Texts on Allegory and Medieval Literature

Please read the following texts:

• Richard de Bury, from the Philobiblon;
• Dante Alighieri, from the Letter to Can Grande della Scala; and, from The Convivio;
• Giovanni Boccaccio, from the Genealogies of the Pagan Gods.

All of these are important texts dealing with the question of "allegoresis", or the humanistic use of the allegorical method developed for the Christian interpretation of the Old Testament, to interpret secular contemporary literature.

* For Richard de Bury see the Wikipedia page on him. For The Philobiblon, see its Wikipedia page.

* Wikipedia page on Dante Alighieri; on Cangrande della Scala; on The Convivio by Dante. Note that Books 2 and 3 of The Convivio are a work of homage to Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.

For those who wish to go a little further, here are some other links.

• Dante's Letter to Can Grande, from Professor John O'Donnell, formerly at University of Pennsylvania, now Provost at Georgetown University. Professor O'Donnell has many excellent Web pages on various aspects of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This is is homepage.
• Text of Richard de Bury's _Philobiblon_, in English. Just igore the introductory stuff about Project Gutenberg. You can easily download this small file.
• St. Augustine, _On Christian Doctrine_, a central text in the development of the allegorical method of interpreting the Bible. Also from Prof. O'Donnell at Georgetown.

I have found several excellent sites on Boccaccio, but none of them carry any translations from the Genealogies.

Finally, please read this wonderful little story from Boccaccio's Decameron. It is Day 5, Tale 9.

Write 300-400 words on what you think this story is about. Look for "traditional ideas" in the story.

Email to me and to your group.