SOURCE: "Selected Materials: The Seminal Period," in The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, Cambridge at the University Press, 1964, pp. 45-91.

Lewis was an acknowledged authority in the fields of Medieval and Renaissance literature, as well as an esteemed writer of fantasy and science fiction. In the following excerpt from a posthumously published work, he elucidates the extent to which the Consolation of philosophy helped to shape the standard Medieval perception of human affairs.

[Boethius's] De Consolatione Philosophiae was for centuries one of the most influential books ever written in Latin. It was translated into Old High German, Italian, Spanish, and Greek; into French by Jean de Meung; into English by Alfred, Chaucer, Elizabeth I, and others. Until about two hundred years ago it would, I think, have been hard to find an educated man in any European country who did not love it. To...