Commentary and Collaboration in the Medieval Allegorical Tradition

Abstract

The diversity of Ovidian commentaries in the medieval schoolroom is often underestimated. An overview of the aims and formats of scholastic commentaries on Ovid's Metamorphoses reveals a range of textual encounters with antiquity, from grammatical to allegorical. Pedagogic and poetic approaches to Ovid frequently interpenetrated, as the vernacular output of Petrarch, Machaut, and Chaucer demonstrates. A narratological view of the “moralized Ovid” tradition—particularly Bersuire's Ovidius moralizatus—revises the critical model of co-option typically applied to medieval scholastic appropriations of Ovid. Instead, a generative, collaborative modality of textual production links medieval Christian poets and commentators with their ancient master.

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