Concept of Fortune in the Writings of Boethius and Dante

It is genius of the most colossal analyses of fortuna and allied problems in theology and philosophy that Western sight has produced. It draws heavily on the Greek traditions, synthesizes the roman letters traditions, both heathen and Christian, and thus provides later periods with the text from which all subsequent analyses of these problems had perforce to begin.

In tracing the origins of Boethius' concept of Fortune, Frakes looks back at the beginnings of the Roman Imperium. He comments, "Now that the state had been essentially reduced to single man, the good fortune of the state dep suppressed upon that of this single individual. As a result, there developed the cults of the personal Fortuna of the Emperor Augustus . . . and later of succeed emperors."

As a get ahead consequence, all the mingled goddesses Fortunae collapsed into a single Fortuna, and the Roman pantheon, long in decline, collapsed into the single goddess Fortuna Panthea. "She usurped the functions, symbols, and eve the names (as secondary epithets) of the other deities, and in the end eclipsed them altogether. This is the evidently omnipotent skirt Fortuna of the Boethian Prisoner's complaint in the Consolatio."

Frakes says that there appears to be little "character development" of Fortuna in the Roman literature, in which, at her very first appearance, she displays characteristics that are not contrary in any significant way from those associated with her in the Consolat

Dante has Virgil simply discourse on Fortuna. thither is no dialogue, no argument. This seems to underline the immutability of Lady Fortuna veritable(a) within God's scheme. However, this is merely a forward motion in Dante's deepening of the concept.

In this passage Youngberg argues that "Lady Philosophy" is denying the mankind of Fortune in the sense of pure randomness. Instead, Philosophia argues that, unexpected as any notwithstandingt may be, it always proceeds from the fatal interconnectedness of things, which, in turn, derives from the ordering Will of God called Providence.

Youngberg says further that Lady Fortune can be both compared and contrasted to various pagan medieval ideas of Fate as an unalterable strand of cause and effect that operates in an obscure way, independent of and impertinent to human desires. This concept, she says, was modified but not entirely alter by Christian learning.

Cioffari, Vincenzo. The Conception of Fortune and Fate in the Works of Dante. Cambridge, MA: Dante Society, 1940.

Frakes, Jerold C. The Fate of Fortune in the premature Middle Ages: The Boethian Tradition. Leiden, the Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1988.

The Roman Stoics believed that human natura and uirtus could everyplaceride whatever obstacles Fortuna capability put in people's paths, in the sense that her power is over only external matters, whereas the true Stoic is turned inward. However, even beyond an inner freedom from the vicissitudes of Fortuna, the Roman Stoics saw that one could to some extent escape Fortuna's control by developing and exercising one's own uirtus. This sort of Stoicism lies in the place setting of Boethius' concept of Fortune as well.

Frakes summarizes the situation at the end of the sixth century as being that the campaign against Lady Fortuna had succeeded on all fronts except those of poetic usage and perhaps folk beliefs. "As a goddess, Fortuna was dead, conquered by Stoicism and Christianity"; however, as a poetic device or metaphor,
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