The nature of allegory : spatial tropes in medieval and early modern allegorical narratives
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: English, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Bergen, Richard Angelo
issued: 2023-01-06T16:56:06Z
issued: 2022
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: This dissertation offers an analysis of spatial tropes, amounting to an explication of geographic symbolism in allegorical narratives. In the past, the genre-defining trope of allegory has overwhelmingly been personification, which involves metaphors of psychic interiority or abstraction made into characters. However, topographical metaphors are at least as frequent and arguably as prominent in these stories. If allegory is best defined as extended metaphor, the key trope of these stories involves spatial extension for the metaphor of the way or the road in these narratives, with their various sites of instruction and conflict. This work of research proposes and analyzes seven morphogenetic topologies in allegorical narratives: 1) the use of abstract labels for places, 2) distribution of the fragments of a self throughout a series of places indicating psychic inflection in landscape, 3) references to the “book of nature” in tandem with narrative moments or digressions for the application of hermeneutical methods to topographical structures, 4) indexical symmetries or contraventions of normal spatial scale (mimesis), 5) the tying of abstract topic to differentiated topography, 6) the embodiment in space of significative temporalities, 7) and spatial disorientation vis-à-vis gestures toward a sub specie aeternitatis. The basis for these tropes can be found in habits of mind developed in allegorical interpretations of epics and the Bible, cosmological encyclopedias and medieval works of De Natura Rerum, as well as arts of memory. This dissertation also aims to show that although allegorical works constantly subvert “realism”, they still reveal intense interest in “local”, “literal”, and “historical” concerns of a topographical or architectural nature. A majority of the analysis of this dissertation is done in primary consideration of several key authors (William Langland, Stephen Hawes, Edmund Spenser, and John Bunyan), whose works represent different instantiations of…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/83598
note: THE NATURE OF ALLEGORY: SPATIAL TROPES IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN ALLEGORICAL NARRATIVES by Richard Angelo Bergen A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (English) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) December 2022 © Richard Angelo Bergen, 2022 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: The Nature of Allegory: Spatial Tropes in Medieval and Early Modern Allegorical Narratives submitted by Richard Angelo Bergen in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Examining Committee: Elizabeth Hodgson, Professor, English, UBC Supervisor Robert Allen Rouse, Associate Professor, English, UBC Co-Supervisor Jennifer Vaught, Professor, English, University of Louisiana at Lafayette External Examiner Patricia Badir, Professor, English, UBC University Examiner Patrick Moran, Associate Professor, French, UBC University Examiner Additional Supervisory Committee Members: Dennis Richard Danielson, Professor Emeritus, English, UBC Supervisory Committee Member iii Abstract This dissertation offers an analysis of spatial tropes, amounting to an explication of geographic symbolism in allegorical narratives. In the past, the genre-defining trope of allegory has overwhelmingly been personification, which involves metaphors of psychic interiority or abstraction made into characters. However, topographical metaphors are at least as frequent and arguably as prominent in these stories. If allegory is best defined as extended metaphor, the key trope of these stories involves spatial extension for the metaphor of the way or the road in these narratives, with their various sites of instruction and conflict. This work of research proposes and analyzes seven morphogenetic topologies in allegorical narrati…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2023-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0422996
language: eng
degree discipline: English
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Hodgson, Elizabeth, 1962-
contributor: Rouse, Robert Allen, 1971-
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/83598