2. Middle Ages.

2.1. Context

 The Age of Faith: From the eleventh to fifteenth centuries, this Age bore witness to
the production of remarkable new vernacular pieces of literature: The Romance of
the Rose, Parsival, Decameron, Commedia and The Canterbury Tales.
 However, from the point of critical thinking, it is the Early Middle Ages that are
important; it is the period of demise of the Greco-Roman culture, during which
Christian thinking came to terms with the "Classical" heritage (mainly in the
Romanised aread of the Mediterranean).
 Rejection of drama by the Church Fathers, and the problem of Pleasurable vs
Instructional; it also lead to the abandonment of concept such as Mimesis, which
were only recovered during the very last phase of the Middle Ages.
 Concepts of Style and figurative language: inheritance of the theoretical knowledge
of Classical Rhetoric, without the practice Greco-Roman forms of oratory. Result:
application of this theoretical thinking to the art of poetic composition in the form
of multiple handbooks around 1200. Hair-splitting categorization.
 Ornamental notion of style. E.g. John of Garland's classification of figures of
speech: repetitio, complexio, traductio, contentio, exclamatio, interrogatio,
ratiocinatio, sententia, contrario, membrum, articulus, compar, similiter, cadens,
similiter desinens, annonimatio(in 13 mutations), conduplicatio, subjectio, gradatio,
diffinitio, transitio, correctio, occupatio, disjunctio, conjuctio, adjunctio,
interpretatio, commutatio permisio, dubitatio, expeditio, dissolutio, precisio,
niminatio, prenominatio, denominatio, circuico, transgressio, superlatio, intellectio,
translatio, abusio, permutatio, conclusio.
 The criterion of Fictionality: Fabula ('unreal story') and Figmentum ('Something
made up').

2.2. Allegorical Exegesis (Allegoresis)

 ALLĒGORIA. Ἀλληγορία. Speaking in such a way as to be interpreted other than

literally; interpretation of speech or text other than literally. Agoreuein is to speak in
the assembly, or generally to give an important speech; allos is other, so combined
it means to say something importantly different. "Other-speaking".
 The Classical Precedent: Neo-Platonic Philosophers.
 Christian religion took a similar view of the world as signs. The world as God's
book and Christ's teaching through parables. The Bible was the text upon which
Christian strategies of allegorical interpretation first developed and mostly
flourished.
e.g. St. Paul's Letters, Galatians 4:21-31.
 .Theologians, such as Origen and St. Augustine, gradually established a system for
reading the Bible on three, and then four, different levels of meaning. Throughout
the Middle Ages, this method became an institution
 St Isidore of Seville and St Thomas Aquinas did not believe this method to be
applicable to secular texts, because of their lack of Devine inspiration to justify the
presence of higher levels of significance. Nonetheless, allegorical readings of
Virgil's The Aeneid were produced during these times (e.g. the Fourth Eclogue as a
Messianic prophecy).
Dante's Commedia: Dante Alighieri was the first poet to propose that the full four
levels of meaning were also applicable to vernacular texts.
Literal
Allegorical
Moral (Tropological)
Anagogical (Spiritual)
 Bocaccio's Genealogy of the Gentle Gods: another example of this method. A
compendium of interpretations of Greek mythology. "These myths contain more
than a single meaning. They may indeed be called poyseme."
 In general, the distinctive achievement of the Middle Ages was to set up an
enormously powerful interpretative strategy which was applicable to secular texts.