Christian Allegory in Early Hispanic Poetry

Distinguishing figural or typological allegorya method adapted from the Christian exegesis of the Old Testamentfrom the broader Hellenistic concept of allegory, this book examines its use in representative poems of early Hispanic literature. The author focuses on the thematic and structural employment of this originally nonliterary device and comments on the literary problems it posed and the artistic effects which were achieved by it. The development of this particular allegorical method in medieval Hispanic literatureworks in Spanish, Portuguese, Galician, and Catalanhe shows, was fully equal to that found in the medieval Latin, Italian, and English literatures, and an understanding of its use serves to clarify the interpretation of many individual poems.