Medieval and Renaissance Literary Criticism PDF

Medieval and Renaissance Literary Criticism For Sophomore Students Compiled and Edited by Dr Islam Aly El-Naggar Kafrelsheikh University Faculty of Arts (2024-2025)  Kafr...

Medieval and Renaissance Literary Criticism For Sophomore Students Compiled and Edited by Dr Islam Aly El-Naggar Kafrelsheikh University Faculty of Arts (2024-2025)  Kafrelsheikh University ‫جامعة كفرالشيخ‬ Faculty of Arts ‫كلية اآلداب‬ Department of English ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬ English Program ‫برنامج اللغة اإلنجليزية‬ :‫رؤية البرنامج‬ ‫أن يكون برنامجًا متمي ًزا ورائدًا في مجال اللغة اإلنجليزية وآدابها محل ًيا ودول ًيا‬ The Vision of the program A highly distinguished and leading program in the field of English language and literature on the local and international levels. :‫رسالة البرنامج‬ ‫يلتزم برنامج اللغة اإلنجليزية بكلية اآلداب جامعة كفرالشيخ بإعداد خريج طبقًا للمعايير القومية األكاديمية المرجعية في مجال‬ ‫اللغة اإلنجليزية وآدابها للمنافسة في سوق العمل وقاد ًرا على إجراء البحوث العلمية لخدمة المجتمع وتنمية البيئة في إطار من‬.‫القيم واألخالق‬ The mission of the program The program of English language and literature adheres to National Academic Reference Standards in the field of English language and literature which enable its graduates for competition in the labor market and publishing international researches for serving the society and developing the environment within the framework of elevated values.  Preface In England literary consciousness had its beginning in the Middle Ages, and this course describes and illustrates the first phases of the growth of a tradition of criticism. It does not confine itself to writers whose interest was in the vernacular, for there was a larger European movement of which English criticism was a part. It embodied much of the ancient teaching, but it shows recurring efforts to arrive at the nature and art of poetry; it provides a key to contemporary literature and is of great help in understanding what really happened at the 16 th Century Renaissance. For a long time, this subject has suffered from a refusal to believe in its very existence. George Saintsbury, in his History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe (1900–4), declared that ‘the Middle Ages were … certainly not Ages of Criticism’; ‘their very essence was opposed to criticism in any prevalence’. Writing some forty years later, in his English Literary Criticism: The Medieval Phase, J. W. H. Atkins challenged Saintsbury's claim, yet supposed that the period was ‘one of confused thinking in literary matters’. The 1957 short history of literary criticism by W. K. Wamsutta and Cleanth Brooks felt obliged to seek aesthetic, rather than distinctively literary, theory in the Middle Ages, and came away disappointed that ‘no new theory of beauty, of fine art in general, or of poetry’ is offered by St Thomas Aquinas or ‘other theologians of the high Middle Ages’. Giovanni Boccaccio's account of poetics in his Genealogy of the Gentile Gods is, however, given honourable mention. MEDIEVAL CRITICISM The period between the Classical Age and the Renaissance is vaguely named the Middle Age or the Medieval Age. In England, this period spans eight centuries and historians place it from the year of composition of Beowulf in 725 AD to 1474 AD when Caxton published the first book ever printed. The only standard work that dealt with Medieval Criticism is English Literary Criticism: The Medieval Phase by J.W.H Atkins published in 1952. One major development in this age is the adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Mediterranean region. Roman Catholicism prevailed in Western Europe. Classical elements were absorbed in the Medieval Age, sometimes modified and later became a part of it. Many pagan literatures were incorporated into the medieval ethos(character). The critical terms in vogue during the Classical Age were popular with the writers of the age and they even followed the prescriptions on the art of composition as laid down by the rhetoricians of the previous age. Medieval Criticism systematically classified literature under grammar, rhetoric and poetry. The Medieval Age developed a systematic poetic grammar. The term grammar meant the science of correct speaking and reading curriculum for poets which was for the formation of the basis of literary creation and development eloquent speech. This grammar curriculum provided for the humanizing influence in the Middle Ages. Another form of criticism was prosody; the study of versification and scansion. Prosody was meant to provide basic training for prospective poets in the basic poetic forms. 3 Horace had a clear influence on the Middle Ages. There was always a debate as to which logic or grammar should gain precedence over the other. Poetry was considered a prophecy or revelation and was equal to philosophy in the old world. A considerable amount of medical criticism dealt with biblical criticism and mysticism and allegorical reading of works. The poets were theologians, and their poetry was the overflow of moments of inspiration. Poetry existed with and in grammar, rhetoric, logic, and philosophy. Medieval criticism may be divided into five broad periods: - 1. Late classical (1 st century BC to 7th century AD). 2. Carolingian (8th century to 10th century). 3. High medieval (11th century to 18 th century). 4. Socialistic (13 th century to 14th century). 5. Humanist (14th century to 16th century). Medieval theory was based on divine plan in which the function of literature was supposed to help an individual to become a better Christian. Though the Middle Ages were a dark period, there are some works which tell us that these were the ones that prepared the ground for Renaissance thought, and later a continuous critical tradition. There was an educational system following the Roman model which encouraged cultivation of poetry. A critical climate developed slowly. There were a few works of notable significance in the 7 th century, Bede and Alcuin expounded grammar, logic, and biblical and Christian poetry in the 12 th century. John Salisbury and a few classical theorists infused life into literary studies. In the 13 th century, Geoffrey of Vinsauf and Josh Garland taught techniques in poetic composition using manuals, theorizing at its infancy. Roger Bacon and Richard of Bury kindled enthusiasm for poetry and literature. The Owl and the Nightingale (Cira 1210) written by an unknown poem, a debate poem is the earliest surviving English lyrics of medieval period expressing a native and pure English sensibility. The strength of the poem lies in its use of the vernacular. The employment of colloquial language as spoken by the common people, and the proverbs used in the dialogue carry the age-old wisdom of the English nation. This can be seen as a forerunner of the movement towards the use of the vernacular in English poetry. Dante Alighhieri (1256-1321) too defended the use of the native or vernacular medium rather than the courtly Latin for literary composition. He set an example composing Divina Commedia in Italian, thus establishing spoken dialect for use in serious epic poetry. According to him, secular poetry although had hierarchy of four levels of meanings corresponding to the four levels of scriptural exegesis — the literal, the allegorical, moral, and scriptural. He maintained that it was essential for a practicing critic to analyze and understand the literal sense first before he moved on to more appealing edifying senses of higher levels of symbolic or esoteric meaning. 4 Literary Criticism in the Renaissance The term renaissance is of Italian origin meaning 'rebirth' or 'reawakening'. It stands for the historical rebirth of the 14 th, 15th and 16th centuries. The movement initially started in Italy and later spread to France, Germany, England and other European countries. There are two views regarding the Renaissance movement – One view is that the European believed they have discovered the greatness and superiority of the ancient Greek and Roman culture after the dark Middle Age. The other view is that the Renaissance was not abrupt movement, but had its roots established even during the medieval times and the movement was one of gradual progression. There was a revival in the study of arts and literature, sparked by an interest in Greek and Roman literature of the Classical Age. The classics were reinterpreted by Italian men of letters. The widening of the horizon of knowledge was accelerated by printing technology. The focus of interest in study shifted from abstract notions such ad God and nature to man. The inherent divinity in the human being as well as dignity associated with him became the subject of study. Literary criticism during Renaissance was tasked with justifying imaginative literature. The basic belief was that literature was the by-product of theology or philosophy. Literature was not evaluated through criteria. The yard stick for judging poetry was neither literary nor critical. During Renaissance, a large body of literature of the past was recovered and the real task was to establish justifiable considerations by which these works could be justly estimated. One other task was to seek a just and proper answer to Plato's refutation and objections raised in his dialogues and the Republic. Many Renaissance scholars successfully answered these charges by blaming the artist and not the art. Those who abuse art and betray the sacred office of art should be banished from all commonwealth. Renaissance criticism took upon itself the prime duty of uniting and reconciling the best elements in Aristotle and Horace and establishing literary criticism as an independent field of study. Prominent Renaissance critics are Petrarch, Scaliger, Minturno, Boccacio and the Italian Roberto and Castelverto. The greatest and most important work of this age is Sidney's Apologie for poetry. Elizabethan criticism exhibits two traits. First, there is in existence a complete body of critical works of the Renaissance and secondly, it shares several characteristics with the works of other European countries associated with the Renaissance. English Renaissance is not an isolated phenomenon; it exhibits a clear line of progression falling into the following demarcation: There are mostly rhetorical studies of literature in the first stage of evolution. Thomas Wilson's Art of Rhetoric (1553) is probably the first work of criticism in 5 English language. Roger Ascham's Schoolmaster (1568) and Richard Tottel's Miscellany (1559) are two other important works. The English came to learn that form and style were important considerations in literary appreciation. It was during this period that English poetry was Italianized to a great extent. The second phase was a period when attention was paid to the metrics and metrical patterns in poetical composition. Art of English Poesie (1589) by Richard Puttenham and Discourse of English Poetry (1586) by Mary Webb are the earliest works on classification of metre, and the introduction of classical metres into the English language. The third stage is the stage of philosophical criticism. Among the most prominent works of apologetic criticism of this period are Sir Phillip Sidney's Apologie for poetry (1583). Thomas Campion's Art of English Poesy (1602) and Samuel Daniel's Defence of Rhyme (1605). The fourth stage belonged to the first half of the 17 th century. Ben Jonson was the important figure during this period. He was a classicist. There is an unmistakable influence of Italian criticism here. This stage opens up a new dimension in English literary criticism when the French came on the scene. A patriotic spirit inspired this period. Some of its characteristic features were a devotion to the national cause, commitment to classicism in a pure form and the faith that art should imitate nature. John Dryden, the poet laureate was the presiding genius of this period. With its emphasis on humanism based on the idea that people are rational beings and its faith in the dignity and worth of the individual, the Renaissance was a period of intellectual ferment that prepared the ground for later thinkers who arrived on the literary scene during the period of Enlightenment. 6  Part I Medieval Criticism 7  Medieval Criticism Introduction Literary criticism does not disappear during the Middle Ages. The classical tradition survives the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, and most of the great Latin authors will remain a part of the cultural tradition of Europe. The fate of the Greek authors is different: generally speaking, they will survive only through Latin versions and imitations of their works. Most of the Greek authors are unknown during the Middle Ages (this is the case of Homer) or will reach the West only through mangled versions and derivations (as happened with Aristotle's Poetics). Some key concepts of classical poetics are preserved: the Platonic and Aristotelian conception of art as imitation and the classification into three basic genres, as well as the concept of decorum (from Horace). The Middle Ages preserved the rhetorical tradition of classical times, adapting it to its own needs. There are artes poeticae, artes dictaminis (or treatises on letter-writing) and above all artes praedicandi which follow classical authorities such as Cicero, Horace or Quintilian. This would be the "prescriptive" side of medieval literary theory: manuals giving instructions for composition, focusing their attention on the prospective author. On the other hand, there is a rich tradition of textual commentary, sometimes of the classics, but above all of the Bible and of theological writings. This aspect of medieval criticism directs its attention not to the way works should be, but to the way they are; not to works which must be written, but to works which are already written and are of religious or moral significance. The medieval commentators face problems which are peculiar to their own age, different from those of the classical writers. For instance, they must accommodate the tradition of Pagan learning and the authority of the Scripture, so as to assimilate the culture of the past without any danger to belief. Since the ultimate basis for medieval knowledge is faith in the authority of a book, of the Scripture, they must also ascertain the degree of authority which must be given to each kind of text, and solve the critical problems posed by an interpretation of the Bible. Of course, most of the medieval critics are priests or monks; many are theologians, and in any case their concern is never far from religion and from the authority of the Church and the Bible. This hegemony of Christian authority over critical thought is what characterises the Middle Ages as a period in the history of literary theory and criticism. The Middle Ages are not a uniform period, though. From the point of view of literary criticism, we may divide it into three periods: 8 1) The Dark Ages, from the sixth to the eighth century. Very few documents from this period have reached us. We find nevertheless a few isolated scholars of great influence. We may conveniently end the Dark Ages with the so-called Carolingian renaissance of the late eighth century, fostered by the Englishman Alcuin of York (c. 735-804). 2) The High Middle Ages, up to the 12th century. Although written texts from this period are more abundant, it is still characterized by cultural isolation and stagnation, little variety in debate and little knowledge of the classics. The dominant tradition in philosophical thought is Platonic, and as far as knowledge is concerned, there is a lack of faith in human agency and a reliance on authority and revelation. 3) From the 12th century on, the situation changes somewhat. There is in Western Europe, and above all in France, an increase in cultural dynamism which has been called "the twelfth-century Renaissance." New, highly organized monastic orders are founded, increasing communication among the different regions and countries. Universities appear for the first time, and the system of study is based on reading and commenting texts. The importance of the disciplines connected to textual study will therefore increase. Little by little, the philosophical texts of Aristotle will become known in the West, and Aristotle will become "the Philosopher" for the later Middle Ages. The scholastic philosophy of the universities faces the problem of adapting Aristotelian thought to Christian dogma. This is only one more sign of an increasing movement towards humanism, towards a greater reliance on the ability and goodness of individual human intention and agency. The humanist influence is already clearly strong in the later critics of the Middle Ages, such as Dante or Boccaccio, who are no longer churchmen. Indeed, divisions in history are always artificial to a point, and the Middle Ages shade into the Renaissance just as the High medieval period merges imperceptibly into the Lower Middle Ages. Even in the first period there are important men of learning and small periods of renaissance, occasional or localized instances of cultural revival. We will mention here, to start with, on the one hand the figures of Augustine and Boethius, at the borderline between the late classical age and the Middle Ages; on the other, Bede and Isidore of Seville as great isolated figures in the so-called "Dark Ages" from the sixth to the eighth century. The Roman Manlius Severinus Boethius (c. 480-525) wrote De consolatione philosophiae (The Consolation of Philosophy), the most popular tract of the Middle Ages. This treatise was written in prison while he awaited execution, and it explains how the contemplation of God can reconcile us to our miseries down on earth. preserved through his Latin translations some works of Aristotle; these translations, together with his comments, preserve these theories in an age in which classical knowledge was rapidly disappearing. 9  Augustine is the greatest of the Fathers of the Church, and his influence on Christian thought has been enormous: it was all-pervasive in the early Middle Ages, and his works served, together with the Bible, as a reference background for commentators scattered all over Europe. His works also provide models on issues of critical theory, such as problems of interpretation and authority, rhetoric, the use of classical literature, etc. We shall return to Augustine's theories later on. Among influential medieval writers we can mention Isidore of Seville, the author of Etymologiae, an encyclopedic work which deals with just about everything on earth. It was the standard encyclopedia for the early Middle Ages, and we mention it here because it includes, among other things, a discussion of the nature of poetic fiction and a treatise of rhetoric. The etymological method followed by Isidore to explain the meaning of things was a standard practice in the Middle Ages, and a standard way of beginning any commentary would be to explain the real or supposed etymology of the title of the work or of the name of the author. The Venerable Bede (673-735) taught at the monastery school of Jarrow (Durham, England) for more than fifty years. He wrote many important Latin works, among them the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum, which is the first history of England, and De natura rerum, a compilation of all contemporary knowledge about natural science, natural history, astronomy, botany, etc. He also wrote many treatises on education, lesson books and commentaries of sacred texts. One basic problem of early Christian thought was the integration of the Biblical and Christian tradition with the classical heritage. A way of assimilating both traditions was to draw comparisons between classical and Hebrew authors. This might be the primitive form of comparative literature studies, although Plutarch or Macrobius had already compared Greek and Latin authors: Terence and Menander, Virgil and Homer, etc. Saint Jerome, the translator of the Bible, was fond of such comparisons. "David" he remarked "is our Simonides, our Pindar, our Horace." Bede also compares the book of Job to a tragedy, the Pentateuch to a heroic poem, and the Ecclesiastes to an elegy. In his rhetorical work De schematibus et tropis. Bede takes the same approach, showing the richness of the Bible both in its variety of literary genres and its elaborate use of language. Traditionally, the figures of rhetoric were exemplified with instances taken from the classical authors: Bede takes examples from the Bible. Bede's choice of genres does not coincide everywhere with Jerome's: some of the psalms are elegies, Job is a heroic poem which uses the "mixed" mode of treatment (narrative + dialogue), the Song of Songs is a biblical drama and Ecclesiastes is a didactic poem. Matching Hebrew against Classical history, the Christian thinkers drew the conclusion that Hebrew history was older; therefore, Hebrew civilization, including literature and poetry, anticipated the classics. This view was held by Jerome, who thinks the Bible used classical verse forms before the Greeks. According to Isidore of Seville, "it is apparent that the study of poetry was much older among the Hebrews than among the Gentiles." "Bede's De Arte Metrica incorporates 10 these ideas into formal criticism. In addition to repeating the commonplaces concerning the use of classical prosody in scripture, he notes that Hebrew poets anticipated the three classical manners of imitation. The pure mimetic, or dramatic, manner is used in the Song of Songs; the pure narrative in Ecclesiastes, and the "mixed" --the manner used by Homer and Vergil-- in the Book of Job. The De Arte Metrica also illustrates the new canon of the classics by adding Prudentius, Arator, Sedulius, and Ambrose to the list of classical poets." The privilege given to the Bible over all other literature will remain a basic critical conception during the whole of the Middle Ages. "As the Book of Books, the Bible was supposed to have made superlative use of all the figures, colours, tropes, and stylistic registers with which the classical authors had adorned their works." Evaluating pagan literature was more problematic for medieval thinkers. The issue of the relationship between pagan and Christian culture was a central one, since Christian thought had to face the challenge of assimilating without danger the important body of pagan knowledge it inherited. The literary canon received from the classics had to be handled with care. The classical authors were usually given a moralizing interpretation, but sometimes this was difficult to do, and then the commentators had to accomodate their categories, and in so doing these became more complex. Ovid, for instance, was a difficult author because of his immorality. For instance, a medieval commentator of Ovid's Heroides tries to interpret it as a work of "ethics": (1) He uses the example of Penelope to discuss lawful love, the example of Canace to discuss unlawful love, and the example of Phyllis to discuss foolish love. He includes two of the forms, foolish and unlawful love, not for their own sake, but in order to commend the third. Thus, in commending lawful love he criticizes foolish and unlawful love. Here Ovid cannot be read literally: some of the letters must have an ironical sense. According to another commentary, (2) Another interpretation is that the intention is to praise some of those who write the letters for their chastity, and to blame some for their unchaste love. Another work by Ovid, the Amores, definitely cannot be given a moral reading. Therefore, a commentator must acknowledge that (3) the end he has in view (finalis causa), that is, the usefulness of the book, is that we should recognize in it verbal embellishments (ornatus verborum) and an attractive word- order (pulchras positiones). We see that occasional commentators accept poetic pleasure as a sufficient justification. But this purely aesthetic aim of this work is suspect form a purely Christian viewpoint, 11 once we take into account the subject of the work, carnal and worldly love, and another commentator asks (4) Why should the young recruit in Christ's army subject his impressionable mind to the writing of Ovid, in which even though gold can be found among the dung, yet the foulness that clings to the gold defiles the seeker, even though it is the gold he is after? Therefore, pagan writers who are thought to be more "moral" (like Cicero) or more truthful (Lucan over Homer) are privileged in the Medieval canon. Generally speaking, all pagan literature is suspect; it can lead the human soul astray, as we find in Augustine's Confessions, where he tells us of the vain emotions of his soul when he watched tragedies or read the epic poems of Homer and Virgil. Augustine and other Fathers of the Church set the pace for the medieval attitude towards pagan literature. The assimilation of the classics, when it occurred, was done through selection and distortion. Or, as it was put by Rabanus Maurus (early 9th century) in his Clerical Institute, (5) If we wish to read the poems and books of the gentiles because of their flowers of eloquence, we must take as our type the captive woman in Deuteronomy... If an Israelite should want her as wife, he should shave her head, cut off her nails, and pluck her eyebrows. When she has been made clean, he can then embrace her as a husband. By the same token, we customarily do this when a book of secular learning comes into our hands. If we find anything useful in it we absorb it into our teaching. If there is anything superfluous concerning idols, love, or purely secular affairs, we reject it. We shave the head of some books, we cut the nails of others with razor-sharp scissors. The establishment of a canon of classical authors is based therefore on their usefulness from the point of view of Christian education. According to Augustine, Cassiodorus and Rabanus Maurus, the chief justification for the study of the classics and other secular letters was as a preparation for the study of the Bible. In the words of Conrad of Hirsau, (6) the nourishing milk you draw from the poets may provide you with an opportunity for taking solid food in the form of more serious reading. 12 Medieval Aesthetics and Hermeneutics 1. Reading the Bible: Literature and theology 2. Augustine 3. Dionysian symbolism 4. Secular allegory 2.3.5. Aquinas 2.3.6. Dante 2.3.7. Boccaccio Reading the Bible: Literature and Theology The really problematic issue for medieval criticism is the relationship between poetry and the queen of all disciplines, theology. The study and commentary of the Bible is the real concern of the medieval critics, and their most interesting critical conceptions have to do with Biblical interpretation and appreciation, in the light of Christian dogma. The basic problem of medieval criticism is that whereas theological treatises have a logical and philosophical arrangement, the Bible is not an abstract discussion of religious issues: it is a literary work, which includes history, narrative, parable and allegory. There is, accordingly, an uneasy relation between the Bible, secular poetry, and theology: whereas theology is argumentative, the Bible is, like secular poems, "affective." The medieval critics will have to discuss the different literary strategies (genres, figures, techniques) used by the Bible to address different kinds of public, and recognise the way in which these literary strategies are legitimate instruments of religious instruction. According to Saint Bonaventure, (28) because the recipients of this teaching do not belong to any one class (genus) of people, but come from all classes -for all who are to be saved must know something of this teaching- Scripture has a manifold meaning so that it may win over every mind, reach the level of every mind, rise above every mind, and illuminate and fire with its many rays of light every mind which diligently searches for it. Throughout the Middle Ages, the idea that the Sacred Scriptures have a symbolic value hidden beneath its apparent meaning is dominant. Indeed, this idea is usually applied to sacred books of any kind: Homeric poems among the Greeks, canonic literature in our 13 own days, and, of course, the Bible in the Middle Ages. A book which was divinely inspired gave its commentators special grounds for this claim, as noted by Jorge Luis Borges: (29) They thought that a work dictated by the Holy Spirit was an absolute text: in other words, a text in which the collaboration of chance was calculable as zero. This portentuous premise of a book impenetrable to contingency, of a book which is a mechanism of infinite purposes, moved them to permute the scriptural words, add up the numerical value of the letters, consider their form, observe the small letters and capitals, seek acrostics and anagrams and perform other exegetical rigours which it is not difficult to ridicule. Their excuse is that nothing can be contingent in the work of an infinite mind. The idea of mystical interpretation derives from the Greek tradition of allegorizing Homer and Hesiod as well as from the rabbinic allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament. A synthesis of both traditions had been made by the Jewish Neoplatonist Philo of Alexandria (early 1st century), and introduced in the Christian tradition by Origen (early 3rd century), who speaks of three levels of sense in the Bible: literal, moral and mystical. A contemporary of Augustine, St. John Cassian (c. 360-435), speaks of four levels of interpretation. For instance, Jerusalem in the Old Testament is, literally or historically, the city of the Jews. Allegorically, it is the Christian Church. Topologically or morally, it is the individual soul, and anagogically (or mystically) it is the City of God. These three last levels we may call "allegorical" or "spiritual." In some medieval doctrines (John Scotus, St. Bonaventura) the whole of Nature is an allegory which can be interpreted as the work of God. In the twelfth century, Alan of Lille's hymn to the allegorical links between Nature and God suggests that signification pervades the universe, that the world and the book are different manifestations of the same: (30) Omnis mundi creatura Quasi liber et pictura Nobis est, et speculum, Nostrae vitae, nostrae mortis, Nostri status, nostrae sortis, Fidele signaculum. Nostrum statum pingit rosa, Nostri status decens glosa Nostrae vitae lectio. 14 This theory of universal symbolism is a theological and not an aesthetic doctrine, but it will have numerous implications on aesthetics and literary theory. Augustine (354-430) 1. Aesthetics 2. Hermeneutics 1. Aesthetics Augustine was the greatest theorist of early Christendom. He had some knowledge of classical philosophy; he had read Plotinus, and he grafted many neo-Platonic concepts to Christian doctrine, thereby giving it a philosophical basis. As it is to be expected, his aesthetic ideas also have strong Plotinian overtones. The perception of beauty presupposes for Augustine an idea or norm according to which this beauty is judged to be such. But this norm is not learnt from experience and sensory knowledge. The concepts of order and perfection are known to man by direct divine inspiration. Beauty, then, is not relative, but absolute. The perception of beauty is passive: it is a delighted contemplation (beate contemplari ); the object of this contemplation are things which are harmonious to the nature of man, especially to his mind. Augustine stresses the concept of unity as basic in both nature and art. Unity is the main source of beauty. Aesthetic concepts, such as proportion, number or measure, all important for the existence of beauty, are derived from comparison between different unities. We also find in Augustine the idea of the whole, a second-level unity made of other unities, which are integrated with an end in view. This unity arises not from the diversity of parts, but rather in spite of the diversity of parts. Augustine seems to regard the whole of a literary work as a kind of system with a complex unity. The unity of the work must allow for the existence of elements which seem to go against it; it must allow variety. This does not destroy unity, because things which are opposed often work together: so, the villain in drama makes the virtue in the hero stand out; barbarism and solecism season poetry. We can compare this Christian acceptance of defects with the doctrine of felix culpa: sin and imperfection are necessary so that God's plan of salvation may be fulfilled. 15 2. Hermeneutics Augustine also dealt with the problem of figurative language and interpretation of the Scriptures. Augustine recognizes the poetic language of the Bible, and speaks of the "pleasant use of symbols" which is to be found there. He ventures forth the theory that the interpretation of symbols is pleasant because finding hidden things is a pleasure for man. A symbol is a part of the work which has a multiplicity of meanings. But the Scriptures as a whole have a multiplicity of meanings, according to the interpretation we make. The possible interpretations of the Old Testament, Augustine says, are four: it can be interpreted according to history, etiology, analogy and allegory. We see that they do not coincide with those distinguished by Cassian. There are several accounts among the Church Fathers and later theologians; some distinguish three, some four, some five levels of meaning. But in the scholastic period Cassian's distinction will be the most popular, and will be adopted by Aquinas. Augustine's version is not contradictory with these. The first three levels (history, etiology, analogy) are part of the literal meaning: allegory is a common term for all the hidden or mystical meanings. The crucial issue is the difference between the literal level and the mystical level. This distinction will be most important to the history of literary criticism, since it opens the possibility of discovering multiple meanings in a literary work and makes interpretation more problematic. Augustine's ideas on interpretation were enormously influential. He sought to find mystical meanings in Scripture through the use of allegory, but he also referred all interpretations to historical plausibility and to the doctrine established by the authorities. In this way, allegorical interpretation could be used to control the meaning of those passages of the Bible which seem contrary to Christian doctrine: (31) When, therefore, we read the divine books, in such a great multitude of true concepts elicited from a few words and fortified by the sound rule of the Catholic faith, let us prefer above all what it seems certain the man we are reading thought. But if this is not evident, let us certainly prefer what the circumstances of the writing do not disallow and what is consonant with sound faith. But if even the circumstances of the writing cannot be explored and examined, let us at least prefer only what sound faith prescribes. For it is one thing not to see what the writer himself thought, another to stray from the rule of piety. If both these things are avoided, the harvest of the reader is a perfect one. But if both cannot be avoided, then, even though the will of the writer may be doubtful, it is not useless to have elicited a deeper meaning consonant with sound faith. There is an important critical principle here: the objectivity of historical meaning and the use of intention as a controlling principle. But it is subordinated to a peculiarly Christian reliance on authority and morality, so that historical criteria are subservient to doctrinal ones. In fact, there is only one controlling principle in Augustine's conception: truth as defined by revelation and authority. Augustine does not believe that a text has one single, fixed, historical meaning: rather, he thinks that a text may contain as many 16 truthful and beneficial meanings as are found by its interpreters. Addressing God, Augustine prays, (32) If I had been Moses... writing the book of Genesis, I should have wished to be granted such a skill in writing, and such a style of putting together my discourse, that [those who are able to understand] would find that whatever truths they had arrived at in the course of their own thinking were not omitted in the few words of thy servant. And if someone else saw another meaning in the light of truth, that meaning too would not be absent in these same words of mine. Augustine also made some influential comments on secular literature. In his Confessions, Augustine belittles the value of literary works (such as the Aeneid ) when compared to the word of God, and dismisses them as idle fictions. However, Augustine does not condemn fiction as lies; he recognises that a work of fiction is not a lie because it does not purport to be true. If we call a work of fiction a lie, then we must admit that it is a special kind of lie or falsehood, because it also contains a particular kind of truth. Commenting on the use of fables and fiction, Augustine observes: (33) In feigning of this kind, men have attributed even human deeds or sayings to irrational animals and things without sense, in order that, by narratives of this sort which are fictitious but have true significations, they could communicate in a more agreeable manner what they wished to say. Nor is it in authors of secular literature alone, as in Horace, that mouse speaks to mouse and weasel to fox, so that by a fictitious narrative a true signification may be assigned concerning that which is being treated of; whence, the similar fables of Aesop having the same end in view, there is no man so untaught as to think they ought to be called lies, but in sacred literature also, as in the book of Judges, the trees seek a king for themselves, and speak to the olive, to the fig, to the vine, and to the bramble. Which, certainly, is all feigned in order that one may reach what is intended by a narrative which is indeed fictitious but not mendacious since it has a truthful signification. Though the difference between fiction and lying was not clear to many medieval critics, this statement is close to Sidney's definition of fiction in the sixteenth century, and is all the more important because Augustine recognizes that the Bible uses the same literary resources as secular literature. In order to defend the truthfulness of the sacred text, he has to admit its literary nature. Dionysian symbolism Symbolism and allegory are an important element in medieval criticism. The admission of this kind of analysis in the study of the Bible was to some degree inherited from the Hebrew and neo-Platonic traditions, but an important development from the twelfth-century Renaissance was the acceptance of pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (c. 500) as a major authority. Pseudo-Dionysius wrote a book on The Celestial Hierarchies in 17 which he interpreted the figurative language of the Bible as a legitimate way of giving a sensible form to mysteries which are above our understanding. This work became one of the major sources for medieval ideas of imagery and symbolism. Pseudo-Dionysius believed in negative theology: the idea that we cannot really represent God in language or in sensible forms. This doctrine entails that the more obviously false representations (those which use fiction, metaphors, symbols taken from ordinary things) are the most useful precisely because there is no danger of their being taken for the truth --no danger of idolatry. "The arts of language are indispensable because human language is the only medium by which men can convey to one another something, however inadequately, of what is essentially inexpressible. Moreover, figures, fictions and other poetic devices... are particularly valuable by reason of their very non-referentiality in empirical terms. Indeed, the more fictional and inappropriate they are the better, for then no one can fall into error like that of those anthropomorphic worshippers who... 'believed that God was distinguished with all the features of a human body, and was surrounded by angels as by a kind of army.' The truest poetry is the more obviously feigning." Scriptural symbolism is therefore not only acceptable, but "a mark of God's infinite condescension and goodness to His creatures", enveloping divine truth, in itself ineffable and spiritual, in comprehensible figures and material forms which point to it in an analogical way, or better, in a contradictory way. This conception finds support in St. Paul's statement that in the future life we shall perceive God directly and not through signs and symbols: (34) For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass [Or: figuratively], darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part: but then I shall know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13.10-13) That is, the indirection of the sign is necessary to meaning just as in Christian theology the body is the necessary vehicle of the soul in earthly life (Dante will make this connection between sign and body explicit). According to the English commentator Robert Grosseteste (Bishop of Lincoln 1235-53), the negative imagery can be rejected in the final stages of mystical contemplation, but is necessary as a stair to reach that level of spirituality: (35) Without material forms and figures, and without phantasms, we shall [eventually] contemplate the divine and intellectual beings, yet we shall not be able to attain to this contemplation unless we first use both the uplifting forms and material figures. Therefore, imagination and poetic forms are respectable even when dealing with sacred subjects. They may be of two kinds: positive, similar images, or negative, dissimilar images. A "similar" image occurs in the Bible when Saint John says that "God is light" (I John 1:5). A dissimilar image occurs when God warns us "I will come on thee as a thief" (Rev. 3.3). Many theologians, most of them, in fact, prefer the use of analogical and similar 18 imagery. However, the followers of Dionysius, like Grosseteste or Thomas Gallus, show a preference for dissimilar or negative imagery: the more dissimilar the images are from our idea of God, so much the better for them. (36) Since all attributes of God may truly and properly be denied and removed, and nothing can properly be affirmed about Him, it is much more appropriate that the hidden secrets of divinity should be revealed through more lowly and dissimilar [i.e. from God] forms that are accessible to the senses than through more precious ones. So, when Holy Scripture designates things heavenly and divine by more lowly forms, it honours rather than dishonours them and shows thereby that they surpass all material things in a way that is on a higher plane than this world. A work of Dyonisian inspiration like The Cloud of Unknowing can therefore, without contradiction, attack imagination as a chain which ties us to the world while using a rich imaginative language. But in the last analysis the two positions are not so different. Even dissimilar imagery is revealing to the one who knows how to read through it. The problem is the same in all allegorical interpretation: namely, not to be satisfied with the superficial meaning, but to seek further. Therefore, Grosseteste argues, the allegorical representations are a concealment for the ignorant and a manifestation for the initiated. This symbolic readings were to be applied exclusively to the Bible, because it is different in nature from secular writings: they are not the work of their human authors, but the work of God. According to St. Gregory, the inspired writers of the Bible were only a mere pen in the hands of God. The essentials of the distinction between sacred and secular symbolism are found in the Didascalicon of the Parisian Hugh of Saint Victor (c. 1096-1141): (37) It ought also to be known that in the divine utterance not only words but even things have a meaning -a way of communicating not usually found to such an extent in other writings. The philosopher knows only the significance of the words, but the significance of things is far more excellent than that of words, because the latter was established by usage, but Nature dictated the former. The latter is the voice of men, the former the voice of God speaking to men. The latter, once uttered, perishes; the former, once created, subsists. The unsubstantial word is the sign of man's perceptions; the thing is a resemblance of the divine idea. The universe, therefore, is the Book of God, and its significance is encapsulated in the pages of the universal book, the Bible. Nevertheless, the interpretation of the Bible ought to have some limits: if meaning can never be fixed, doctrine may be threatened: every statement of the Bible might be said to be figurative, and we would have no doctrine to hold on to. Even some of the Christian Fathers, like Origen, had fallen into this danger: Origen held that the whole story of the creation in Genesis was a beautiful poetic fiction --an interpretation which was 19 subsequently condemned by the Church. Interpretive criteria were therefore necessary. Hugh of Saint Victor argues that (38) The foundation and principle of sacred learning... is history, from which, like honey from the honeycomb, the truth of allegory is extracted. Moreover, he observes that (39) All things in the divine utterance must not be wrenched up to an interpretation such that each of them is held to contain history, allegory and tropology all at once. The ultimate criterion is the guidance of authorities and the literal sense of the Bible: (40) In order, therefore, that you may be able to interpret the letter safely, it is necessary that you not presume upon your own opinion, but that first you be educated and informed, and that you lay, so to speak, a certain foundation of unshaken truth upon which the entire superstructure may rest; and you should not presume to teach yourself, lest perhaps when you think you are introducing you are rather seducing yourself. This introduction must be sought from learned teachers and men who have wisdom, who are able to produce and unfold the matter to you both through the authorities of the Holy Fathers and the evidences of the Scriptures, as is needful. Hugh reacts against the interpretive tradition following Saint Gregory, which often indulged in fanciful allegorical interpretations disregarding the congruence between the allegorical meaning and the literal sense. According to Hugh, those allegorical meanings which have not been intended by the author are doubtful: authorial intention is a criterion of validity, and the more improbable readings should be rejected unless there are moral reasons for not doing so, the whole under the Augustinian principle of dogmatic guidance. 4. Secular Allegory The study of symbolism and allegory was not exclusive of Scriptural commentary. Some secular and even Pagan writings were more than mere fabulae, more than fictions. It was believed that some authors transmitted hidden learning in an allegorical way, conveying thoughts about morality, physics and even metaphysics, under a covering (integumentum, involucrum) of fiction. Some pagan poems were explicitly didactic at the literal level: satire, for instance, conveys its teaching at the literal level. But the claim of hidden learning was put forward by the commentators of Virgil, Ovid or Boethius, such as the William of Conches (Chartres, 1080-1154) and "Bernard Silvester" (England? Tours? fl. 1156), who used the same method in dealing with poetry or with philosophical texts. "Bernard Silvester" explains this allegorical form as follows: 20 (41) The integument is a kind of teaching which wraps up the true meaning inside a fictitious narrative (fabulosa narratio), andso it is also called "a veil" (involucrum). Man derives benefit (utilitas) from this work, the benefit being self-knowledge. "Bernard Silvester" has some interpretive tricks so that the texts may yield a suitable allegorical meaning: (42) Saturn you understand sometimes as a star, and again, immediately after, as representing time. Likewise, Mercury you understand sometimes as representing eloquence, and sometimes as a star. The possibility of the integuments relating to different things, and of multiple signification in all mystical material, must be taken into account if the truth cannot stand supported on one interpretation. So, in this work we find the same principle, that one and the same name designates different things, and conversely different names designate the same thing. This is a rule intended to make meaning proliferate. Conversely, we shall see that some theological interpreters formulate hermeneutic norms devised to keep meaning under control. We might say that the secular and the sacred interpreters are playing different hermeneutic games and setting different rules accordingly. We see that in spite of some theologians' strictures against poetry, there is a persistent tradition of allegorical interpretation of poetry (above all classical poetry) which lays stronger claims: poetry is knowledge, even revealed knowledge. Poetry in this tradition, which goes from Theagenes through the Stoics and neoplatonics to Macrobius and Fulgentius, is allegorized philosophy. And hidden meaning always has an aura of higher meaning, meaning derived from some superhuman source. The conflicts these ideas could provoke in the Middle Ages can be easily imagined. How in the world could pagan authors have received divine inspiration, akin to the Christian grace? The defenders of poetry had to sort out complex theological problems. "By and large, they accepted the idea that the Holy Spirit had, indeed, inspired the pagans; and by and large they incurred the hostility of more conservative clerics for suspiciously deistic teaching." Most often, the kind of teaching claimed for poetry would not seem to challenge the authority of the Bible, consisting mainly of moral or cosmological readings which do not impinge on revealed truth. Conrad of Hirsau believes in the ethical value of literature, ascribing most of the autors he mentions to the field of "ethics." He also notes the use of fiction, fables and metaphors in the Bible, and observes that Saint Paul and the Fathers of the Church often borrowed ideas and expressions from pagan literature. Of course, Conrad also thinks that secular literature and sacred Scripture are substantially different, and that the methods of interpretation for each should be different: the signification of Holy Writ is much more powerful, and it admits mystical interpretations which cannot be found in the poets. Nevertheless, the claim of poetry to be an independent source knowledge and wisdom must have seemed alarming to the more orthodox churchmen. In any case, this kind of defense of poetry was a stronghold for secular criticism and an inspiring force for 21 the medieval humanists. The gradual convergence of sacred and secular criticism continued in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, leading to Dante and Boccaccio. Later on, it will be further developed by the Italian humanists of the fifteenth century. Already in the twelfth century, some theologians start to read the Bible as literature: "In the twelfth century certain scholars -notably Peter Abelard and Gilbert of Poitiers- had in their Bible-commentaries applied to sacred literture the conventions and categories of secular literary theory and criticism." Peter Abelard (1079-1142), a bold and original thinker who was later condemned as an heretic, discussed the possibility of error on the part of the authors of religious authorities, and defended the right to question and criticize the writings of the Fathers of the Church. He argues that (43) In reading works of this sort, there must be freedom to form one's own judgment, not compulsion to believe. He applied the same principle tentatively to some Biblical writers, although as a rule he adheres to the Augustinian doctrine that there are no errors in Scripture and that problematic passages in the Bible should be interpreted allegorically. Abelard's views are significant of a humanist trend within scholastic thought. "Scriptural authors were being read literally, with close attention being paid to those poetic methods believed to be a part of the literal sense; pagan poets, long acknowledged as masters of those same methods, were being read allegorically or 'moralized'" --it is therefore normal that sacred and secular hermeneutics would eventually merge. In view of this development, care must be taken not to oppose scholastic theologians to the humanist defenders of poetry. Much of the critical awareness of the Middle Ages was developed by the scholastics: "Even the most 'original' literary theory produced in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Italy takes its points of departure and many of its categories and basic ideas from scholastic literary theory." Scholasticism and humanism developed together, and it would be simplistic to say that scholasticism was the enemy of literature. After all, scholasticism was an activity centered around textual commentary: at least in this respect, "Scholastic literary theory was, therefore, at the very centre, and not on the fringes, of academic endeavour and achievement." 22  Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) 1. Aesthetics 2. Hermeneutics 1. Aesthetics Saint Thomas Aquinas is the most influential of the Scholastic thinkers1 and his doctrines have long been the unofficial philosophy of the Catholic Church. The basic tenet of his doctrine is that there is no contradiction between faith and reason, and that therefore philosophy and theology are not contrary but complementary disciplines. Aquinas fully introduced the work of Aristotle in the scholastic philosophy of the Middle Ages, and used it to draw a sharp distinction between God and his works. This distinction had been threatened by the neo-Platonic doctrine of emanation2, which presented the Universe as the inevitable product of the divinity. He wrote several important works: apart from his Biblical commentaries, he attacked the naturalistic philosophy of Averroes in his Summa contra Gentiles, and composed the main monument of scholasticism, his Summa theologiae. This was left unfinished: one year before his death, Aquinas stopped work on it, and came to believe that all he had written was "like so much straw compared with what I have seen and what has been revealed to me." Aquinas does not deal explicitly with literature as such, but he has some interesting observations on general aesthetics, and he further develops the theory of interpretive levels for the Bible which will later be applied to literature. His Aristotelian outlook will favour a new approach to criticism and interpretation. Like any theologian, Aquinas is concerned with goodness, rather than with beauty or the agreeable, which are the object of aesthetics. Goodness is being considered in relation to desire. That is, good things are desired. The agreeable is one of the divisions of goodness. The perception of beauty, however, is characterized as a somewhat passive experience of the object (cf. Kant's "disinterest"). Beauty is that which is agreeable to the sight: "pulchra sunt quae visa placent" (cf. Plato's definition). In order to please, a thing must be harmonious with him who knows it. Beauty is an "analogical term": that is , there 1 Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical method of philosophical analysis predicated upon a Latin Catholic theistic curriculum which dominated teaching in the medieval universities in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. 2 Emanationism is a common teaching found in occult and esoteric writings.... Theosophy draws on Neoplatonic emanationism, in particular the concept of separation from and return to the Absolute, and reworks the Eastern concepts of karma and reincarnation to provide an evolutionary theory of both humankind and the universe. 23 is not a single standard of beauty for all things; every beautiful thing is beautiful in a special way. But beauty does require three qualities in the object: o Wholeness (integritas sive perfectio ), o Proportion (debita proportio sive consonantia ), not only in the object itself, but above all, a proportion between the object and the observer. o Brightness (claritas ); this last requirement is to be traced back to the neo-Platonic view of light as a symbol of the divine beauty and truth. Grosseteste had spoken of light as being the essence of beauty and perfection in matter. Later, when this metaphysics of light makes no longer any sense, "brightness" will be held to be the equivalent of structural perfection. James Joyce uses Aquinas' terms to expound his theory of the epiphany, or the sudden revelation of the essence of a thing through art. He modifies the concepts, though: he sees them not as requirements but as phases in a process of perception. First, we perceive an object as a whole, then we perceive the proportion in it which is the cause of beauty, and then we are ready to get an aesthetic insight into the heart of the object, its "whatness" or quidditas. "Brightness" is the revelation of the essence of the object perceived: "claritas is quidditas " (Stephen Hero). This third quality, claritas, poses some problems when we try to apply this aesthetic theory to literature. As conceived by Aquinas, it just does not fit. All these aesthetic concepts are meant by Aquinas to apply to both artistic and natural beauty. In fact, he does not seem to care much about artistic beauty, let alone literature. 2. Hermeneutics Sometimes the Bible sometimes uses surprising figures and metaphors which might seem irreverent, for instance, comparing God to a worm or to a thief. Some authors debated whether it was right to use them, because they would sometimes obscure truth, and might debase the dignity of the divine image by comparing it with earthly, unworthy things. Aquinas observes that metaphors are "proper to poetic, the least of all the sciences." But nevertheless he thinks their use in theology is justified. It is explicitly authorized by the Holy Writ, and besides (44) it is natural to attain to intellectual truth through sensible things, because all our knowledge originates from sense.... It is natural to man to be pleased with representations. (118) ætwo phrases which are a clear sign of the Aristotelian influence on Aquinas. As to the charges of obscurity and irreverence, Aquinas argues that 24 (45) the very hiding of truth in figures is useful for the exercise of thoughtful minds, and as a defense against the ridicule of the unbelievers. (118). Also, God is best revelaled through things furthest away from him. We see there are Dionysian arguments in this otherwise Aristotelian treatise. Aquinas also continues the traditional christian doctrine on allegory, with references to Augustine's distinction between historical, etiological, analogical and allegorical meanings, and also to St. Gregory: "Holy Scripture by the manner of its speech transcends every science, because in one and the same sentence, while it describes a fact, it reveals a mystery." Aquinas distinguishes the same levels of interpretation as John Cassian, explaining them thus: (46) the author of the Holy Scripture is God, in whose power it is to signify his meaning, not by words only (as man also can do) but by things themselves. So, whereas in every other science things are signified by words, this science has the property that the things signified by the words have themselves also a signification. Therefore the first signification whereby words signify things belongs to the first sense, the historical or literal. That signification whereby things signified by words have themselves also a signification is called the spiritual sense, which is based on the literal, and presupposes it. Now this spiritual sense has a threefold division.... [S]o far as the things in the Old Law signify the things in the New Law, there is the allegorical sense; so far as the things done in Christ, or so far as the things which signify Christ, are signs of what we ought to do, there is the moral sense. But so far as they signify what relates to eternal glory, there is the anagogical sense. (119) There is an implication in Aquinas that the symbolism of objects is proper and natural, while that of words is artificial and manipulable. Aquinas explicitly restricts the fourfold method of interpretation to the Holy Scripture: it is not valid for literature at large, because only Scripture signifies in this peculiar way. Besides, the flights of interpretation are curtailed by the submission of all other senses to the literal: "all the senses are founded on oneæthe literalæfrom which alone can any argument be drawn" (119). It is the literal sense which decides what is Christian doctrine and what is not. Doctrine must appear explicitly elsewhere in the literal level to justify an allegorical reading of a passage, and, of course, we must understand the literal level before we try to find any mystical meanings. The emphasis laid by Aquinas on the literal sense is an important qualification on previous doctrines: "Nothing necessary to faith is conveyed through the spiritual sense which is not conveyed elsewhere in Scripture, clearly and openly, through the literal sense. If we push this principle, stated so clearly by Aquinas, to its logical conclusion, allegory becomes at worst redundant and at best a pleasing (and persuasive) optional extra. Theory of interpretation like this, and the exegetical practice of so many of the schoolmen, dealt a powerful blow to the status of 25 allegorical reading of the Bible as an academic procedure." The interpretive limitations imposed by the scholastics are clear. However, they might be taken to refer just to theological hermeneutics, leaving the door open for the application of this system to profane literature, such as will be undertaken by Dante. The emphasis laid by Aquinas on the literal sense may be related to the Aristotelian perspective he favours. For the scholastic philosophy of the late Middle Ages, meaning is no longer something hidden: there may be allegories and symbols, but they are subordinated to the literal meaning of a text. There is an emphasis on authorship, on the different authors, genres, and conventions of the Bible, and on the different intention and aims of the different books. Each author, sacred or secular, has his own style and concerns. In the thirteenth century, as scholastic Aristotelianism became more systematized, the "type C" prologue is reorganized according to an Aristotelian framework. The last major kind of accessus ad auctores is therefore the "Aristotelian prologue" used by Scholastic critics, which will lay emphasis on human agency, and also on the multiplicity of causes which may converge to produce a book: "The 'Aristotelian prologue' which introduced commentaries on authors both sacred and profane was based on the four major causes which, according to 'the Philosopher', governed all activity and change in the universe. Hence, the author would be discussed as the 'efficient cause' or motivating agent of the text; his materials, as its 'material cause'; his literary style and structure, as twin aspects of the 'formal cause,' the forma tractandi and the forma tractatus respectively; while his ultimate end or objective in writing would be considered as the 'final cause.' It was, therefore, the terms of reference of Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics, rather than those of his Poetics, which defined the parameters of much scholastic literary theory." Simultaneously, a greater importance is given to the individual authors of the different books of the Bible: they are no longer mere instruments for the voice of God, there is a more detailed attempt to perceive the different circumstances of their writing. "The literal sense, the understanding arising from significative words, was identified as the expression of the intention of the human autor." In Aquinas' own commentaries of the Bible, the value of different possible interpretations is judged taking into account the plausible intention of the Biblical authors. Even the prophets were considered to be fully aware of the meaning of their prophecies, instead of being passive mouthpieces or pens in the hands of God. According to William of Auvergne, (47) prophetic signs, expressed by means of deeds or speech, were intended by the prophets themselves to be understood figuratively; they are the human authors' metaphors. Moreover, Aquinas and other scholastic commentators restrict the scope of mystical meanings. Double meanings in particular words, such as metaphor, are to be understood as belonging to the literal level, because they were consciously intended by the authors: 26 (48) the parabolical sense is contained within the category of the literal sense. For something can be given both its own proper meaning and also a figurative meaning by words. And the literal sense is not itself a figure, but rather that which is designated by a figure. For when Scripture names the arm of God, the literal sense is not that God has a physical limb of this kind but rather that he has that which is signified by this limb, namely, effective power. According to William of Nottingham (fl. c. 1312), the literal sense is double: "There is a 'proper' literal sense, which arises from the initial signification of the language; there is also a 'figurative' literal sense, which comes from the secondary or metaphorical signification of the language, and this too is a meaning which the author intended or which can be elicited from his intention." So the literal sense seems to absorb many of the meanings which had been previously ascribed to more cryptic interpretive procedures. The religious reformers of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance will promote literal reading yet further. Two early translators of the Bible into English, Wyclif and Tyndale, argue against too subtle interpreters. Wyclif, a rebel against the authority of Rome, defends the literal truth of the basic propositions of the Bible against those who went too far in reducing Biblical assertions to metaphors and finding fictions and falsehood in Scripture. According to William Tyndale, who was burnt by the Catholics (1536), (49) The literal sense is the root and ground of all... that which the proverb, similitude, riddle, or allegory signifies, is ever the literal sense. Martin Luther rejected allegorical interpretation altogether. The Protestant approach to the Bible needed an interpretive doctrine which favoured individual understanding, instead of relying on secret knowledge controlled by authority. We can easily see, however, that these new conventions of reading also rest on dogma, albeit a different one. But meanwhile allegory flourished in religious and secular literature alike. 6. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) The critical methods developed in Biblical commentary were gradually secularized and used outside the domain of theology, as humanist thought developed in the wake of the twelfth-century Renaissance. This is the last phase of medieval criticism, and in this displacement from the sacred to the secular "may be detected the origins of modern literary criticism as we know it." Dante Alighieri is a key figure in this development. In his letter to Can Grande Della Scala, which serves as an introduction to the "Paradiso," Dante establishes a classification of the elements which have to be taken into account in a literary work. It is not directly based models in classical criticism, for this was unknown 27 to Dante. But it has an Aristotelian flavour, because it is drawn from the Scholastic models of literary prologue --apparently, Dante had been a student of theology at Paris: (50) There are six things then which must be inquired into at the beginning of any work of instruction; to wit, the subject, agent, form, and end, the title of the work, and the branch of philosophy it concerns. In his discussion of the subject, Dante applies to his work the concepts of medieval hermeneutics: (51) The sense of this work is not simple, but on the contrary it may be called polysemous, that is to say, 'of more senses than one', for it is one sense which we get through the letter, and another which we get through the thing the letter signifies, and the first is called literal, but the second allegorical or mystic. (Letter 122) This mystic sense can be subdivided into the traditional three senses of hermeneutics. As Dante explains in Il convivio, (52) writings can be understood and ought to be expounded chiefly in four senses. The first is called literal, and this is that sense which does not go beyond the strict limits of the letter; the second is called allegorical, and this is disguised under the cloak of such stories, and is a truth hidden under a beautiful fiction [f. i. Orpheus].... The third sense is called moral; and this sense is that for which teachers ought as they go through writings intently to watch for their own profit and that of their hearers.... The fourth sense is called anagogic, that is, above the senses: and this occurs when a writing is spiritually expanded which even in the literal sense by the things signified likewise gives intimation of higher matters belonging to eternal glory. In Il Convivio, Dante opposes this "allegory of theologians" to the "allegory of poets": in poetry, the surface level is a fiction, while the allegorical level of meaning is true; in theology, both levels are truthful. Dante's comments on the title of his poem are also interesting, because they reveal the medieval conception of the opposition between tragedy and comedy: (53) tragedy begins admiraby and tranquilly, whereas the end or exit is foul and terrible (...) whereas comedy introduces some harsh complication, but brings its matter to a prosperous end. (Letter 122) 28 Tragedy and comedy are here simplified to a difference in the outcome of the story; they are also seen as kinds of fiction, and not as dramatic genres: Dante's work is a poem, and it is called a comedy. It is to be noted that the decorum of genres which divides tragedy from comedy is already undermined by the possibility of reading meanings different from the explicit ones: a serious message may be found under an apparently unworthy cover. As refers to the end of poetry, Dante mentions a possible difference between the proximate and the ultimate ends, but concludes that (54) the end of the whole and of the part is to remove those living in this life from the state of misery and lead them to the state of felicity (Letter 123). Poetry delights and instructs. Delight comes not only from ornament, but also from the goodness in the work, which is delightful in itself. In his treatise De vulgari eloquentia, Dante defends his choice of writing in Italian; he argues that serious literature can be written in the vernacular as well as in Latin. He examines the various Italian dialects and chooses as the ideal verncular the Sicilian dialect spoken by people of quality. He is also concerned with the enrichment of Italian through the borrowing of words; this will become a universal concern in Europe two centuries later. He speaks of three possible themes available to vernacular poetry: the state, love, and virtue. Love as a serious theme is a novelty in medieval criticism. Dante goes further than that: he claims that the lyrical song (canzone) is the best poetical form. This is the first time such a claim is made; it will be more typical of the Romantic age. 7. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) In his Genealogy of the Gentile Gods Boccaccio writes a practical manual of classical mythology for the use of poets which includes allegorical interpretations of the pagan myths, but he also feels compelled to defend the use of these myths. He is asking for liberty in thematic choice. He distinguishes fiction from lies, and defends poetry from the attack of those who only pay attention to the superficial meaning: (55) Poetic fiction has nothing in common with any kind of falsehood, for it is not a poet's purpose to deceive anybody with his inventions. (Genealogy 131) Besides, the making of fictions is the acknowledged social role of poets. In this way he justifies the use of Classical mythology, which is not intended to be considered true. 29 Likewise, the poets may alter historical facts or change the order of events (and in this they are opposed to the historians). The poet is nearer to the philosopher than to the historian, although he does not work by syllogism but only by contemplation. Boccaccio holds that we can find in poets the same use of allegory as in the Scriptures. Both sacred and profane texts can be praised for disclosing at once both the text and a mystery, although the two forms of writing only coincide in the method of treatment, and not in the end they have in view. Boccaccio praises the use of allegorical meanings, which allows everybody, the wise, the fools and children, to find whatever meanings they can digest (Genealogy 128, 130). Allegory, then, does not seem to be pedagogical for Boccaccio, but rather an enticing and mnemonic way of presenting truth to those who already know in some way: "Holding that poetry is allegorical and truthful at hidden levels, though untruthful on the surface, he defends the use of allegory in the same way as Aquinas: meaning acquired by toil should ultimately be of more pleasure and better retained." (Adams 124) The unlearned are pleased with the external fable and the learned are exercised with the hidden truth. It may be noted that Boccaccio speaks of the "content" or "hidden truth" of poetry as if it were a disembodied truth which precedes in composition the shaping of the work. The "fiction" or external form is not a means of reaching the content, it is not its expression: it is an obstacle, a veil, something which must be taken away before we recognize the truth in the work. Boccaccio pushes farther his analogy between poetry and theology whenever they coincide in end as well as in method: (56) I say that theology and poetry can be considered as almost one and the same thing when their subject is the same. Indeed, I go farther and assert that theology is the poetry of God. And he goes on to quote Aristotle (Metaphysics, III.4) who considered that the first theologians had been the poets: thus, the "highest" science derives from the "lowest." The Scripture often uses poetry and fables to adorn its meaning; a further proof that poetry and theology are not so far away from one another. This is a humanistic concern, and will become a general attitude during the Renaissance. Poetry can teach wisdom and virtue just as theology does. (57) It veils truth in a fair and fitting garment of fiction" (Genealogy 127). This "veiling" is what distinguishes poetry from the other art of language, rhetoric; according to Boccaccio: (58) among the disguises of fiction, rhetoric has no part, for whatever is composed under a veil, and thus exquisitely wrought, is poetry and poetry alone. (Genealogy 128) 30 Other Italian humanists were developing similar ideas: Albertino Mussato discussed poetry as theology; Pico della Mirandola evolved a poetic theology. Boccaccio's enthusiasm grows as he talks about the special gift of poets: (59) [poetry] proceeds from the bosom of God, and few, I find, are the souls in which this gift is born (Genealogy 127). The poet feels a drive to compose, to invent, to arrange words. He needs a knowledge of all the other arts, as well as peace of mind, retirement and a desire for worldly glory. Young age helps, too. Poetry is for him a spontaneous gift, not a social accomplishment, and the whole desire of the poet is "to sing in solitude" (Genealogy 134)æa statement which sounds almost Romantic. The Genealogy of the Gentile Gods is the first of the many defenses of poetry which will be written in the spirit of humanism, against the claims of the more strict religious views which consider poetry a potentially immoral vehicle, and also against other enemies of poetry, such as the sensual, the ignorant and "lawyers." Its flavour is distinctly Renaissance, and no longer medieval. But we must not forget that much of the conceptions of this early humanism derive from scholastic discussions and Biblical commentaries Adapted mainly from: https://www.unizar.es/departamentos/filologia_inglesa/garciala/hypercritica/02.Medieval/M edieval.02.html 31  References Accessus ad auctores, ed. Huygens, R. B. C. (Berchem and Brussels, 1954). Adams, Hazard (ed.), Critical Theory since Plato (New York, 1971). 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Stock, Brian, Listening for the Text: On the Uses of the Past (Baltimore MD, 1990). Stock, Brian, Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century: A Study of Bernard Silvester (Princeton NJ, 1972). 34 Stock, Brian, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton NJ, 1983). Trinkaus, Charles E., In Our Image and Likeness: Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought (Notre Dame IN, 1995). Trinkaus, Charles E., Renaissance Transformations of Late Medieval Thought (Aldershot, 1999). Trinkaus, Charles E., and Oberman, H. O. (eds.), The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion (Leiden, 1974). Ullmann, Walter, Medieval Foundations of Renaissance Humanism (London, 1977). Ward, John O., Ciceronian Rhetoric in Treatise, Scholion and Commentary (Turnhout, 1995). Weiss, Julian, The Poet's Art: Literary Theory in Castile c. 1400–60, Medium Ævum Monographs, n.s. 14 (Oxford, 1990). Wetherbee, Winthrop, Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century: The Literary Influence of the School of Chartres (Princeton NJ, 1972). Wheatley, Edward, Mastering Aesop: Medieval Education, Chaucer and his Followers (Gainsville FA, 2000). Whitman, Jon (ed.), Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period (Leiden, 2000). Wimsatt, W. K., and Brooks, C., Literary Criticism: A Short History (London, 1957). Witt, Ronald G., In the Footsteps of the Ancients: The Origins of Humanism from Lovato to Bruni (Leiden, 2000). Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn, et al. (eds.), The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280–1520 (Exeter and University Park PA, 1999). Zimmerman, M. (ed.), ‘Auctor’ et ‘auctoritas’: invention et conformisme dans l'écriture médiévale, actes du colloque à l'Université de Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (14–16 juin 1999) (Geneva, 2001). Webs: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-literary- criticism/introduction/2E27D135405F5DF54FBE59DAD2685EB0 https://studymoose.com/summary-of-medieval-and-renaissance-criticism-essay 35  Part II Renaissance Literary Theory 1. The Renaissance: Humanism and Criticism 2. Continental Critics 3. Poetics in the Tudor Age 4. Sir Philip Sidney 5. The Early 17th Century 6. Ben Jonson 7. The Age of Milton 36 1. The Renaissance: Humanism and Criticism From a broadly historical point of view, the Renaissance means above all the expansion of the world known to the Europeans to include the far East and America. It means, therefore, an enormous development in communication and therefore in commercial and cultural exchange. From this historical viewpoint it also means the growth of the importance of the bourgeois class of merchants and their participation in political power through the figure of the king. The atomization of the medieval feudal system gradually gives way to more centralized units of power: nations and nationalism become the dominant discourse. The organization of a lay culture around the figure of the king will have great importance for literature, since it will give rise to the system of patronage. The Renaissance is also the age when the intellectual life receives a new impetus thanks to the printing press. The printing press is the first of the mass media, and it is obvious that it could only be developed in a culture of incipient capitalism, when books can become a commodity which can be massively produced, commercialized, moved around, bought and sold for money. The printing press is an invention which cannot exist but in a market economy. The market ensures that goods must be produced massively and circulated. The availability and the circulation of knowledge are stressed by the humanists: (1) Books are indeed a higher -a wider and more tenacious- memory, a storehouse which is the common property of us all. From a philosophical viewpoint, the Renaissance is the age of humanism. That is, thought is no longer controlled by the authority of Revelation and the church: it makes a freer inquiry into all realms of experience. The influence of religion and dogma is still enormous, but there is a new faith in the power of human reason as an instrument to understand reality quite apart from religious authority. Old problems which were solved by authority are given a new outlook; the old solutions are reexamined, and new answers are sought for. In the realm of literature, and the influence of humanism can be seen "in the practice of bringing reasoned judgment to bear for the first time on literature and literary problems." We have already detected the origins of Renaissance humanism in the scholasticism of the later Middle Ages, which believed in the inherent rightness of human reason. Reason could lead man to the discovery of a measure of truth; it is a lumen 37 naturale which leads us to a lex naturalis. This conception is already on the way to humanism. The Italian humanists of the fifteenth century will go much farther. They "relied primarily in their treatment of literary problems on Nature or reason as their main instrument for arriving at truth." It is true that great importance is attached to the newly discovered classics. The great Italian humanist Laurentius Valla (1406-57) gave them great authority on matters of language and style: (2) Ego pro lege accipio quidquid magnis auctoribus placuit. This is an early statement of the doctrine of neoclassicism, which takes classical authors for established models of perfection. But in spite of this reverence, the classics are commonly reexamined and subjected to critical reasoning. Valla, for instance, will write his dialogue On Pleasure (1431) trying to discuss in a rational way the problem of human conduct. Pleasure had traditionally been condemned by Christian doctrine as something sinful. After an examination of classical philosophical doctrines on the matter, Valla adopts as his final criterion, not ancient precepts or Medieval doctrine, "but the dictates of Nature or reason, on the ground that what was ordained by Nature could not be wrong." Valla applied this independent spirit of enquiry to the authority of the Church as well. There is an enormous growth of interest in all fields of learning and in the arts. Humanists like to see themselves as different from the barbarous Middle Ages; they are proud of the restoration of ancient knowledge they have effected. Already in the first half of the fifteenth century an enormous number of classical texts is rediscovered, published and commented. For instance, Plato's philosophy is rediscovered and developed by Marsilio Ficino (1422-99); it is popularized by Castiglione and many others, and will influence critical thought on the arts. This work of discovery and edition entailed a development of the techniques of textual criticism. Different versions of an ancient text must be compared, to ascertain which is the most reliable one; editorial decisions must be taken, corrections made and a final text must be established and edited with notes and a commentary. The foundations for this work were laid by the Florentine Niccolo de' Niccoli (1363-1437) and developed by Valla, Politian and others. Philology could be a revolutionary enterprise when set against a culture of textual authority such as the medieval one. Independent textual examination and written dogma are inimical to each other. For instance, Valla denounced as a fake the "Donation of Constantine," an ancient document which justified Papal claims to temporal power. In that document, the Emperor Constantine supposedly gave the Pope and his successors his crown, Rome and Italy. Valla demonstrated on philological grounds that the language of this passage did not belong to the supposed date of the text. In the same way, Valla will examine the sacred texts from a philological viewpoint, and reach conclusions which overturn established beliefs. He questioned the attribution of Dionysius the Areopagite's Celestial Hierarchies and of the Rhetorica ad Herennium, thought to be by Cicero. He also denounces the bad quality of medieval Latin and corrected errors in the translation of the Vulgate by reference to the original Greek. Each of these critical enterprises had a shattering effect on scholastic culture. 38  On the whole, Medieval learning and their version of reality are now regarded with suspicion. Medieval ideas about geography, philosophy and history are revised. Works like Francesco Patrizzi's Della Historia (1560) and Edmund Bolton's Hypercritica (1618) reject many medieval historical accounts as fables, and formulate new principles of history-writing: a careful ascertainment of facts, and constant interpretation on the part of the historian. History is no mere collection of facts: events must also be illuminated with the light of reason to explain their causes and circumstances. Reason is also stressed in art. The idea of a community of the arts is stressed now, and the intellectual value of the plastic arts is emphasized. Da Vinci and Dürer rescue painting from its relegation to the field of manual arts, and stress its spiritual and symbolic value; Leon Battista Alberti does the theorizing for architecture. In the same way, there is a proliferation of Defences of Poetry and Arts of Poetry. The Italian defenses of the role of literature in education come one hundred and fifty years before the English ones appear. The defenses are written along Aristotelian and above all Horatian lines, stressing the pedagogical aspect of art: "Literature was valued not so much for its aesthetic and artistic qualities as for its practical uses, for its influence on character, its ability to train a man for his part in active life, or again, as providing models for expression; and these tests remained characteristic of Humanist criticism to the end." The early Humanist treatises, then, are not essentially different from the medieval tradition, even if a greater emphasis is laid on secular literature. Poetics is still dependent on rhetoric, and the value of poetry is its educational or moralizing effect on the reader. On the whole, the appreciation of poetry by the humanists was neither too elevated or too dismissive. "To the Humanistic mind poetry was little more than a branch of learning; a means, along with oratory, history, and philosophy, of recapturing something of the lost culture of antiquity, rather than a mysterious and independent art of infinite possibilities." Nevertheless, criticism flourishes as never before and as treatises become more frequent the language of critical discussion becomes more articulate. The tendency to formulate poetic rules must be understood as part of the rational effort to understand poetry, although of course exaggerations and protests soon followed (the German scholar Fabricius extracted 54 rules from Horace's Ars). In the early part of the Renaissance ideas about poetry come mostly from the medieval authorities, Horace, Cicero and Quintilian. Plutarch and the neo-Platonists are also favourite sources. The Arist