Dear Otfried,
You overwhelm me! As your response covers a great deal of ground,
perhaps I might make a couple of observations.
1)
>>Perhaps in part because of Dante's explicit linking of his own use of
>>allegory to
>>Scriptural exegesis (the first poet to do so as far as I know), the
>>distinctions
>>between typology and allegoy, allegory and figure, figure and symbol
lack the
>>precision they did in the earlier middle ages. Or perhaps that
precision is a
>>critical myth! What are your thoughts?
>Dante was not really the first (see Lubac, t.II.2, p.210ss. on Arnulf
of
>Orleans, Bernard of Utrecht and Konrad of Hirsau for morefold exegesis
of
>ancient poets and of the Christian _Ecloga Theoduli_, and on Alanus as
a
>poet claiming a threefold system for his own poetry), and also the
general
>tradition of interpreting ancient myth and poetry as figuring Christian
>truths did start long before Dante (Icarus as a figure of the
anagogical
>ascent is one of the earliest Christian sepulchral symbols).
I don't think you read my question as carefully as you might have. I
would be an idiot to assert that Dante was the first poet to use
allegory. Instead, I said that Dante seems to me to have been the first
poet to explicitly link his own use of allegory to the practice of
Scriptural exegesis.
2)
You wrote:
>Acts 17,28 has no direct bearing on typology (as I understand the
term).
>The context is God as the creator of the world and of man and his
ubiquity
>and invisibility, "in ipso enim vivimus et movemur et sumus / sicut et
>quidam vestrum poetarum dixerunt / ipsius enim et genus sumus", but
there
>is no direct relation to the possibility of interpreting pagan poetry
>typologically as relating to Christ and the Church.
Here I have to disagree outright. I refer you David S. Berkeley's
contribution on Typology in _A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in
English Literature_, ed. David Lyle Jeffrey: "it seems to license
pagan-Christian typology" (792). The context is Paul's speech to the
Athenian areopagus, and Paul's use of pagan poetry (and monuments) to
prove a Christian truth.
I was fortunate enough to study with Jeffrey, who himself was a student
of D.W. Robertson. May I recommend to you his _By Things Seen: Reference
and Recognition in Medieval Thought_ (University of Ottawa Press). In
his introductory essay, Jeffrey does a wonderful job of broadly
distinguishing the various interpretative practices of the middle
ages--including typology, allegory, etc. On the distinctions to be drawn
between figure and allegory, you may want to look at E.R. Curtius on
"figura." As to the modern uses and understanding of allegory, Jeffrey's
Dictionary has a lucid and comprehensive entry on the subject.
Thank you for your response.
Stephen
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