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The Allegorical Interpretation of Medieval Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Paul E. Beichner C.S.C.
Paul E. Beichner C.S.C.*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Ind
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Extract

The concentration of allegory in the air in the Middle Ages was heavy. Readers and hearers were exposed to it from various sources, and many probably followed simple allegories on the literal and on the figurative levels as naturally as we understand editorial cartoons. An audience at a morality play followed the physical actions and the speeches of actors, knowing that the characters were personifications of virtues and vices, and other abstractions. No one expected such characters as Lechery, Pride, Gluttony, or Good Deeds, Goods, Kindred, and the like, to be rounded human beings. Homiletic allegories and spiritual and moral interpretations of scriptural texts were heard from the pulpit; no doubt, most of the congregation got the point. A deeper meaning than the literal sense on the surface was sought in poems which were true allegories, such as The Romance of the Rose, Piers Plowman, and The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, and it was taken for granted that it would be found. The author usually made sure that his primary intention, the allegorical thrust of the work, was rather evident. Modern readers may interpret minor details or symbols in different ways, but there is seldom room for disagreement on main points.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 82 , Issue 1 , March 1967 , pp. 33 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1967

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Footnotes

*

This paper, the one preceding, and the one following were presented in English Section I at the 80th annual meeting of the MLA, in Chicago, 28 Dec. 1965.

References

1 The editorial cartoonist usually makes comments on current affairs by means of visual allegories. The one-to-one relationship between the symbols used and the objects signified is made certain by labeling the symbols with the names of the objects signified. The symbols count for nothing in themselves, whereas the things signified and the point or the message, which is sometimes stated or emphasized in a caption, are the important things.

2 Aurora, Petri Rigae Biblia versificata: A Verse Commentary on the Bible, ed. Paul E. Beichner, C.S.C., 2 vols. (Notre Dame, Ind., 1965: Pubs. in Mediaeval Studies, xix), i, 7: “studensque de ipsa littera aliquas allegorias elicere tanquam nucleum de testa, granum de palea, mel de cera, ignem de fumo, medullam de hordeo, uinum de acino.”

3 Gesta Romanorum, ed. Hermann Oesterley (Berlin, 1872); photo-offset reprint, Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung (Hildesheim, 1963). Gesta Romanorum, translated by Charles Swan, with a preface by E. A. Baker (Broadway Translations, 1924). Swan's edition of 1824 was revised and corrected by Wynnard Hooper (Bonn's Antiquarian Library, 1877; paper-bound repr., Dover Books, 1959). The Early English Versions of the Gesta Romanorum, ed. S. J. H. Herrtage, EETS, E.S., xxxiii (1879).

Some collections of tales, however, were intended to supply exempla or illustrations for points which a preacher himself wished to make. Such a collection of stories without significations and moralities is An Alphabet of Tales: An English 15th Century Translation of the Alphabetum Narrationum Once Attributed to étienne de Besançon, ed. Mrs. M. M. Banks, EETS, cxxvi, cxxvii (1904, 1905). The alphabetical arrangement of the tales according to topics to be illustrated—from “I. Abbas non debet esse nimis rigidus.” to “DCCCI. Ypocrisis. Ypocrita a demone deuoratur.”—would have precluded the moralization of the tales from the intention of the compiler and probably from the intention of the busy preacher who consulted the work.

4 Paul A. Olson, “Poetic Justice in the Miller's Tale,” MLQ, xxiv (1963), 230. The article analyzes the characters from a moral point of view, but they are still Chaucer's characters; they do not signify abstractions or other things as a moralitas would require.

5 Aurora, Lib. Gen., Il. 1265–88 (De coitu Iude cum Thamar), Il. 1289–1314 (Allegoria).

6 Swan, Tale xxxiii, Application. Oesterley, cap. 33 (p. 331): “Carissimi, hec arbor est sancta crux, in qua perpendit Christus. Hec arbor debet poni in orto hominis, dum anima habet jugem memoriam de passione Christi. In ista arbore tres uxores hominis suspenduntur, scilicet superbia vite, concupiscencia carnis et concupiscencia oculorum. Homo enim datus mundo tres uxores ducit: una est filia carnis, que vocatur voluptas, alia filia mundi, que vocatur cupiditas, tercia filia diaboli, que vocatur superbia. Sed cum peccator gracia dei adheret penitencie, iste uxores voluntates suas non habentes se suspendunt. Cupiditas se suspendit fune elemosyne, superbia fune humilitatis, voluptas se suspendit fune jejunii et castitatis. Iste, qui quesivit surculos, est bonus Christianus, qui toto conamine hoc debet appetere et querere, non tantum pro se, sed pro aliis vicinis. Ille, qui flevit, est miser homo, qui magis diligit carnem et ea que carnis sunt, quam ea que sunt Spiritus sancti. Tamen sepius talis ad informacionem boni viri ad rectam viam poterit duci, et sic vitam eternam obtinebit.”

7 J. S. P. Tatlock, The Legendary History of Britain (Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif., 1950), p. 382: “As to Leir's daughters, whatever any earlier form of Cordeilla's name, the good Latinist author must have meant Cor-de-illa to fit her loyal love.”

8 Herrtage, p. 53 (from MS. Harl. 7333): “Moralite. Dere Frendis, this Emperour may be callid ech worldly man, the which hath thre doughters. The first doughter at seith, ‘I loue my fadir more an my self,‘ is e worlde, whom a man lovith so wele, at he expendith all his lif aboute hit; but what tyme he shalbe in nede of dethe, scarsly if e world woll for all his love yeve him five knyghtes, scil. v. bordis, for a cofre to ley his body ynne, in e sepulcre …” For the Latin, see Oesterley, p. 673: “Moraliter. Karissimi, iste imperator potest dici quilibet homo mundanus qui habet tres filias …”

9 Herrtage, p. 53 (from MS. Addit. 9066): “Here may men se what fayre flaterynge wordes done, that vntrewly fullfillen the be-heste that they make; and here also mony men may here, what comys to hem that sayen the truthe, as Cordell did; For it is written, they that glosen the, and praysen the, dysseyuen the, and they that tellen the e truthe and the sothe, they louen the, and are thy good Frendes, &c.”

10 Perhaps it should be noted here that the “bond story” and the “story of the three caskets” had been told and retold by others before Shakespeare used them in the Merchant of Venice. In the Gesta Romanorum they are supplied with a morality. For that of the “bond story” see Herrtage, pp. 164–165, and for that of “the three caskets” see pp. 304–306; see also the Notes, pp. 475 and 491, for other occurrences of these stories.

11 In Middle English Humorous Tales in Verse, ed. George H. McKnight (Boston, 1913), pp. 1–20. See also the Introduction, pp. xxi–xliii.

12 Swan, Tale xxviii, Application. In his translation Swan changed the conclusion of the tale by adding that the husband returned unexpectedly “and put the whole party to a shameful death.” He also supplied the last sentence of the application above. This interpolation, he thought, “afforded a better moral.” See also the rather detailed Latin moralization of the story in Oesterley (p. 327): “Carissimi, iste miles est Christus, uxor casta et decora anima per baptismum lota, cui dedit deus liberum arbitrium et sue voluntati tradidit, quando de hoc mundo ad patrem ascendit …”

13 Thomas Hoccleve's purpose in translating two stories, including their moralizations, from the Gesta Romanorum was to make them available in English: “The Tale of Jereslaus's

Wife and Her False Brother-in-Law“ (Hoccleve's Works. I. The Minor Poems, ed. Frederick J. Furnivall [EETS, E.S., lxi, 1892], pp. 140–178), and ”The Tale of Jonathas, His Magic Ring, Brooch, and Cloth, and His Deceitful Concubine Fellicula“ (pp. 215–242). See Herrtage, pp. 311–322 and 180–196, and also Oesterley, cap. 249, pp. 648–654 and cap. 120, pp. 466–470.

Having translated the story of Jereslaus's wife in verse, Hoccleve showed his work to his friend.

“Thomas, it is wel vn-to my lykyng;
But is ther aght pat thow purposist seye
More on this tale?” “Nay, my freend / no thyng.”
“Thomas / heere is a greet substance aweye: Where is the moralizynge …?” (Works, i, 174; Il. 8–12)

Since no moralizacio was in the copy of the Gesta which Hoccleve had been using, his friend went home and brought his copy.

And to this moralyzynge I me spedde,
In prose wrytynge it / hoomly and pleyn,
ffor he conseillid me / do so / certeyn. (Il. 24–26)

Hence, it would appear that Hoccleve realized the tale could stand without a moralization, but if it was publicized as a translation from the Gesla Romanorum, the moralization had better be translated too. However, he had the good judgment not to use verse. The moralization of the second tale is also in prose.

14 Commentum Bernardi Silvestris super sex libros Eneidos Virgilii, ed. Guilielmus Riedel (Gryphiswald, 1924). Bernardus says (p. 3) that the poet, inasmuch as he is a philosopher, writes of the nature of human life and his method is to describe under a covering (sub integumento) what the human spirit placed temporally in the human body does or suffers. This covering is a kind of description wrapping the understanding of truth beneath a fictional narrative. Bernardus proposes to remove the covering or wrapper. He is careful to distinguish this kind of interpretation from the learning of virtue or prudence from the good example or the bad example of the characters: “Verbi gratia: ex laboribus Eneae tolerantiae exemplum habemus, ex affectu eius in Anchisem et Aschanium pietatis, ex veneratione quam diis exhibebat … ex votis et precibus quas fundebat quodammodo ad religionem invitamur. Per immoderatum vero Didonis amorem ab illicitorum appetitu revocamur” (pp. 2–3).

15 See Aurora, Vol. i, pp. xxxii–xxxiii.

16 Aurora, Lev., Il. 639–642:

Pennatum gryphes animal pedibusque quaternis Innitens homines carpit, abhorret equos: Designatur in hoc facinus crudele potentum Qui mortes hominum cum feritate bibunt.

17 Aurora, Lev., Il. 655–658:

Vulturis est rixis gaudere, cadauera uelle,
Vt cibus occurrat, bellica castra sequi:
Sunt similes qui bella uolunt, qui castra sequuntur,
Qui spoliis inhiant esuriuntque lucrum.

18 The eagle and the griffin, Aurora, Lev., 635–642—V.C., VI, 985–992; the kite, 647–648—vi, 101–102; the vulture, 655–658—v, 537–540; the crow, 659–660, 663–666—iv, 305–310; the ostrich, 667–672—iv, 1059–64; the owl, 673–676—vi, 95–98; the hawk, 683–686—vi, 719–722; the screech-owl, 687–694—iii, 1693–1700; the cormorant, 695–698—iii, 1587–90; the bat, 735–740—vi, 89–94.

19 See Horlus deliciarum, Pl. Libis (Supplément), in Herrade de Landsberg, Hortus deliciarum, publié aux frais de la Société pour la Conservation des Monuments Historiques d'Alsace; texte explicatif par A. Straub et G. Keller (Strasbourg, 1901). Unfortunately the original, late twelfth-century manuscript was burnt on 24 or 25 August 1870 at Strasbourg in the conflagration ignited by the bombardment of the city. Tracings of approximately two-thirds of the miniatures, however pale by comparison with the brilliant originals, had been made on earlier occasions for various purposes and were dispersed. These were collected and the best were published.

20 Jacobus a Voragine, Legenda aurea, ed. Th. Graesse, 3rd ed., 1890: photo-offset reprint, Otto Zeller (Osnabrück, 1965), p. 22: “Nicolaus dicitur a nicos, quod est victoria, et laos, quod est populus, id est Nicolaus, quasi victoria populi i.e. viciorum quae et popularia et vilia sunt; vel victoria proprie, quia multos populos vita et doctrina docuit vitia et peccata vincere. Vel Nicolaus dicitur a nicos, quod est victoria, et laus, quasi victoriosa laus; vel a nitor et laos, quod est populus, quasi nitor populi …”