Excerpt from Stylistic Tests and the Chronology of the Works of Boethius

Hoever undertakes to treat of Boethius finds himself in illustrious company. Potentates, churchmen, scholastics, and philosophers have busied themselves with this last of the Romans. It would appear that but little remains to be said on such a well worn subject. Much less does it seem fitting in a beginner to essay that little. Yet, as the recent researches of Usener and Brandt and the acute suggestions of Rand have marked an epoch in Boot/doom, one may hope to gain still further insight into the character and mode of thought of the author of the Como/ado. With this purpose in view, by the help of the so-called stylistic method, I intend to examine the writings of Boethius, in case it may be possible more accurately to place works the dates of which are not yet certain. To be explicit, I hope to show that the De and the De Mzm'm should be placed neither first nor together; more definitely to place certain other works to throw light on the authenticity of the De Geomem'a and the De Fido and incidentally to test the value of the so-called stylistic method in determining the relative chronology of an author's writings. For a definition of the meaning of stylistic method, and an illus tration of its application, I may refer to the well-known work of Lutoslawski, entitled T llo origin and growflz of Plato's logic with an account of Plato's style and of flu chronology of his wn'tz'ngs, 1897. Lutoslawski applies five hundred tests, comprising more than fifty-eight thousand instances. The tests are of various sorts, such as the relative frequency of hiatus and of synonymous expressions in works of different periods. Lutoslawski prefaces his conclusions with certain principles which he contends must hold good in all such investigations. As these principles practically coincide with my own, evolved independently, for I purposely did not read the book till my investigation was finished i cite the most important of them.

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