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Chapter 3 - Poetics and Biblical Hermeneutics in the Thirteenth Century
- By Gilbert Dahan
Edited by Ardis Butterfield, Yale University, Ian Johnson, St Andrews University, Andrew Kraebel, Trinity University
Book:

Literary Theory and Criticism in the Later Middle Ages

Published online:

20 April 2023

Print publication:

20 April 2023, pp 62-77
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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.