The purpose of this essay is to explore the concept of Fortune in the writings of Boethius and Dante, especially in terms of whether they conceive of fortune as immutable or as something that can to some extent be overcome or altered by human efforts. It will appear that there was little concept in DanteÆs time or before of Fortune as something that could be overcome by humans in any way except interior attitude, that is, by taking a stance of Christian Stoicism in the face of lifeÆs many vicissitudes.
There have been many studies of Fortune, fortuna, most of which investigate fortuna across broad ranges of time and space, assuming a definition that is based on passages selected from many texts of many epochs, all isolated from their contexts. Consequently such studies have not dealt with the evolution of the concept over time, or with how it functions as an element of a specific philosophy or worldview. The conclusions drawn from this homogeneous concept tend themselves to be rather homogeneous. Frakes specifies the research of H. R. Patch as an example of this sort of broad-spectrum thinking.
De Consolatione Philosophiae by the Christian philosopher Boethius, written about the year 600, enjoyed immense popularity in the Middle Ages and was studied more zealously than almost any other works except for the Bible, some on liturgy, and some of Augustine; it served many as a summa of ancient philosophy. Boethius early on was informally canonized as a saint, and his spiritual authority thus lent importance to his work. It is one of the most extensive analyses of fortuna and allied problems in theology and philosophy that Western thought has produced. It draws heavily on the Greek traditions, synthesizes the Roman traditions, both pagan 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 BoethiusÆ concept of F...