Parable, Allegory and Romance in the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat
The medieval versions in Greek and Latin of the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat made generally available to Christian writers a considerable amount of Eastern story material. The legend itself enjoyed wide readership in these and vernacular languages, and individual episodes provided the basis for fu...
| Published in: | Traditio |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Cambridge University Press
1958
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| In: |
Traditio
Year: 1958, Volume: 14, Pages: 359-366 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The medieval versions in Greek and Latin of the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat made generally available to Christian writers a considerable amount of Eastern story material. The legend itself enjoyed wide readership in these and vernacular languages, and individual episodes provided the basis for further expansion. The viability of the legend in this regard owes much to the ten moral tales, or apologues, which appear during the course of the main story. These little fables proved attractive to writers for centuries, throughout and even after the Middle Ages, and they have long engaged the efforts of scholars to trace their route from ancient India to the English Renaissance stage. The apologues merit attention, however, in the form in which they were used in the eleventh century, for their application in the hagiographical context provides an interesting example of post-Scriptural parables and the allegorical interpretation of what might be termed ‘romance’ materials. This paper seeks to examine the attitudes toward parable, allegory and romance implicit in the ten apologues of the Vita. |
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| ISSN: | 2166-5508 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Traditio
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0362152900010138 |