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 those who wish to go a little further, here are some other links: But this is optional.

• Dante's Letter to Can Grande, from Professor John O'Donnell at U. Pa. Professor O'Donnell has many excellent Web pages on various aspects of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages;
• Text of Richard de Bury's _Philobiblon_, in English. Just click on the first link and download; it's a short text, from the University of Virginia.
• 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 U. Pa.

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