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Book III, Part V
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Consolation of Philosophy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Classical Philosophy and Medieval Christianity
Wisdom, Fortune, and Happiness
The Problem of Evil
Human Free Will and God’s Foreknowledge
Summary
Analysis
Philosophy turns to fame, which she considers “shameful” and often achieved through deceit. People often become famous only because of the public’s faulty opinions, and philosophers know that true happiness depends on “[one’s] own conscience” rather than the perceptions of other people. Plus, being famous in one part of the world does not make one famous in other places, and having “nob[le]” birth and family says nothing about one’s own character.
Like her arguments against wealth, position, and power, Philosophy’s polemic against fame follows a logic that is probably relatively familiar to contemporary readers, since the problem is timeless: famous people, Philosophy says, are attention-hungry liars who spend their energy cultivating a persona at the expense of actually improving themselves. Such people are, of course, not only often famously unhappy, but also notoriously good at exploiting their unhappiness to make themselves even more famous.
Themes
Philosophy sings that God is the true creator of all the universe, and therefore it is pointless for people to care so much about their “kin and ancestry.”
By bringing up God and saying that “kin and ancestry” have nothing to do with a person’s true worth, Philosophy essentially makes the point—radical in Roman times—that all humans are inherently equal, because they have all been created by God and presumably have the same capacities for rational thought and happiness, regardless of their families and backgrounds. This does not mean that everyone is equally virtuous or happy, but that everyone has an equal capacity and right to reach virtue and happiness.
Themes
