Jimma University

College of Social Sciences and Humanities

Department of English Language and Literature

Medieval Literary Criticism

1066-1485
• Literary criticism does not disappear during
the Middle Ages.
• The classical tradition survives the collapse of
the Western Roman Empire, and most of the
great Latin authors will remain a part of the
cultural tradition of Europe.
 The Middle Ages
The Middle Ages are not a uniform period. From the
point of view of literary criticism, we may divide the
middle ages into three periods:
1) The Dark Ages, from the sixth to the eighth
century. Very few documents from this period
have reached us.
We find nevertheless a few isolated scholars of
great influence. We may conveniently end the
Dark Ages with the so-called Carolingian
renaissance of the late eighth century, fostered
by the Englishman Alcuin of York (c. 735-804).
2) The High Middle Ages, up to the 12th century.
Although written texts from this period are more
abundant, it is still characterized by cultural
isolation and stagnation, little variety in debate
and little knowledge of the classics.
The dominant tradition in philosophical thought is
Platonic, and as far as knowledge is concerned,
there is a lack of faith in human agency and a
reliance on authority and revelation.
 The Middle Ages
3) From the 12th century on
• an increase in cultural dynamism which has been
called "the twelfth-century Renaissance."
• Universities appear for the first time, and the
system of study is based on reading and
commenting texts. The importance of the
disciplines connected to textual study will
therefore increase.
• Little by little, the philosophical texts of Aristotle
will become known in the West, and Aristotle will
become "the Philosopher" for the later Middle
Ages.
• The scholastic philosophy of the universities faces
the problem of adapting Aristotelian thought to
Christian dogma. This is only one more sign of an
increasing movement towards humanism,
towards a greater reliance on the ability and
goodness of individual human intention and
agency.
• The humanist influence is already clearly strong
in the later critics of the Middle Ages, such as
Dante or Boccaccio, who are no longer
churchmen.
• Later classical and medieval criticism often focused on
religious texts, and the several long religious traditions
of hermeneutics and textual exegesis have had a
profound influence on the study of secular texts.
• This was particularly the case for the literary traditions
of the three Abrahamic religions: Jewish
literature, Christian literature and Islamic literature.
• Literary criticism was also employed in other forms of
medieval Arabic literature and Arabic poetry from the
9th century, notably by Al-Jahiz in his al-Bayan wa-'l-
tabyin and al-Hayawan, and by Abdullah ibn al-
Mu'tazz in his Kitab al-Badi.
 Medieval period
• In the Christian Middle Ages criticism suffered
from the loss of nearly all the ancient critical texts
and from an antipagan distrust of the literary
imagination.
• Such Church Fathers as Tertullian, Augustine, and
Jerome renewed, in churchly guise, the Platonic
argument against poetry. But both the ancient
gods and the surviving classics reasserted their
fascination, entering medieval culture in
theologically allegorized form.
• Encyclopaedists and textual commentators
explained the supposed Christian content of pre-
Christian works and the Old Testament.
 Medieval Period
• Although there was no lack of rhetoricians to dictate
the correct use of literary figures, no attempt was
made to derive critical principles from emergent
genres such as the fabliau and the chivalric romance.
• Criticism was in fact inhibited by the very coherence of
the theologically explained universe.
• When nature is conceived as endlessly and
purposefully symbolic of revealed truth, specifically
literary problems of form and meaning are bound to be
neglected.
• Even such an original vernacular poet of the 14th
century as Dante appears to have expected his Divine
Comedy to be interpreted according to the rules of
scriptural exegesis.