Speculative Grammar and Stoic Language Theory in Medieval Allegorical Narrative

From Prudentius to Alan of Lille

Jeffrey Bardzell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415762939
• eBook ISBN: 9781135865917
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

In his Plaint of Nature (De planctu Naturae), Alan of Lille bases much of his argument against sin in general and homosexuality in particular on the claim that both amount to bad grammar. The book explores the philosophical uses of grammar that were so formative of Alan's thinking in major writers of the preceding generations, including Garland the Computist, St. Anselm, and Peter Abelard. Many of the linguistic theories on which these thinkers rely come from Priscian, an influential sixth-century grammarian, who relied more on the ancient tradition of Stoic linguistic theory than the Aristotelian one in elaborating his grammatical theory.

Against this backdrop, the book provides a reading of Prudentius' Psychomachia and presents an analysis of allegory in light of Stoic linguistic theory that contrasts other modern theories of allegorical signification and readings of Prudentius. The book establishes that Stoic linguistic theory is compatible with and likely partially formative of both the allegorical medium itself and the ideas expressed within it, in particular as they appeared in the allegories of Prudentius, Boethius, and Alan.

1
Stoic Linguistic, Cosmological, and Ethical Doctrine as Precursor to Medieval Allegory

Allegory is a literary genre that thrived from late antiquity through the eighteenth century. During the Middle Ages in particular, a number of important allegories were written, including Prudentius’ Psychomachia, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy, Alan of Lille’s Anticlaudianus and Plaint of Nature, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun’s Romance of the Rose, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Christine de Pizan’s Book of the City of Ladies, among others.

Among the challenges facing the modern reader of these medieval allegories is the broad-ranging education they seem to presuppose. Whereas today we pigeon-hole different academic disciplines into narrowly construed departments and fields, writers of medieval allegory have, and appear to assume of their audiences, a broad liberal education, knowledge of literary, philosophical, artistic, grammatical, historical, and theological works and trends. Elements from these disciplines are interwoven into allegories, which often strive to be inclusive and even encyclopedic in nature. For the modern reader, these allegories therefore require a sensitivity to a wide array of intellectual concerns, some of which are studied in different academic disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, art history, religion, and history, and thus are not always readily available to readers in departments of literature. In many cases, secondary literature helps fill in a number of these gaps, either by citing works in other disciplines or by building bridges between disciplines, bringing together the latest research from different disciplines with the hope of yielding new insights.

The present work is an attempt to build such a bridge, connecting recent work in the history of philosophy with recent work in literary theory in readings of two medieval allegories: Prudentius’ Psychomachia and Alan of Lille’s Plaint of Nature. Specifically, I examine how several philosophical doctrines, methods, and tendencies, which originated with the Stoics, are reflected by certain aspects of these allegories. While I believe that the same concepts and trends examined here would likely apply to other medieval allegories as well, I have excluded other allegories from this project. My emphasis on the Stoics should not be read as a claim that medieval allegories, or even the medieval allegories just mentioned, are fundamentally Stoic in nature, or that readings that do not consider the potential influence of the Stoics are intrinsically deficient. Nor do I claim that of the Hellenistic philosophical schools, Stoicism was the most important for medieval allegory. Rather, my goal is to show that Stoic doctrines provide some insight into certain problematic aspects of allegory, particularly those pertaining to language and signification, just as readings that focus on Biblical allusion, classical imagery, or medieval theology can shed light on other aspects of allegory.

My starting point is Stoic linguistic doctrine, in particular as it connects the cosmology, ethics, and epistemology in the Stoic system. Allegory is a genre that constantly calls attention to the use of language, how and what words signify, and understanding how an allegory (mis-)uses language is arguably the most important problem that a reader of any allegory faces. This chapter explores Stoic linguistic theory within the broader context of the Stoic system, and it also relates a number of key aspects of Stoic linguistic theory to medieval allegory, both genealogically and thematically. In the course of this chapter, I demonstrate a baseline compatibility between Stoic language theory and allegory as a narrative mode, showing why Stoic linguistic theory would generally be appealing to a Christian allegorist in the Middle Ages. Subsequent chapters explore the transmission and use of Stoic ideas as they appear in the Middle Ages.

ARISTOTLE VERSUS THE STOICS: RIVAL THEORIES OF SIGNIFICATION

Questions surrounding the origins of language and its relationships with reality have been a central concern of the Western intellectual tradition since the Pre-Socratics. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries have seen advances in philology, logic and analytic philosophy, linguistics and semiotics, and continental philosophy that have given us, if not yet any universal consensus, at least vocabularies and discursive frameworks for analysis of this topic. One key distinction, which comes up regularly in this study, is the difference between reference and meaning. Reference is the relationship between words and things, and it connects language to external reality. Meaning is the relationship between words and intentions, what the speaker is trying to say.

This question occupied the ancients as well. For Aristotle, words are “symbols or signs of affections or impressions of the soul”; that is, for Aristotle, words represent thoughts in the mind of the speaker (Aristotle, On Interpretation 115 [16a3–8]). Signification for Aristotle emphasizes meaning, intention, and concepts in the minds of conversants. Ackrill criticizes Aristotle’s definition here as having “grave weaknesses,” on account of its dependence on psychology (113). The Stoics, in contrast, ground meaning in external reality, rather than in the mind of the speaker, a position that has its own problems, as discussed later in the chapter. One should be careful not to overstate the differences between the two: Aristotle believes that the thoughts to which words refer themselves are derived from reality, while the Stoics believe that the things to which words refer are also understood by the speaker. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that Aristotle emphasizes meaning over reference, while the Stoics emphasize reference over meaning. Aristotle’s theory fits into his broader epistemological and logical scheme, in which individual words or names represent the essence of an object or kind understood in the mind of the speaker, understood in itself, and not in combination with other things or thoughts (Charles 38–43).

Aristotle’s theory of linguistic reference is important, because it was transmitted throughout the Middle Ages as textbook logic (Spade, History ix). Medieval intellectuals inherited many aspects of his system, both from the few of his texts translated into Latin and through a tradition of commentaries on his works. An enduring example of this inheritance was the debate on universals, an issue that largely arose in the course of teaching his logic (Spade, History viii-xv). Universals are important in this study not only because they raise a number of rich and thorny philosophical issues that prompted debate throughout the Middle Ages, but also because a number of recent literary critics discussing allegories have used universals as a means of theorizing about the nature of allegorical abstractions. For Aristotle, universals are that which may be predicated of many, and include abstractions such as humanity, animality, and apparently even attributes such as whiteness or snub-nosedness (On Interpretation 125 [17a38–17b1]). If universals such as humanity and whiteness exist, then the world becomes a much more crowded place, for not only is it filled with Plato and Socrates, this horse and that horse, but it also contains humanity and equinity. In addition, it opens up questions about whether two things can be in the same place at the same time: Can snub-nosedness, whiteness, mortality, risibility, and rationality all be in Socrates? On the other hand, if universals do not exist, that is, they are merely mental or linguistic constructs with no direct relation to reality, then what we know and say about reality and its actual structure are radically different; in that case, how do we really know anything? In short, accepting the reality of universals seems to entail problems of ontology; rejecting the reality of universals seems to entail problems of epistemology (Spade, History viii).

Aristotle’s logical writings are contained in a collection of texts, later grouped and named the Organon, which were the only writings of Aristotle to survive in medieval Europe until the late twelfth century.¹ The Organon leaves unresolved fundamental problems about the ontological status of universals. Aristotle believes that humans come to recognize universals through encounters with many instances (R. Smith 50). By linking universals with knowing, Aristotle grants universals—whatever their exact status may be—a critical position in his epistemology. Because words refer to thoughts, what is critical in epistemology for Aristotle is likewise critical for language theory. Indeed, Aristotle’s description of a universal itself, which he characterizes as that which is predicated of many, is expressed in the context of logic and language (R. Smith 33, Barnes 96–7, Spade, History x).

The rich and complex topic of Aristotle’s theory of linguistic reference is beyond the scope of this chapter, but a few aspects of it are important to identify for my project: the dependence of linguistic reference on psychology and the speaker’s intention; the importance of the individual word and the essence of the species/genus to which it refers; Aristotle’s underlying theory of ontology, which is largely static, abstract, and hierarchically ordered; and the problem of universals, in which all these aspects of Aristotelian thought are featured. The importance of these theories is two-fold. They are clearly active in debates throughout the Middle Ages and are available to most educated medieval authors, both via Latin translations and a commentary tradition, especially the commentaries by Porphyry and Boethius. In addition, modern scholars of medieval literature (e.g., Van Dyke, Lewis, among others) often rely on Aristotelian theories when exploring philosophical influences in later medieval texts. By contrasting the relatively familiar Aristotelian theory with Stoic theory, it becomes easier to distinguish between Aristotelian and Stoic influences in literature, and to assess more critically the extent to which Aristotelian theory is perhaps overused in recent scholarship on medieval literature.

A major goal of this chapter is to outline an alternative view of language and linguistic reference, grounded in alternative views of ontology and epistemology. This theory of language, Stoic in origin, is a central cog in the Stoics’ elaborate philosophical system. It was transmitted into the Middle Ages both as the dominant basis for much early grammar theory and philosophical commentary, as well as in the writings of numerous religious thinkers, including Augustine, Boethius, and others. Though the Stoic system was not preserved per se—Christian intellectuals did not consider themselves Stoics by any means—many of its doctrines underlie key aspects of medieval intellectual tradition, especially with regard to theories of language and its relationships with reality.

STOIC PHILOSOPHY AS A SYSTEM

The collection of Stoic thought, perhaps more than that of any other school, is commonly called a “system” (e.g., Sandbach; Long, Hellenistic Philosophy), with its connotations of comprehensiveness and interrelatedness. According to Diogenes Laertius, a Greek doxographer who flourished in the early 3^rd century, the Stoics themselves employed a number of metaphors to describe their three-part system of logic, ethics, and physics: The Stoic curriculum is a walled garden, in which logic is the wall, physics is the trees, and ethics is the fruit; it is an egg, where logic is the shell, ethics is the white, and physics is the yolk; it is a living being, where logic is the bones, ethics is the flesh, and physics is the soul (Long and Sedley 26B).² Each of these metaphors conveys the overall integrity of the whole system, though it may be composed of distinct parts. Not only can Stoic thought be characterized as a system, but it is also a doctrine. Sextus Empiricus, a skeptic who flourished in the second century, when referring to the Stoics, often called them “the dogmatists” (e.g., SVF II, 80; SVF II, 118; SVF II, 166). One anecdote has it that Chrysippus asked his teacher Cleanthes only for the official doctrine, but not the arguments that support it, so that he could work out the arguments himself. The Stoics also had a reputation for boorish pedantry. These anecdotes support the thesis that Stoic doctrine, though certainly not without internal disagreements and controversies, was relatively crystallized into a coherent and stable curriculum, at least by the time of middle Stoicism, if not yet in early Stoicism.³

The comprehensive and systemic nature of Stoic thought makes it difficult to discuss any given topic in isolation, which in turn makes it difficult to find a good entry point when explaining the Stoics’ system. Ethical, physical, and logical doctrines are deeply intertwined and seldom make sense without reference to one another. The Stoics themselves disagreed on the order in which the three subject areas should be taught. Because of the interconnectedness of their doctrines, I cannot lay out Stoic theories on the relationships between language and reality without a discussion of how the Stoics conceived reality, how they believed human beings come to know about it, and why proper understanding of reality matters (that is, the ethical implications). Equally important, many of the connections between language, cosmos, and ethics in the Stoic system appear in one way or another in allegory. Thus, having at least a basic idea of the entire system not only makes it easier to understand Stoic linguistic theory, but it also makes the Stoic influence on medieval allegory more apparent.

Physics and Cosmology

The domain of physics within the St...

Table of contents

• Studies in Medieval History and Culture
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Stoic Linguistic, Cosmological, and Ethical Doctrine as Precursor to Medieval Allegory
• 2 Language and Abstraction in Prudentian Allegory
• 3 The Presence of Stoicism in Eleventh and Twelfth Century Language Theory
• 4 Alan of Lille’s Plaint of Nature and the Grammar of Cosmic Bonding
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index