8. Chaucer was strongly influenced by classical and early medieval writings and even translated one into the English of his day. Which older work did he translate?
- The City of God by St. Augustine
- The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
- De Officiis by Cicero
- Metamorphoses by Ovid
The answer is b. The Consolation of Philosophy.
Boethius was a Roman philosopher of the early sixth century; his Consolatio Philosophiae discusses free will, destiny, and God's omniscience, and was highly influential to medieval thought. Chaucer was profoundly influenced by the work, most obviously in his poem Troilus and Criseyde, which he wrote soon after his translation of Boethius.
