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This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

In making accessible through sound texts and scholarly translations some of the more important monuments of Greek criticism Professor Roberts has done a pioneer service for English-speaking students which might almost be compared with the more sensational labors of the explorers of Egyptian tombs. He has discovered for large numbers of readers books which would have continued as unknown as the lost plays of Menander. If a scholar of taste and ability will for the general good submit himself patiently and without evasion to the pitfalls laid for the translator by a technical and highly specialized vocabulary, he deserves infinite commendation for his courage, his candor, and, in the event of success, for his scholarship. Such reward Professor Roberts has earned before in his translations of Longinus, Dionysius, and Demetrius, and in fuller measure he earns it again for this last product of his zealous interest in Greek rhetoric. In the present volume he has given us a careful text based upon Usener's, and he has made what is apparently the first translation that has ever been produced in English. This is really the "feature" of the edition, and it deserves great praise. It is fluent, readable, and a quick and accurate guide to the interpretation of the Greek text. The annotation is more illustrative than exegetical. A valuable glossary of rhetorical terms has been added which will be of much service for the study of other documents in the same field. In the Introduction and also in the annotation Professor Roberts has been at pains, as he says, "to suggest some of the many points at which Dionysius' principles and precepts are applicable to the modern languages and literatures." This confession of purpose it is fair to keep in mind in passing judgment upon the work as a whole.... --Classical Philology, Volume 5

Throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, literature was read with the ear as much as with the eye: silent reading was the exception; audible reading, the norm. This highly original book shows that Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy--one of the most widely-read texts in Western history--aims to affect the listener through the designs of its rhythmic sound. Stephen Blackwood argues that the Consolation's metres are arranged in patterns that have a therapeutic and liturgical purpose: as a bodily mediation of the text's consolation, these rhythmic patterns enable the listener to discern the eternal in the motion of time. The Consolation of Boethius as Poetic Liturgy vividly explores how in this acoustic encounter with the text philosophy becomes a lived reality, and reading a kind of prayer.