Using methods from the study of the history of consciousness, this text analyzes symbols such as "philosophy," "participation," and the various images Boethius employs to describe his intellectual process and goal.

Using methods from the study of the history of consciousness, this study analyzes symbols such as "philosophy," "participation," and the various images Boethius employs to describe his intellectual process and goal. Its triple argument - from its internal symbols, from sympathetic readers, and from opponents - presents the view for the meaning of the "Consolation" as the attempt of a Christian thinker to avail himself of philosophical thinking as a divine gift in which his own mind participated. It offers to medieval scholarship patterns of analysis which illuminate the patterns of medieval consciousness, and the shift to early modern ways of seeing and thinking. The study crosses a number of fields (history, philosophy, theology, literature) and periods (late antique to early modern), and relies on interpretive methodology.