Rhetoric and Delegation in Petrarca and Boethius

The comparatist study at hand aims at seconding and supplementing the (apparently plausible) observation that diachronically diverse processes of delegation may well amount to a condicio sine qua non of human culture—the latter being a Blumenbergian thesis, taken up and tied in with for heuristic purposes herein. In so doing, the focus happens to be on works of world literature: central events in Scripture (Moses, Paul), as well as Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, parts of Vergil’s Aeneid, of Augustine’s Soliloquia and Confessiones, the first book of the Boethian Consolatio Philosophiae, as well as salient aspects pertaining to Dante’s Vita Nova and Convivio—all with respect to Petrarca’s Secretum, specifically its proem. Said focus is complemented by a detailed commentary on the three days of the dialog in question. The study concludes with a meditation on delegation and contingency.