The Rehabilitation of Prophecy: On Dante's Three Beasts

Abstract

Out of the range of learned commentary helpful in the understanding of Dante’s allegory I select, as a not entirely arbitrary starting point, Joseph Mazzeo's wide-ranging exploration of allegorical exegesis, entitled "Allegorical Interpretation and History."'1’ This article, published in 1978, is notable for the unusually clear and firm distinction it draws between allegorical interpretation of texts, normally sacred texts, not actually designed to be read allegorically, and what Mazzeo terms "constructed allegory," that is, "The works of our literary tradition which demand to be understood as allegory rather than simply allowing allegorical interpretation . .(p. 17). After clarifying this essential but all too often obscured distinction, Mazzeo goes on to point out that constructed allegory "should generally be understood as following typological patterns rather than the more abstract and unhistorical patterns of allegorical exegesis.""Typolog-ical" allegory he defines as allegory that "assumes the existence of a central paradigmatic story, of a sacred or near-sacred character, set in the past and assumed to be historical . .(p. 17).