Augustine, Boethius and the Fortune Verses of Thomas More

Author: Cousins A.D.  

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

E-ISSN: 2398-4961|39 (Number 149)|1|17-40

ISSN: 0047-8105

Source: Moreana, Vol.39 (Number 149), Iss.1, 2002-03, pp. : 17-40

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Abstract

William J. Bouwsma influentially argued, in 1975, that [t]he two ideological poles between which Renaissance humanism oscillated may be roughly labelled Stoicism and Augustinianism. He suggested that white individual humanists might, at different times, favour some version of one over some version of the other, their intellectual allegiances were nonetheless fundamentally divided between the two. An unacknowledged possibility in Bouwsmas essay is that humanist texts might interplay the twoknowingly or unselfconsciously. Stoical elements and Augustinianism can be seen to co-exist in Boethius The Consolation of Philosophy, a notable precedent, perhaps. Further, they can be seen to co-exist in Mores Fortune Verses, which are at once a sophisticated contribution to the literature of Fortune and an example (most likely a self-conscious one) of Stoicisms literary cohabitation with Augustinianism.