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 ENGL 3204
Medieval Literature

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Allegory and the 'Fourfold Method'

Beyond the literal meaning of the text, medieval methods of reading detected three levels of meaning that "could refer to any (or all) of the three aspects of Christian truth. Hence arises the idea of 'fourfold allegory.' The literal meaning is often called the 'historical,' and may express the entire content of a text, as in the works of historians. Ulterior aspects of meaning were labeled allegorical, tropological (or moral), and anagogical. Allegorical meanings…referred to the mission of the Church on earth; tropological meanings referred to the moral duties and struggles of human nature; while anagogical meanings concerned mysteries of faith, such as the afterlife or the operation of Grace, known only through revelation" (Chaucer: Sources and Backgrounds , p. 42).

Dante provides us with an example in his "Letter to Can Grande": "'When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from a barbarous people, Judea was made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion.' Now if we look at the letter alone, what is signified to us is the departure of the sons of Israel from Egypt during the time of Moses; if at the allegory, what is signified to us is our redemption through Christ; if at the moral sense, what is signified to us is the conversion of the soul from the sorrow and misery of sin to the state of grace; if at the anagogical, what is signified to us is the departure of the sanctified soul from bondage to the corruption of this world into the freedom of eternal glory." (Chaucer: Sources and Backgrounds, p. 81).

 

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