Abstract
In his translation of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae, Alfred imposes corporeal metaphors to describe the inner mind, constructing an embodied consciousness that contradicts the mind–body dualism of his source text. This article argues that Alfred’s Old English Boethius rehabilitates mind–body dualism to the harmony that is promised by Boethian philosophy. I combine theory of mind with philology to read the OE Boethius comparatively alongside its Latin source text. First, I identify Alfred’s metaphorical descriptions of the inner mind as an embodied consciousness, in accordance with modern cognitive theory. Then, analyzing Alfred’s use of the in lexeme, I argue that Old English in denotes motion into an enclosure. Alfred’s depiction of an embodied consciousness subverts dualism by locating the inner mind within a dialectical process that harmonizes the mind with the body. The purpose of this article is to consider one of the ways in which Alfred contributes to Boethian philosophy, and to incite further scholarship of the Old English encoding of spatial concepts and Anglo-Saxon folk psychology.
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Notes
Relihan (2007: 37) distinguishes between the prisoner and the author in the text, each under the unifying name of Boethius; such a distinction signifies the dialectical process of experience, remembrance, and meditation.
The meditative ascent, mapped by Robert McMahon (2006: 211–213), consists of a series of metaphors, and the doubling of Boethius as prisoner and reflecting author, conspire to encourage the audience to participate in the philosophical program by reading, meditating on, and rereading the text.
Whether or not Alfred actually translated Boethius’s Consolation, and the parameters of authorship, is a matter of debate. Malcolm Godden has argued that Alfred did not actually write anything himself, but that the texts issued under his name were merely authorized by him, in ‘Did King Alfred Write Anything?’. After reviewing Godden’s methodology and evidence, Janet Bately maintains that Alfred did not work alone, but that he is the unifying author behind the Old English translations of Pastoral Care, Consolation, Soliloquies, and Psalms, in ‘Did King Alfred Actually Translate Anything?: The Integrity of the Alfredian Canon Revisited’. More recently, Bately has returned to this line of argument, in ‘Alfred as Author and Translator’, in which she identifies Alfred’s authorship as an organic necessity for his program of educational revival, which Alfred considered to be a cornerstone of his people’s survival and the restoration of peace and stability. Moreover, the prefatory letters to the texts announce Alfred as the author, which is further corroborated by Asser’s Life of King Alfred. I am in agreement with Bately that Alfred is the author because he is identified as the unifying source across the corpus.
One possible means of achieving the harmony promised by the Latin text is for the contemplative audience to participate in the meditative ascent, by which harmony is facilitated beyond the material boundaries of the text. Alfred facilitates the participation of his contemporaries in the meditative ascent by rendering the text accessible to an Anglo-Saxon audience (Nash-Marshall 2000: 30).
For a comparative outline of the Latin Consolation and Old English Boethius, see Discenza (2014:210-223).
Šileikytė (2004: 94–102) and Drout (2013: 66), respectively, find that Alfred’s translations maintained the essential structures of thought of his source texts. Saltzman (2013: 148–151), however, argues that Alfred alters concepts found in his source texts so that they are not only easily comprehensible to his audience, but also so that these philosophical concepts configure to the Anglo-Saxon understanding of the mind.
The most complete manuscripts of the Old English Boethius survives in two forms: The earliest is the B Manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 180), a prose translation of the late eleventh or early twelfth century. The C Manuscript (London, BL Cotton Otho A.vi) attempts to replicate the intertwining poetry and prose of the Latin source text by translating some of Boethius’s meters into Old English alliterative verse. I limit most of my analysis to the B Manuscript because it is prior, and because Discenza observes that C exhibits little variation in lexicon, imagery, and concept from its predecessor. See Discenza (2014: 200).
Philosophia explains that the meditative ascent begins with basic self-awareness, which she achieves by restoring Boethius’s sight and returning him to himself, before she leads him upwards, along a cognitive hierarchy, towards the pinnacle of human faculties, reason (V.pr.IV.27–39).
Cultural metaphors that describe thought processes and emotional states are indicative of both embodied consciousness as well as human cognitive architecture. See George Lakoff and Turner (1989).
This literary convention has been termed pectorality by Jager (1990: 845–846). Iglesias-Rábade (2003: 57–60) has found that Old English in is a topological morpheme, reserved for spatiotemporal orientations. The literary convention of pectorality, identified by Jager, seems to have continued into Middle English literature as Iglesias-Rábade identifies 389 uses of in within the Helsinki Corpus of Middle English that locate something within a person’s body, mostly indicating the pectoral region, to describe the seat of the heart or soul.
More specifically, uses of the in preposition include spatial containment (in the room), temporal limitations (in an hour), emotional state (in distress), categorical distinction (in biology), manner (in a hurry), and circumstance (in a predicament). See “in, prep.1.” OED Online.
In is used more frequently to convey location, condition, or temporality only after 1175. Iglesias-Rábade claims that Old English use of the in preposition was limited to spatiotemporal senses, aligning his conclusions closely with those of Lundskær-Nielsen, and further explaining that in was not used for describing abstractions until after 1350. See Iglesias-Rábade (2003: 62, 75) and Lundskær-Nielsen (1993: 86).
See Pinker (2007: 183).
This is by no means comprehensive. These are merely examples of Alfred’s use of in that do not refer to the inner mind.
McMahon (2006: 225) details the inward and upward motion of enlightenment in Consolation as “the Platonist matter of turning away from things outside oneself (extra se) to those within oneself (intra se) and so rising to those above (supra se). The crucial turn inward and upward occurs in III, 9 of Consolation.”
Discenza (2014: 206) notes that Wisdom "offers a sense of camaraderie not found in the Latin text".
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Acknowledgments
I offer my thanks to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their reports, and to Ann D’Orazio for organizing the session “Interiority in Old English Prose and Poetry” at the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies, which provided a forum that was pivotal in the development of this article. My cognitive theory research has benefited tremendously from the direction of Elizabeth Bradburn. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to Nicole Guenther Discenza for her model scholarship, superlative criticism, and unflagging encouragement.
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Pavlinich, E.J. Into the Embodied inneweard mod of the Old English Boethius . Neophilologus 100, 649–662 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-016-9480-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-016-9480-x