The course of literature and philosophy is littered with works that cross one another at a common point, theme or idea. These common points come from a great collage of different thoughts and devices. Many works will share common a plot or even a common character. Works of greater depth will share a common philosophic principle or strive to solve the same problem or paradox. Some works will address the same topic in passing, possibly only as a sort of secondary theme. The works in question for this paper all share the same secondary theme in that they address the pain of the past. Each man has circumstances and prior decisions that evoke feelings of guilt and regret. Many people spend the entire course of their life attempting to avoid or atone for failures of the past. All of the works in the current selection of History of Ideas deal with the pain of man's past. These works include: Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, Essays by Michel de Montaigne, Hamlet by William Shakespeare, The Tempest by Shakespeare and Novum Organum by Francis Bacon. All of these works specifically address the past and the pain that it can bring by way of regret and doubt.
Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius deals heavily with the thought of how painful the past can be when one is wronged by those around them. Boethius finds himself imprisoned by the government for crimes against it. Boethius is distraught and cannot find anything that will bring him solace or comfort in his time he is spending in captivity. So the spirit of philosophy comes to comfort him in the time of his greatest need. She points to his past to show him his victories and his defeats. Though he fails ma ...