IMC 2009: Sessions

Session 125: Allegory and Myth

Monday 13 July 2009, 11.15-12.45

Moderator/Chair:	Danuta Shanzer, Department of Classics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign / Dumbarton Oaks Medieval (Latin) Library
Paper 125-a	Allegory in Petrarch's Works (Language: English) Jennifer Petrie, Department of Italian, University College Dublin Index terms: Language and Literature - Italian, Language and Literature - Latin, Mentalities, Monasticism
Paper 125-b	Domenico Silvestri and Boccaccio's Genealogia deorum gentilium (Language: English) Jon Solomon, School of Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Pagan Religions
Paper 125-c	Angelic Anatomy: Physical Descriptions of Rumor and Angels (Language: English) Angela Zielinski Kinney, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Index terms: Biblical Studies, Language and Literature - Greek, Language and Literature - Latin, Pagan Religions
Abstract	Paper -a: Petrarch regarded allegory as an essential part of poetic practice, and one which would make it acceptable from a religious point of view, but his understanding of it was unsystematic and relatively fluid. This paper is interested in particular in his use of the external world to represent states of mind, and in relating this to some strands in monastic writing. Paper -b: The nearly two dozen extant versions of the 1473-1474 Louvain edition [ISTC No: ib00750000] of Giovanni Boccaccio's Genealogia deorum gentilium are inaccurately described and attributed as 'comprising only Books I-XIII. Additions by Domenicus Silvester.' Although Domenico Silvestri added [e.g. ib00751000] to Boccaccio's original text seventeen Latin hexameter verses describing the contents of Boccaccio's original 15 books, the Louvain edition contains a complete paraphrase of Boccaccio's first 13 books, presumably by Silvestri. Absent are Boccaccio's proemia, Greek quotations, and genealogical trees, but the text is entirely rewritten. An analysis of the content of the text and derivation will be offered. Paper -c: This paper will examine physical characteristics in Greco-Roman personifications of (divine) Rumor, particularly 'Ossa angelos' in Homer and Fama in Vergil/Ovid. These classical depictions will be compared with portrayals of angels in Jewish and Christian texts. I shall argue that similarities between personifications of Rumor and depictions of angels not only suggest a cross-cultural archetype of the divine messenger figure but also personify human participation and agency in circulating the divine message.