Correlation or Causation? An Intertextual Reading of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy and Kierkegaard's Either/Or

This paper argues that The Consolation of Philosophy by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius and Either/Or by Soren Kierkegaard bear certain striking similarities in their content, form, arguments, and in the way key ideas are expressed. It proposes that the explanation for this similarity could be causal dependency: The Consolation impacted Kierkegaard, consciously or unconsciously, in the development of Either/Or. Regardless of whether this is correct or not, it further proposes that the correlation between these two works is close enough that an intertextual reading is valuable for the comprehension of both The Consoluation and Either/Or. This paper seeks to prove this by executing such a reading.