One of Alain's most notable works was one he modeled after Boethius’ "Consolation of Philosophy", to which he gave the title "De Planctu Naturae", or "The Plaint of Nature", and which was most likely written in the late 1160s. In this work, Alan uses prose and verse to illustrate the way in which nature defines its own position as inferior to that of God. He also attempts to illustrate the way in which humanity, through sexual perversion and specifically homosexuality, has defiled itself from nature and God. In "Anticlaudianus", another of his notable works, Alan uses a poetical dialogue to illustrate the way in which nature comes to the realization of her failure in producing the perfect man. She has only the ability to create a soulless body, and thus she is "persuaded to undertake the journey to heaven to ask for a soul," and "the Seven Liberal Arts produce a chariot for her... the Five Senses are the horses". The "Anticlaudianus" was translated into French and German in the following century, and toward 1280 was re-worked into a musical anthology by Adam de la Bassée. One of Alan's most popular and widely distributed works is his manual on preaching, "Ars Praedicandi", or "The Art of Preaching". This work shows how Alan saw theological education as being a fundamental preliminary step in preaching and strove to give clergyman a manuscript to be "used as a practical manual" when it came to the formation of sermons and art of preaching.