
“Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom though failures. We get very little wisdom from success you know”, said by William Sacoyan is a very important quote. This quote is a true statement since it means that a person learns from his or her mistakes. To be old and wise a person must first be young and foolish. They must fail so they can learn. This quote is valid since it has taught millions of people that as you grow you learn and even become stronger from mistakes. In both Giligamesh and Oedipus Rex a reader can bridge ideas together that go along with the theme of good people having bad things happen to them. Giligamesh is an epic poem, whose author is unknown. This epic poem
It is easy to place the blame on fate or God when one is encumbered by suffering. It is much harder to find meaning in that pain, and harvest it into motivation to move forward and grow from the grief. It is imperative for one to understand one’s suffering as a gateway to new wisdom and development; for without suffering, people cannot find true value in happiness nor can they find actual meaning to their lives. In both Antigone and The Holy Bible there are a plethora of instances that give light to the quintessential role suffering plays in defining life across cultures. The Holy Bible and Sophocles’ Antigone both mirror the dichotomous reality in which society is situated, underlining the necessity of both joy and suffering in the world.
Boardman, Phillip C. "Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400)." Enduring Legacies: Ancient and Medieval Cultures. 6th ed. Boston: Pearson Custom Pub., 2000. 430-54. Print.
Boethius places an increased emphasis on God’s eternal goodness to prove He can neither causes nor condone wickedness, intending to provide comfort for the virtuous affected by injustice. Boethius’s belief concerning the interaction of evil and justice in the Consolation of Philosophy intends to comfort the virtuous from the seemingly wicked world. Lady Philosophy, representing reason, soothes Boethius’s initial concerns by explaining how evil, the absence of good, can never defeat justice, and that the wicked will receive their punishment when Providence sees fit. Boethius also places an increased emphasis on God’s eternal goodness to clarify the role of Providence in the natural plan of the world. Boethius advises the reader that true happiness can only be found in the stability of the self and a virtuous lifestyle.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. The Norton Anthology: English Literature. Sixth Edition, vol. 1. Ed. Abrams, M.H. Norton & Company: New York, 1993.
A majority of Mark deals with Christ’s travels throughout the area around the Sea of Galilee and the various miracles he performed during that time. Most of these involved healing those with leprosy or other plagues, exorcising demons, or curing the blind/deaf/dumb. The stories of Christ feeding thousands with but a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish are also told, as is the story of Jesus walking on water. All of the miracles are described well, without getting too wordy. The style of writing also makes them believable.
Toswell, J, M.. "Chaucer's pardoner, Chaucer's world, Chaucer's style: Three approaches to medieval literature." College Literature 3(2001):155. eLibrary. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
1a. “I have suffered great and unparalleled misfortunes...the memory of these evils should die with me...I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been”(Shelley 24).
the extra meaning of being "an act of god". In the Bible, one can find
Sophocles, the ancient Greek playwright, was not keen on hindsight. He wrote in his play named ‘Oedipus Rex’, ‘I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect.”
Functional Areas of a Company Companies can achieve their corporative objectives only when the various functions of the company work together. There are four major functional areas in a company namely the MARKETING, FINANCE, HUMAN RESOURCES & PRODUCTION, but there are other businesses like Lewisham College that have other functional areas such as LEARNERS SERVICES & GENERAL STUDIES. All the functions set up their own objectives that want to achieve in accordance with the company’s objectives within a specific period of time. FINANCE DEPARTMENT The Finance Department basically oversees and manages the financial aspect of the college. The college needs the Finance Department to keep updated and essential records of all the incoming money that they make and expenditure the college incurred within an accounting season.
Chaucer is not some unknown literary author who is known only by a dozen people in the English field. Besides Shakespeare, Chaucer is probably one of the most well-known contributors to English literature, if not the most well-known. His name is instantly recognizable, and many a high school student learned of him through the oftentimes-painful reading of his most famous work, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer’s work is an extremely important text in terms of the evolution of the English language; The Canterbury Tales set itself apart from other literary works at the time by being one of the first pieces of literature to be written in English instead of French, and its extreme popularity spurred the creations of even more English literature, allowing the language to regain its prominence and evolve into the English we know today (“Chaucer”; Kemmer). Today, it’s the most prominent example of Middle English work, and is studied not just for its literary worth but as evidence of what the language was like at the time. The Canterbury Tales and Chaucer’s importance are extreme, and the author enjoyed his fame during his life as well as long after, largely due to his abilities to make sound decisions, take risks, learned to learn as a professional, and transfer knowledge, skills that people even today can utilize to be successful.
"Know thus far forth. By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune (Now my dear lady) hath mine enemies Brought to this shore; and by my prescience I find my zenith doth depend upon A most auspicious star, whose influence If I court not, but omit, my fortunes Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions. Thou art inclined to sleep. 'Tis a good dullness, And give it way. I know thou canst not choose" (Shakespeare 13).
On the surface level, The Book of Job can be seen as a parable for the idea that one must always keep faith in God, that you must always believe that he will do you right no matter what you go through, despite your trials and tribulations. On the deeper level, it can stand as a basis for cynicism towards blind faith because it speaks of a man who gave his all for a higher being only to have that higher being take everything away for no real reason. It also poses the question “Why do the kind and righteous suffer?”