Andrew B. F. Carnabuci '02's new book

Andrew recently wrote, "The Metres of Boethius is King Alfred’s reworking of the 6th century Roman philosopher Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy into 9th century Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse. Consisting of 31 wisdom poems, The Metres of Boethius is a work that reflects Alfred’s ambitious programme of mass literacy and education. Alfred took Boethius’s Neoplatonic philosophy and “wrought it up” into the language of traditional Anglo-Saxon literary tropes, thereby rendering Classical wisdom accessible to Saxons who did not read Latin. The result is a remarkable work of cultural assimilation that inaugurated the rebirth of Classical learning in England and marks the auspicious beginnings of our now-mighty corpus of native English literature. This book presents Alfred’s Boethius in a modern English verse translation, annotated throughout, with a translator’s preface and full bibliography.