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Allegory in the Middle Ages

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Religious texts

   Noah and the "baptismal flood" of the Old Testament (top panel) is
   "typologically linked" (prefigured) by the baptism of Jesus in the New
   Testament (bottom panel).
   Enlarge
   Noah and the "baptismal flood" of the Old Testament (top panel) is
   "typologically linked" (prefigured) by the baptism of Jesus in the New
   Testament (bottom panel).

   Allegory in the Middle Ages was a vital element in the synthesis of
   Biblical and Classical traditions into what would become recognizable
   as Medieval culture. People of the Middle Ages consciously drew from
   the cultural legacies of the ancient world in shaping their
   institutions and ideas, and so allegory in Medieval literature and
   Medieval art was a prime mover for the synthesis and transformational
   continuity between the ancient world and the "new" Christian world.
   People of the Middle Ages did not see the same break between themselves
   and their classical forbears that modern observers see; rather, they
   saw continuity with themselves and the ancient world, using allegory as
   a synthesizing agent, bringing together a whole image.

Four types of allegory

   There were four categories of allegory used in the Middle Ages, which
   had originated with the Bible commentators of the early Christian era.
   The first is simply the literal interpretation of the events of the
   story for historical purposes with no underlying meaning. The second is
   called typological, which is connecting the events of the Old Testament
   with the New Testament; in particular drawing allegorical connections
   between the events of Christ's life with the stories of the Old
   Testament. The third is moral (or tropological), which is how one
   should act in the present, the "moral of the story". The fourth type of
   allegory is anagogical, dealing with the future events of Christian
   history, heaven, hell, the last judgment; it deals with prophecies.

   Thus the four types of allegory deal with past events (literal), the
   connection of past events with the present (typology), present events
   (moral), and the future (anagogical).

   Dante describes the four meanings, or senses, of allegory in his
   epistle to Can Grande della Scala. He says the allegories of his work
   are not simple, but:


   Allegory in the Middle Ages

       Rather, it may be called " polysemous", that is, of many senses
   [allegories]. A first sense derives from the letters themselves, and a
     second from the things signified by the letters. We call the first
     sense "literal" sense, the second the "allegorical", or "moral" or
   "anagogical". To clarify this method of treatment, consider this verse:
     When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous
   people: Judea was made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion (Psalm 113).
     Now if we examine the letters alone, the exodus of the children of
    Israel from Egypt in the time of Moses is signified; in the allegory,
     our redemption accomplished through Christ; in the moral sense, the
   conversion of the soul from the grief and misery of sin to the state of
      grace; in the anagogical sense, the exodus of the holy soul from
    slavery of this corruption to the freedom of eternal glory.. they can
                         all be called allegorical.


   Allegory in the Middle Ages

   Medieval allegory began as a Christian method for synthesizing the
   discrepancies between the Old Testament and the New Testament. While
   both testaments were studied and seen as equally divinely inspired by
   God, the Old Testament contained discontinuities for Christians -- for
   example the Jewish kosher laws. The Old Testament was therefore seen in
   relation to how it would predict the events of the New Testament, in
   particular how the events of the Old Testament related to the events of
   Christs life. The events of the Old Testament were seen as part of the
   story, with the events of Christ's life bringing these stories to a
   full conclusion. The technical name for seeing the New Testament in the
   Old is called typology.
   Christ rises from the tomb, alongside Jonah spit onto the beach, a
   typological allegory.
   Enlarge
   Christ rises from the tomb, alongside Jonah spit onto the beach, a
   typological allegory.

   One example of typology is the story of Jonah and the whale from the
   Old Testament. Medieval allegorical interpretation of this story is
   that it prefigures Christ's burial, with the stomach of the whale as
   Christ's tomb. Jonah was eventually freed from the whale after three
   days, so did Christ rise from his tomb after three days. Thus, whenever
   one finds an allusion to Jonah in Medieval art or literature, it is
   usually an allegory for the burial and resurrection of Christ. Another
   common typological allegory is with the four major Old testament
   prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. These four prophets
   prefigure the four Apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. There was no end
   to the number of analogies that commentators could find between stories
   of the Old Testament and the New.

   There also existed a tradition in the Middle Ages of mythography -- the
   allegorical interpretation of pagan myths. Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's
   Metamorphoses were standard textbooks throughout the Middle Ages, and
   each had a long tradition of allegorical interpretation. An
   illustrative example can be found in Sienna in a painting of a Christs
   crucifix (Sano di Pietro's Crucifix, 15th c). At the top of the cross
   can be seen a bird pecking its own breast, blood pouring forth from the
   wound and feeding its waiting chicks below. This is the pelican whose
   "story" was told by Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder. Thus by analogy
   to a " pagan" source, Christ feeds his own children with his own blood.

   Allegory was even seen in the natural world, as animals, plants, and
   even non-living things were interpreted in books called bestiaries as
   symbols of Biblical figures and morals. For example, in one bestiary
   stags are compared to people devoted to the Church, because (according
   to medieval zoology) they leave their pastures for other (heavenly)
   pastures, and when they come to broad rivers (sin) they form in line
   and each rests its head on the haunches of the next (supporting each
   other by example and good works), speeding across the waters together.

History of allegory

Late Antiquity

   Before the 5th century the traditions of allegorical interpretations
   were created in a time when rhetorical training was common, when the
   classics of mythology were still standard teaching texts, when the
   Greek and Roman pantheon of Gods were still visible forms (if not
   always fully recognized by the more learned populace), and when the new
   religions such as Christianity adopted or rejected pagan elements by
   way of allegoresis (the study and interpretation of allegory).

   It was in this period that the first pure, freestanding allegorical
   work was written in about 400 AD by Prudentius called Psychomachia
   ("Soul-War"). The plot consists of the personified "good" virtues of
   Hope, Sobriety, Chastity, Humility, etc. fighting the personified
   "evil" vices of Pride, Wrath, Paganism, Avarice, etc. The
   personifications are women, because in Latin words for abstract
   concepts are in the feminine gender; an uninformed reader of the work
   might take the story literally as a tale of many angry women fighting
   one another, because as the first "pure" allegory Prudentius provides
   no context or explanation of the allegory.

   In this same period of the early 5th century three other authors of
   importance to the history of allegory emerged: Claudian, Macrobius and
   Martianus Capella. Little is known of these authors, even if they were
   truly Christian or not, but we do know they handed down the inclination
   to express learned material in allegorical form, mainly through
   personification, which later became a standard part of medieval
   schooling methods.

   Claudian's first work In Rufinum was an attack against the ruthless
   Rufinus and would become a model for the 12th century Anticlaudianus, a
   well known allegory for how to be an upstanding man. As well his Rape
   of Prosperpine was a litany of mythological allegories,
   personifications, and cosmological allegories. Macrobius wrote
   Commentary of the Dream of Scipio providing the Middle Ages with the
   tradition of a favorite topic, the allegorical treatment of dreams.
   Lastly Martianus wrote Marriage of Philology and Mercury, the title
   referring to the allegorical union of intelligent learning with the
   love of letters. It contained short treatises on the "seven liberal
   arts" (grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy,
   music) and thus became a standard textbook, greatly influencing
   educators and students throughout the Middle Ages.

   Lastly, perhaps the most influential author of Late Antiquity was
   Boethius, in whose work Consolation of Philosophy we are first
   introduced to the personified Lady Philosophy, the source of
   innumerable later such personified figures (Lady Luck, etc..)

Early Middle Ages

   After Boethius there exists no known work of allegory literature until
   the 12th century, and although allegorical thinking and elements and
   artwork abound during this period, not until the rise of the Medieval
   university in the High Middle Ages does sustained allegorical
   literature appear again.

High and Late Middle Ages

   The earliest works were by Bernard Silvestris (Cosmographia, 1147), and
   Alanus ab Insulis (Plaint of Nature, 1170, and Anticlaudianus) who
   pioneered the use of allegory (mainly personification) for the use of
   abstract speculation on metaphysics and scientific questions.

   The High and Late Middle Ages saw many allegorical works and
   techniques. There were four "great" works from this period.
     * The Four Great Medieval Allegories
          + Le Roman de la Rose. A major allegorical work, it had many
            lasting influences on western literature, creating entire new
            genres and development of vernacular languages.
          + The Divine Comedy. Probably the greatest medieval work of
            literature, and the greatest work of allegory ever written.
          + Piers Plowman. An encyclopedic array of allegorical devices.
            Dream-vision; pilgrimage; personification; satire; typological
            story structure (the dreamer's progress mirrors the progress
            of biblical history from the Fall of Adam to Apocalypse).
          + Pearl. A plot based on an anagogical allegory; a dreamer is
            introduced to heavenly Jerusalem. Focus on the meaning of
            death. A religious response to Consolation of Philosophy.

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