Speculative Grammar and Stoic Language Theory in Medieval Allegorical Narrative: From Prudentius to Alan of Lille (Studies in Medieval Hstory and Culture)

146 Pages·2008·0.83 MB·English

by  Jeffrey Bardzell

Speculative Grammar and
Stoic Language Theory
in Medieval Allegorical
Narrative
Studies in Medieval History and Culture
FRANCIS G. GENTRY, General Editor
Fair and Varied Forms Race and Ethnicity in
Visual Textuality in Medieval Anglo-Saxon Literature
Illustrated Manuscripts Stephen J. Harris
Mary C. Olson
Aspects of Love in John Gower’s
The Contested Theological Authority Confessio Amantis
of Thomas Aquinas Ellen Shaw Bakalian
The Controversies between Hervaeus
Natalis and Durandis of St. Pourçain The Medieval Tradition of Thebes
Elizabeth Lowe History and Narrative in the OF Roman
de Thèbes, Boccaccio, Chaucer,
Body and Sacred Place in Medieval and Lydgate
Europe, 1100–1389 Dominique Battles
Dawn Marie Hayes
Worlds Made Flesh
Women of the Humiliati Reading Medieval Manuscript Culture
A Lay Religious Order in Lauryn S. Mayer
Medieval Civic Life
Sally Mayall Brasher Empowering Collaborations
Writing Partnerships between
Consuming Passions Religious Women and Scribes
The Uses of Cannibalism in Late in the Middle Ages
Medieval and Early Modern Europe Kimberly M. Benedict
Merrall Llewelyn Price
The Water Supply System of
Literary Hybrids Siena, Italy
Crossdressing, Shapeshifting, and The Medieval Roots of the Modern
Indeterminacy in Medieval and Networked City
Modern French Narrative Michael P. Kucher
Erika E. Hess
The Epistemology of the Monstrous
The King’s Two Maps in the Middle Ages
Cartography and Culture in Lisa Verner
Thirteenth-Century England
Daniel Birkholz Desiring Truth
The Process of Judgment in
Pestilence in Medieval and Early Fourteenth-Century Art and Literature
Modern English Literature Jeremy Lowe
Bryon Lee Grigsby
The Preaching Fox Through the Daemon’s Gate
Festive Subversion in the Plays Kepler’s Somnium, Medieval Dream
of the Wakefi eld Master Narratives, and the Polysemy of
Warren Edminster Allegorical Motifs
Dean Swinford
Non-Native Sources for the
Scandinavian Kings’ Sagas Confl ict and Compromise in the
Paul A. White Late Medieval Countryside
Lords and Peasants in Durham,
Kingship, Conquest, and Patria 1349–1400
Literary and Cultural Identities in Peter L. Larson
Medieval French and Welsh
Arthurian Romance Illuminating the Borders of
Kristen Lee Over Northern French and Flemish
Manuscripts, 1270–1310
Saracens and the Making of Elizabeth Moore Hunt
English Identity
The Auchinleck Manuscript Speculative Grammar and Stoic
Siobhain Bly Calkin Language Theory in Medieval
Allegorical Narrative
Traveling through Text From Prudentius to Alan of Lille
Message and Method in Late Jeffrey Bardzell
Medieval Pilgrimage Accounts
Elka Weber
Between Courtly Literature and
Al-Andalus
Matière d’Orient and the Importance of
Spain in the Romances of the Twelfth-
Century Writer Chrétien de Troyes
Michelle Reichert
Maps and Monsters in Medieval
England
Asa Simon Mittman
Rooted in the Earth, Rooted in
the Sky
Hildegard of Bingen and
Premodern Medicine
Victoria Sweet
“She, This in Blak”
Vision, Truth, and Will in Geoffrey
Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde
T. E. Hill

Speculative Grammar and
Stoic Language Theory
in Medieval Allegorical
Narrative
From Prudentius to Alan of Lille
Jeffrey Bardzell
New York London
First published 2009
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bardzell, Jeffrey.
Speculative grammar and stoic language theory in medieval allegorical narrative :
from Prudentius to Alan of Lille / by Jeffrey Bardzell.
p. cm. — (Studies in medieval history and culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-415-97852-1
1. Allegory. 2. Hermeneutics—History. 3. Ethics in literature. 4. Prudentius,
b. 348. Psychomachia. 5. Latin literature, Medieval and modern—History and criti-
cism. 6. Alanus, de Insulis, d. 1202. De planctu naturae. I. Title.
PA8027B37 2009
873'.0309—dc22
2008023904
ISBN 0-203-88651-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0-415-97852-1 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-88651-8 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-97852-1 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-88651-9 (ebk)
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Stoic Linguistic, Cosmological, and
Ethical Doctrine as Precursor to Medieval Allegory 11
2 Language and Abstraction in
Prudentian Allegory 32
3 The Presence of Stoicism in Eleventh and
Twelfth Century Language Theory 53
4 Alan of Lille’s Plaint of Nature and
the Grammar of Cosmic Bonding 81
Conclusion 108
Notes 115
Bibliography 123
Index 131

Acknowledgments
I would like to extend my gratitude to two people in particular, who both
mentored me in writing this particular work, and more generally who
helped me appreciate the interplay between medieval literature and phi-
losophy: Paul Spade and Rosemarie McGerr. In very different ways, they
helped me read more sensitively, and with greater care, than I was able to
on my own. I also wish to thank the late Clifford Flanagan, whose dazzling
lectures and gentle humanity got me started on this path in the fi rst place.
Finally, I’d like to recognize the people who have helped me remain true
to myself in a context where knowing how to do so is not always obvious:
Marty Siegel, Erik Stolterman, Eli Blevis, John Paolillo, and David Hak-
ken. In the end, it is hard to separate the many and profound contributions
of one’s mentors from oneself.