Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy and Apuleus’ The Golden Ass together illustrate a dynamic relationship. Within the frame of Menippean satire, the motion of story rearranges a reader’s perception, as it juxtaposes street smarts with the formal academy, superfluity with practicality and, most profoundly of all, philosophy with magic. The two schools operate under opposing principles, but yet they are constantly interacting between stories that have survived the test of history. With the aide of peripheral texts, these narratives reveal space for readers to compare vastly different agents of reality. By mixing a variety of different metaphysical concepts, the Menippean satire allows readers to throw themselves into the midst of an ebb and flow which may inevitably orient them in their exploration of World Literature.
For this investigation to come to fruition, it is necessary to first examine some dynamics at work in Plato's Phaedrus, as well as Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism. Frye's contention that, "The Menippean satire deals less with people as such than with mental attitudes... [and that it] presents people as mouthpieces of the ideas they represent" deconstructs the notion that stories have to be about people or things, which is how the Menippean satire "presents us with a vision of the world in terms of a single intellectual pattern" (Frye 309-310). In Frye's framework, the Menippean satire is not obliged to describe place and character, but rather portray the ideas that put them in motion under the larger order by which they abide. For example, Frye makes the point that, "Plato [...] is a strong influence on [colloquial narratives], which stretches in an unbroken tradition..." (310). These colloquial works, though preceding the Menippean satire, would ultimately influence the style in which the genre would be written, namely by putting the school of philosophy and the school of magic, two separate “intellectual patterns," into a single conversation.
Keeping metaphysical aspects of the story separate from its objectivities causes these "mouthpieces" to interact with one another directly, as distinct constructs in opposition. In Plato's Phaedrus, Socrates and Phaedrus walk outside the city limits to have a conversation on love and rhetoric, and Socrates' rationality leads him to conclude that love is negative and undesirable. His philosophy is too bold for his own good because it becomes blasphemous to the god of love, Eros. Socrates must then refute his philosophy by means of its opposite, which is to say the magical. In this case, the magical is summoned through poetry.
It is clear that here Socrates' philosophy has gone too far, and taken the offensive against the magical. It is also clear that he realizes the necessity to humble himself to magic in order to remain the balanced thinker that he is, and avoid slipping into becoming a philosophus gloriosus, cursed by Eros; this dual is one between prose and verse. Prose indicates the flow of rational thinking, whereas verse indicates the emotional, the spontaneous and the fantastic.
With this relationship now illustrated and applied, we can look into Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy. Here, a poet that is existentially shaky, nearing his death and lamenting the disappearance of his creativity, expresses himself through verse. He asks the nine Muses to console him by granting him a burst of creativity before he dies. He appeals to magic in order to articulate his emotionality, in hopes of "dictating words to [his] tears" (Boethius 3). This, contrary to Socrates' situation, is blasphemous to philosophy. Disgusted, philosophy takes the form of a woman, appears in Boethius' bedroom, and blasts the weak man for allowing himself to give in to the "poisons" of poetry.
In the midst of what seems to begin as a poetic project, Lady Philosophy makes her appearance and disrupts the artistic process of the author. Like Socrates, Boethius loses his balance of mind and is at the mercy of the opposing side: in this case, philosophy. Like a mother, Philosophy shows annoyance at how her son could stray so easily from rationality to become the victim of despair and self-centered emotion. "Weapons" are metonymous for practical ideas, as the narrator has obviously become lethargic in his thinking during the later stages of his life; he has submitted to his decay because he is lazy, but tries to legitimize his lifestyle by being creative with it. This does not fool Philosophy in the least, who sees the narrator's self-defense as mere "complaining" (17). In the same way that Socrates unintentionally puffs himself up to rival Eros the God, Boethius' thoughtlessness insults the rationality of Philosophy, the wielder of logic.
At work then in The Consolation of Philosophy is a reprimanding of magical perception by philosophical perception, and the re-working of poetry in such a way as to cast out its masochistic pitfalls. "Fortune" is that which philosophy and magic each fight for the right to portray, just as it was "Love" in Phaedrus. Magic is trying to portray Fortune as something that is painful, yet aesthetic. If embodied by a poem, at least Fortune might be captured to warn others of the reality of old age, or at least be a sedative for the suffering poet. In this light, the role of the magical is to opiate those experiencing old age. One is allowed to grieve for the life that he hasn't lost yet but is preparing to lose, an act that is purely psychotherapeutic. This is made clear when Boethius writes that, "While faithless Fortune was partial to me with ephemeral favors / A single, deplorable hour nearly plunged me in my grave" (2). Magic is the poet’s escape ability, that which allows his thought to assume the third-person perspective that grants his mind the ability to escape his suffering body.
Frye sees The Consolation of Philosophy as an analytical piece rather than as simply a provocative piece of fiction, because "...its verse interludes and its pervading tone of contemplative irony is a pure anatomy, a fact of considerable importance for the understanding of its vast influence" (Frye 312). What Boethius is analyzing is not a literal woman named "Philosophy" and a literal narrator named "Old Poet" who have a conversation about something malleable called "Fortune." Boethius is stimulating the a priori imagination with the tale these objects tell, in short, allowing a conception of logic and a conception of emotion to synthesize a conception of being.
That the narrator is ambidextrous with his thinking, able on the one hand to anesthetize himself with the magic of emotionality, and on the other, to place himself in the "true light" with philosophy, affirms the idea that the Menippean satire articulates a "single intellectual pattern" which is a hybrid of these two modalities. Boethius, a Christian during his life, may be guiding this intellectual pattern by making lady Philosophy's "axioms of books" and "the light" synonymous with the Christian God. God's existence, in this way, is something spawned from reason, a logical place of sanctuary for one whose life is about to expire.
If Fortune to Lady Philosophy is the path of reason that will eventually guide one out of life and into light, then Socrates walks a bit too far and is made the victim of it in The Golden Ass. Apuleius scandalizes Lady Philosophy’s conception of Fortune, as Socrates so desperately says, "Leave me be! Leave me be! I am the monument that Fortune has made -- let her enjoy the sight of it in triumph while she can" (Apuleius 7). His downfall in The Golden Ass signifies a significant blow to logic; his death, in both of these works, marks the end of pure philosophical thought (Boethius 7). Socrates' death signifies the beginning of the narrator’s descent into the mystical situations of the narrative, eschewing the greater narrative from rationality. If Socrates is to represent philosophy itself, then Apuleius is refuting Boethius' notion that philosophy dominates magic, and this is apparent in the way that he kills Socrates, who immodestly "wolfs" his food and "greedily" reaches for drink, making the narrative's plunge into the mystic a righteous maneuver (Apuleius 16-17). The story of Socrates' death leaves Fortune dangling and up-for-grabs to both philosophy and magic. As The Golden Ass unfolds, Fortune indeed falls into the hands of the latter.
This episode in the story is a prolepsis for the increasing abandonment of logic and rationality, and it is ironically woman that is the mouthpiece of this disintegration. She symbolizes the mysteriousness of birth and the hypnotic manipulation that magic is capable of, if we recall Meroe's sinister reputation for witchcraft, Venus' wrathful vanity, and Isis' inherent majesty. The story of philosophy's death is interpolated into the larger narrative, anchoring the interaction between the rational and the marvelous. Its proclamation is explicit: magic spawns itself out of philosophy's dead body.
What does magic prove by shutting philosophy out of this narrative? It is simply getting the best of it. It finds pleasure in punking it, challenging its accountability. It blasts the institutionally trained thinker by undermining his intellect and turning him into a fool. It renders him an ass, an insult yet also a beneficial transformation as it enhances his hearing with bigger ears, and camouflages his intelligence amidst others' open conversations. Because of this, the ass is all-knowing. Magic is casting a sylleptic spell, which is to say it is signifying conflicting motives at the same time, stunning the reason of the formally trained thinker by cursing him to a beastly form, however endowing him with certain faculties that increase his capacity for learning more. The whole thing is an existential joke, and the punch line is that there is always another way to look at the world.
So, what makes the interaction between philosophy and magic in the Menippean satire worth investigating is its resonance with other interactions between opposing forces in the social sciences. A sound example is that between the political and the cultural. While the former operates under the pretenses of philosophy and law, the latter deploys a more devious and anachronistic mysticism. The Consolation of Philosophy and The Golden Ass, as representations of each type of system, are useful for assessing such relationships as “philosophical versus magical,” and "political versus cultural." By singling out each method, assessing the problems that arise out of their interaction, and then presenting plausible solutions to their readers, The Golden Ass and The Consolation of Philosophy each model Frye's contention that the Menippean satire, while locked in opposing dualities, strives to present a reality that abides by a third intellectual pattern in motion. Capturing not an end-all answer to these problems but rather the light of their interaction with symbols and fictional situations is the key to understanding a culture’s influence and longevity, as modeled by this ancient genre.
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Works Cited
- Apuleius. The Golden Ass. Trans. Joel C. Relihan. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Co., 2007.
- Boethius. Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. Joel C. Relihan. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Co., 2001.
- Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton University Press, 1957.
- Plato. The Phaedrus, Lysis, and Protagoras of Plato. Trans. J. Wright. New York: MacMillan Company, 1900.
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