Boethius - Poems from On the Consolation of Philosophy
Boethius
The Poems from On the Consolation of Philosophy
Translated from Latin by
PETER GLASSGOLD
Foreword by
CHARLES BERNSTEIN
$22.00
Bilingual Edition
232 pages
November 7, 2024
ISBN 978-1-954218-26-0
Distributed by Small Press Distribution (US) and Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
BIOS
ANICIUS MANILUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS (c.480-524) was a prominent figure in late ancient Rome, a high minister of state, consul, and philosopher. In 510, he was made master of offices, which controlled the civil service. But his outspoken character made him a pawn in rival political and religious court intrigues, and in 524, he was accused of treason and condemned to death. Imprisoned and in chains, he wrote his On the Consolation of Philosophy. Ever since his death, he has been regarded as a consummate martyr of conscience who, fallen from political grace, rose above his personal agony to an impersonal magnanimity that shamed his murderers by its example. On the Consolation of Philosophy is his most influential work, and the only ancient work translated into every stage of the English language.
PETER GLASSGOLD (1939- ), author, editor, and translator, former editor in chief of New Directions. Born and raised in New York City, and a graduate of Columbia (1960), he now lives in upstate New York. He was a member of the Executive Board of PEN America from 1983 to 1996 and for ten years chaired that organization’s Translation Committee. In addition to his Boethius, his many wide-ranging books include: Living Space: Poems of the Dutch Fiftiers (1979; rev. ed., with Douglas Messerli, 2005); Hwaet! A Little Old English Anthology of American Modernist Poetry (1985; trans., rev. ed., 2012); Stijn Streuvels, The Flaxfield (trans. with André Lefevere (1989); Hans Deichmann, Objects: A Chronicle of Subversion in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (trans. with Peter Constantine, 1997); the novel The Angel Max (1998); Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s “Mother Earth” (2001; rev. ed., 2012); James Laughlin, Byways: A Memoir (2005); and The Collected Poems of James Laughlin (2014).
CHARLES BERNSTEIN’s most recent books are Topsy-Turvy (2021) and Pitch of Poetry (2016), both from the University of Chicago Press. The Kinds of Poetry I Want: Essays & Comedies will be out in the Fall of 2024 from Chicago. He was awarded the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 2019.
Boethius
The Poems from On the Consolation of Philosophy
Translated from Latin by
PETER GLASSGOLD
Foreword by
CHARLES BERNSTEIN
Boethius’ Latin classic has been translated into every stage of the English language, from Old to Middle to Modern, and Peter Glassgold’s collaged renderings of the poems reflect its history as much as they make it new.
Since Boethius (480–524) wrote his On the Consolation of Philosophy imprisoned and in chains, he has been regarded as a consummate martyr of conscience who, fallen from political grace, rose above his personal agony to an impersonal magnanimity that shamed his murderers by its example. Chief among the text’s many translators are King Alfred the Great, Geoffrey Chaucer, and Elizabeth I. Glassgold’s startlingly original Boethius includes his collage translations along with the original Latin, an informative Preface, a Note on Texts, Method, and Pronunciation, as well as a thorough Glossary of Early English words. This new, expanded edition adds a Foreword by Charles Bernstein and an Afterword by Glassgold.
“Glassgold’s luminous layerings of Boethius launch us deep into the stratospheres of English. What a consolation to have these ancestral strains back in print.” —Richard Sieburth
“Writing in prison, Boethius—a philosopher of late antiquity who had served the king of the Ostrogoths—explores why bad things happen to good people. The universal resonance of the question provided On the Consolation of Philosophy with an unmatched translation pedigree: it was Englished by Alfred the Great, Chaucer, and Queen Elisabeth I, among others. Peter Glassgold’s gorgeous translingual renderings of the Latin poetry from the book refashion the originals and their English rephrasings into a composition of “lower limit speech, upper limit music,” letting the reader overhear, in snatches, how Boethius was received over the ages. Sometimes intimately near and clear, sometimes estranged and distanced by older linguistic forms, Glassgold’s experiment shows that abstract sound poetry of the avantgarde (zaum, Lautgedichte) can be reconceived historically, as philology. In poetry, it is incomprehension that is the mother of beauty.” —Eugene Ostashevsky
“The project Glassgold undertakes is linguistic and poetic, a tribute to the literary history of the Consolation in English that conflates and combines quotations from familiar texts, specimens of language, and evidence of the concept of change itself.” —Kenneth C. Hawley, Director, Brian S. Donaghey Center for Boethian Studies
BIOS
ANICIUS MANILUS SEVERINUS BOETHIUS (c.480-524) was a prominent figure in late ancient Rome, a high minister of state, consul, and philosopher. In 510, he was made master of offices, which controlled the civil service. But his outspoken character made him a pawn in rival political and religious court intrigues, and in 524, he was accused of treason and condemned to death. Imprisoned and in chains, he wrote his On the Consolation of Philosophy. Ever since his death, he has been regarded as a consummate martyr of conscience who, fallen from political grace, rose above his personal agony to an impersonal magnanimity that shamed his murderers by its example. On the Consolation of Philosophy is his most influential work, and the only ancient work translated into every stage of the English language.
PETER GLASSGOLD (1939- ), author, editor, and translator, former editor in chief of New Directions. Born and raised in New York City, and a graduate of Columbia (1960), he now lives in upstate New York. He was a member of the Executive Board of PEN America from 1983 to 1996 and for ten years chaired that organization’s Translation Committee. In addition to his Boethius, his many wide-ranging books include: Living Space: Poems of the Dutch Fiftiers (1979; rev. ed., with Douglas Messerli, 2005); Hwaet! A Little Old English Anthology of American Modernist Poetry (1985; trans., rev. ed., 2012); Stijn Streuvels, The Flaxfield (trans. with André Lefevere (1989); Hans Deichmann, Objects: A Chronicle of Subversion in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (trans. with Peter Constantine, 1997); the novel The Angel Max (1998); Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s “Mother Earth” (2001; rev. ed., 2012); James Laughlin, Byways: A Memoir (2005); and The Collected Poems of James Laughlin (2014).
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Bilingual Edition
232 pages
November 7, 2024
ISBN 978-1-954218-26-0
Distributed by Small Press Distribution (US) and Turnaround Publisher Services (UK & EU)
