Allegory and the Poetic Self

Therise of an influential new family of poetry in the Middle Ages

Thisbook is the first collective examination of late medieval intimate first-personnarratives that blur the lines between author, narrator, and protagonist andusually feature personification allegory and courtly love tropes, creating anexperimental new family of poetry. In this volume, contributors analyze why theallegorical first-person romance embedded itself in the vernacular literatureof Western Europe and remained popular for more than two centuries.

Theeditors identify and discuss three predominant forms within this family: debatepoetry, dream allegories, and autobiographies. Contributors offer textualanalyses of key works from late medieval German, French, Italian, and Iberianliterature, with discussion of developments in England, as well.

Allegory and the Poetic Self offers asophisticated, theoretically current discussion of relevant literature. This explorationof medieval “I” narratives offers insights not just into the premodern periodbut also into Western literature’s subsequent traditions of self-analysis andidentity crafting through storytelling.