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Chapter 3 - Poetics and Biblical Hermeneutics in the Thirteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2023

Ardis Butterfield
Affiliation:
Yale University
Ian Johnson
Affiliation:
St Andrews University
Andrew Kraebel
Affiliation:
Trinity University
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Summary

In medieval classifications of the sciences, poetics occupies the lowest position, insofar as its language is starkly opposed to the sort of the scientific language represented, ideally, in the Word of God. Yet, between 1240 and 1260, reflections on the necessary presence of poetic language in the Bible gave rise to what might be called a theological science or rather theology as science. How, then, were the resources of poetics (as pertaining to the analysis of the language of poetry) themselves made part of biblical exegesis? Likewise, was Aristotle’s Poetics put to the service of exegesis in the same way as the Philosopher’s writings on logic, ethics and even physics? The present chapter will address these questions, drawing on thirteenth-century hermeneutic theory as well as selected commentaries.

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Literary Theory and Criticism in the Later Middle Ages
Interpretation, Invention, Imagination
, pp. 62 - 77
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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