Medieval Allegorical Poetry and Prose

Abstract

The chapter examines the intertwined histories of interpretive allegory and narrative allegory, the latter of which reached a high point in medieval works such as Alan of Lille’s Complaint of Nature, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun’s Romance of the Rose, and William Langland’s Piers Plowman. In doing so, it distinguishes a Prudentian tradition of personifications used as tools for moral self-formation, a Boethian tradition of tutelary personifications who form intimate relationships with their readers, and an Aristotelian tradition of personifications abstracted from sense perceptions of empirical phenomena. These and other medieval allegorical modes are not inherently reductive or expansive and doctrinaire or emancipatory. Instead, they are literary devices that readers and writers deploy for a variety of artistic and practical ends—a view of allegory that was itself common during the Middle Ages. This chapter invites readers to look as closely as possible at the details of medieval allegories to understand how they work as tools for thought.