Dionysus and the Giants: William of Conches and Owen Barfield on the Truth of Myth

William Pemberton ICS 220403

Prof. Bob Sweetman

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What is the relation of myth and poetry to the truth? Is there a relation? Is truth the only

thing that the human soul wants or needs? Is the truth best expressed by a definition or a

formula of some kind? What does the human mind seek in poetry, in stories, in myth? Is

their appeal merely a nostalgic appeal of infancy? A desire to be entertained in such a

way that the hard questions of life will not drone in our ears? Or is it simply a desire to be

refreshed after having struggled with these questions in the heat of the day? Is the myth a

concealment of a truth that the strong mind will pierce? Is the ornament and lingual de-

light of poetry a distraction that the strong-willed can evade? In this paper I will begin a

very preliminary study and comparison of two mythical theories which freely engage the

mythic and poetic realm of imagination, both confessedly with an eye to discerning the

truth. Of the two ‘corpora’ the first is really a broad cultural phenomenon with widely

varying characteristics: the ‘mythologizing Platonists’ of the twelfth century; figures such

as Alan of Lille and Bernardus Silvestris, together with literary theorists such as William

of Conches and Bernardus Silvestris once again. Of these poets and theorists, I will focus

on the theoretical work of William of Conches, which is both unique and at the same time

representative of general trends in twelfth-century literary thought. The second is the

work of Owen Barfield, a twentieth-century philosopher who developed a cogent theory

of language, poetry, and mythology that was seminal with regard to the mythological pro-

ject of J.R.R. Tolkien. My question is whether William of Conches and Barfield have a

broadly similar or a really distinct approach to the meaning and function of language and

the interface of poetry-myth-truth. As such, when in this essay I write ‘poetry’ there is

always a sense of poetry relating (in differing ways perhaps) to the mythic.

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To begin with, I) I will recall the ancient beginnings of dis-ease between the poetic

and scientific-philosophic which Plato catalyzes and which has since troubled western

thought. This will elucidate the importance of and the problems involved in the discus-

sion. Then II) I will examine broadly the main features of the William of Conches’ ap-

proach to myth and philosophy for the purposes of comparison, focusing among other

things on the crucial device or approach of the integumentum or involucrum. Unfortu-

nately, the scope of this essay permits only such a broad characterization. As such the

description of this phenomenon will be largely derivative—a defect that would be reme-

died in a more exhaustive study. Following this III) I will outline Barfield’s approach to

mythic-poetic language as a counterpart to analytical-philosophical thought. Finally, IV) I

will show how there are features in common between both theories, namely the exultation

of what we now call the “imagination” as a rational power, but that their understanding of

the meaning of myth is fundamentally distinct: in the twelfth century, myth was an ana-

logue of nature with its deceptive appearance and rational core; for Barfield myth is a

treasure house of lost human perceptions which poetry can work to revivify through the

medium of living metaphors.

I) A Platonic Problem No historical philosopher prior to Plato ever set in motion such a grand machinery as

did that wise Athenian—a machinery with metaphysical, cosmological, ethical and epis-

temological parts. Yet I don’t think it can be said that he ever constructed a system of an-

swers, or doctrines, in the sense of final answers; it is perhaps truer to say that Plato

constructed a system of important questions, and a method for pursuing those ques-

tions—either toward their eventual unraveling (if the questions are akin to a sort of knot,

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the elements of which either are or seem confused) or toward an ever deeper penetration

(if the questions are rather the signposts of mystery).

If it is the case that the key to Plato’s works is more a framing of the right question

than simply of handing over the correct answer (with which he is frightfully parsimoni-

ous anyway), then one would have to be very careful how one characterizes Plato’s no-

tions. It may not be appropriate, for instance, to look on Plato’s Gorgias as a ‘critique’ of

rhetoric;1 more accurate might be to agree that Plato ‘problematizes’ rhetoric, that he acts

not so much as a Socratean gadfly as a Platonic mosquito that leaves an uncomfortable

bite in places of whose significance we were hitherto unaware and whose itch begs an

incessant scratching and promises no relief. After reading the Gorgias we are not so com-

fortable with rhetoric as once we might have been; it has become for us a problem, not

necessarily a taboo.

The depth and consistency of Plato’s thought was such that he was able to problema-

tize nearly everything: religion, the cosmos, the state, reality itself, thought, knowledge,

sensation, ethical action, justice, language, rhetoric, education…. The list rolls on. One

Platonic problem that is unique among the others, because of the fact that it problematiz-

es both Plato’s own philosophy as well as philosophy itself is that of poetry and mytholo-

gy. In that famous section at the end of the Republic, Plato formally indicts that

mythological poetry and poetic mythology that bewitched him in his youth, but asks that

its defenders, not poets, but ‘lovers of poetry’, defend poetry in prose:

1 Students of rhetoric (see for instance: Consigny 2001; McComiskey 1992) especially are inclined to read the Gorgias as a unilaterally hostile document and seek rather to reconstruct, reinterpret, or rehabilitate Gorgianic rhetoric from what appears to be Plato’s unequivocal onslaught than to look for any indication of irony in Plato’s account. For a more nuanced and interestingly revisionist reading see Swearingen 1991.

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However, if the defense isn’t made, we’ll behave like people who have fallen in love with someone but who force themselves to stay away from him because they realize that their passion isn’t beneficial. In the same way, because the love of poetry has been implanted in us by the upbringing we have received under our fine constitutions, we are well dis-posed to any proof that it is the best and truest thing. But if it isn’t able to produce such a defense, then, whenever we listen to it, we’ll repeat the argument we have just put for-ward like an incantation so as to preserve ourselves from slipping back into that childish passion for poetry which the majority of people have (Republic X, 607e2-608a3).

“We are well disposed to any proof that it is the best and truest thing.” In this final

book of the Republic, poetry is held up as the last competitor to philosophy, as a kind of

antithetical art, to which one awards the palm or not. Plato positions poetry in an either/or

relationship with philosophy, characterizing that relationship as an ‘ancient quarrel’

(παλαιά τις διαφορά).2 We find evidence of this quarrel already in Heraclitus: ‘he said

that Homer was worthy of being cast out of the assembly and flogged…”3 But for Plato,

this battle is extremely complex, possessing ethical, epistemological, and cultural dimen-

sions and even personal dimensions.

Ethically, poetry poses the same problem that is at the crux of the Euthyphro—can

the gods really act in the contentious manner that poetry presents? This theme is reiterat-

ed in the second and third books of the Republic. Poetry seems to enshrine and thus en-

courage lies and other immorality, at the same time its connection to mythological

content is assumed. Moreover, poetry seems to please the emotional part of the soul—

that lusty horse—which reason, and thus philosophy, is at constant pains to reign in. The

question of whether poetry can do anything other than dissemble and lie, whereas it is the

process of dialectic which leads to truth (as Plato’s Letter VII, 344b3-7, describes most

clearly), highlights the epistemic dimension. The juxtaposition with the ideal constitu-

tions of the Republic with the heavy irony of “our fine constitutions” mentioned above,

2 Republic 607b5. Translations in this text are mine only and always when the original text is also provided. 3 “<τόν τε Ὅµηρον> ἔφασκεν <ἄξιον ἐκ τῶν ἀγώνων ἐκβάλλεσθαι καὶ ῥαπίζεσθαι>…” Fr. 42.1.

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brings to light the cultural and political tension: an ideal constitution that inculcates phi-

losophy versus the present one that has extolled poetry. But at that most intimate and per-

sonal level of Plato’s own creativity we are made to pause and wonder: how are we to

understand the indictment of poetry and its concommitant mythology by this most poetic

and most mythic of philosophers? —Plato, among whose written words are some of the

finest stories and metaphors and the most finely sculpted phrases?

The history of western thought has pulsed with Plato’s repeated incantations, a philo-

sophical magic that protects against the natural charms of poetic mythology. Though, like

Plato’s, the easy dismissal of this atavistic force has not proven easy. Plato’s own works

remain a stumbling block, for instance, to those who insist that “‘the only true form in

which truth exists’ is ‘the scientific (philosophical) system.’”4 In such a case, the dia-

logue form would itself be a mere distraction, and the myths and visions that punctuate

the dialogues—often with an exclamation mark—often where the argument breaks down

or dialectic reaches an impasse—would be hideous blasphemy. Others, acquiescing to the

sovereignty of science, would permit poetry to the weakness of human nature, for delight

only.5 The Romantic movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, surg-

ing with a severity equal to that of Hegel’s (1770-1831) scientism rallied behind art, poet-

ry, and the imagination as behind a warlord who with a mission to destroy science and,

potentially, reason. William Blake (1757–1827), an almost exact contemporary with He-

gel, would counter the rationalist thus: “The whole business of Man is the Arts, and all

things, common…Art is the Tree of Life…Science is the Tree of Death.”6

4 Hegel 1952, 12 in Pieper 2011, 4. 5 Cf. Aquinas, Summae Theologica Ia, q1, a9. 6 From his Appendix to the Prophetic Books 1956, 430.

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When it comes to such an ancient quarrel there is a dogged question which has not

been asked with sufficient insistence: can either side can actually win? And I think that

the reason for this is that the question has not often been asked properly. It is probably a

wrong question, really, to ask whether poetry is true. A better question is to ask whether

man can ever be unpoetical, and by the same token, unmythical. It is probably vain to ask

whether the philosopher or sciencist really is a Darwinian ape swinging in the branches of

the tree of death? Better ask whether, having cut the tree down, the monkey would sur-

vive. Rather than ask how this war must be fought, we might ask: once the standards are

lowered, what would true peace look like? In other words, the nature of poetry and myth

or philosophy and science are really questions of human nature, not just epistemology or

metaphysics.

Such a war also presumes that poetry/mythology on the one hand and philoso-

phy/science on the other can even meet on the same field. Previous attempts to formalize

a truce simply placed poetry and philosophy in a hierarchical relationship, naming poetry

as suzerain and philosophy as sovereign. The background assumption was: poetry and

philosophy are trying to get at the same thing—ἐπιστήµη, scientia, knowledge and the

same kind of knowledge at that. It just so happened that philosophy and the deductive

method did this better. If philosophy eschewed the delightful ornaments of a poetry or a

rhetoric, then that was only because philosophy was the bread of the strong, and poetry

was for the cultural milksop. Many poets even tried their hand at philosophy in defence

of poetry, just the way Plato would have liked—in prose. Works such as The Defense of

Poesie, by Sir Philip Sydney (1554-1586), in which the author places logical demands

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upon poetry and which has been criticized as being not philosophical enough.7 In a simi-

lar vein one could mention A Defence of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822),

peculiar in some respects because his conception of reason is in many respects a simply

mathematical power, and poetry a philosophical one, for the poetical principle (τὸ ποιεῖν,

for Shelley), as Aristotle had thought,8 hits, like philosophy, on the universal.9 Do such

defenses not concede that poetry needs philosophy in a way that philosophy does not

need poetry, and, by extension, again, mythology? How, finally, can the relation of the

two be understood and resolved?

A necessary extension of the question, for the purpose of this essay, is the relation of

myth to philosophy, or really to truth, or meaning. Are myths meaningful, really, or do

they need to be expounded in a philosophical manner in order to achieve real meaning? It

is not the purpose of this essay to attempt an original solution to these vexed questions,

but to compare two historical solutions to them. The first solution is that of the twelfth-

century ‘mythologizing Platonists’, and the second solution is that of Owen Barfield. The

first concerns imaginative texts loosely in the Platonic tradition which were often written

at least partly in verse and had a definitely philosophical aim, although the form of their

exposition was narrative mythology.

II) A Twelfth-Century Answer:

To the Middle Ages the universe was closed and symmetrical, not open and irregular, as it seems to many of our contemporaries, and philosophy was the supreme integrator of the whole, the sum and system of all sciences. Such a degree of coherence and unity was

7 See the critical introduction to the work by Gilbert (1962) 404-6. 8 Poetics: 1451b4-7. ἀλλὰ τούτῳ διαφέρει, τῷ τὸν µὲν τὰ γενόµενα λέγειν, τὸν δὲ οἷα ἂν γένοιτο. διὸ καὶ φιλοσοφώτερον καὶ σπουδαιότερον ποίησις ἱστορίας ἐστίν· ἡ µὲν γὰρ ποίησις µᾶλλον τὰ καθόλου, ἡ δ' ἱστορία τὰ καθ' ἕκαστον λέγει. But the difference is this, that the one [history] describes things that have been, while the other [poetry, describes] what might be. Wherefore poetry is more philosophical and weighty than history; for poetry describes rather the universal, and history the particular. 9 Shelley 1951, 494.

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not achieved before the thirteenth century and Thomas Aquinas; the earlier Middle Ages, possessing only fragments of ancient philosophy, seized upon one aspect or another of this material, with many contradictions and inconsistencies in the process. The twelfth century marked the turning point. Together with the years immediately following, it saw the full recovery of the philosophy and science of Aristotle, as well as the chief Platonic revival of the Middle Ages; the triumph of logic over literature; and the elaboration of scholastic method by Abaelard, Gratian, and Peter Lombard…”10

‘The triumph of logic over literature…’ Haskins sees Plato’s ancient quarrel come to

its decisive moment in the twelfth century, though perhaps he should have said “a tri-

umph” since, the victory is even now not complete, if it ever could be. He also seems to

look on the history of philosophy with something analogous to a nineteenth century no-

tion of biological evolution: a goal-directed, pre-programmed process of cumulative

change, like embryonic development. In this case, one can assume that, because a highly

defined philosophical system did come about in the thirteenth century with Thomas

Aquinas, all philosophical enterprises of the earlier centuries were either more or less

successful attempts to arrive at precisely that kind of goal: Peter Abaelard’s dialectic was

a natural and necessary early stage, while a mythological Cosmographia of Bernardus

Silvestris may be a Platonic monster. Haskins would relegate the works of Alain of Lille

to chapters on Latin Classics, Poetry, and the rise of the University, rather than to cite his

or the Victorines’ (or St. Bernard or Peter Damien’s) more mystical reaction to the incip-

ient scholasticism of the twelfth century as important pages in a chapter on the history of

philosophy.11

And yet there are works of the twelfth century that stand alone as philophical enter-

prises, not parts of a system, as if that is the only, or even the most profitable, way to phi-

losophize, but works of mythic insight and imagination. These cannot be viewed as

10 Haskins 1961, 341-2. 11 For a bird’s eye view and comparison of scholarly evaulation (e.g. Haskins 1961; Leclerq 1960) of the relations in the twelfth century between more monastic and scholastic schools of thought see Colish (2003).

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incomplete in themselves, since they are not mere building blocks of a larger synthesis,

but are, in their author’s conceptions, self-contained artistic and philosophical works.

These myths and the seminal understanding of their conception and purpose germinate

directly in that stream of debate which Plato began in the Republic: what is the function

of myth and poetry? What is it’s worth? How does it relate to philosophy?

As Haskins has pointed out, the twelfth-century knowledge of Plato’s own works was

extremely limited, mostly to Chalcidius’ third century translation of the first fifty-three

chapters of the Timaeus. The only other more directly Platonic works being Aristippus of

Catania’s (ca. 1156) apparently inconsequential versions of the Meno and Phaedo.12

However, one important indirect source of Platonic thought, especially in view of the

question at hand, was Macrobius’ (ca. AD 5th c.) commentary on Cicero’s (106-43 BC)

Somnium Scipionis, the sixth book of his De re publica.

While Macrobius’ Commentary was to become for the medievals an important mine

of classical cosmology, geography, astronomy, and ethical theory,13 it was also a starting

point for seminal discussions about the function of myth and narrative. Macrobius, in his

commentary, begins by a brief comparison of the thrust of the two important dialogues on

the state: the Republic-s of Plato and Cicero. Both dialogues include a tale—a myth, a

fabula—14 about a kind of cosmic vision, Plato’s the Myth of Er, and Cicero’s the Dream

of Scipio, and immediately Macrobius attempts to justify the inclusion of such fabulous

material against Colotes and the Epicureans who rejected, Hegel-like,15 the use of fiction

12 Haskins 1961, 344. 13 Cf. Macrobius (1966), Stahl’s introduction, also Raby 1968. 14 Stock (1972) points out that Macrobius is the first evidence of the identification of the Latin fabula with ‘myth’. 15 St. Thomas Aquinas also took issue with the figurative in philosophical discourse, for he remarks about Plato: “…Plato habuit malum modum docendi. Omnia enim figurate dicit, et per symbola docet: intendens aliud per verba, quam sonent ipsa verba (Plato had a poor manner of teaching. For he says everything fig-

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in philosophical discourse. After remarking that the very word ‘fable’ reveals its own in-

nate falsity, Macrobius proceeds to divide the various types of fable in order to isolate the

one species (I. b. ii. 2, below in bold) that is suitable to philosophical discourse:16

I.Fables: The Very Word Acknwledges their Falsity

a. Delighting the ear only: Petronius’ Satyricon and Apuleius’ Golden Ass b. Encouraging to virtue

i. Both setting and plot fictitious: Aesop ii. Solid foundation of truth, but in fictitious style: Narratio Fabulosa: Hes-

iodic Tales, etc. 1. Presentation of which involves base matters (Cutting off of testi-

cles of Saturn, etc.) 2. Decent and dignified conception of holy truths: This type of

fiction alone is suitable to philosophy.17 Thus Macrobius arrives at the one type of essential falsehood that is suitable to philo-

sophical discourse: clean historical fiction, as it were. In this he seems to contradict him-

self by categorizing the narrationes fabulosae as types of fable. However, if he can

maintain a real distinction between fabulae, on the one hand, and narrationes fabulosae

on the other, he answers both Plato’s concerns about morally reprehensible tales of the

gods, as well as a general philosophical concern that the truth be always in sight. The fas-

cinating thing, however, as Stock points out, is that for twelfth-century Platonists, such as

William of Conches (1090-after 1194), this literary breakdown is no showstopping regu-

lation—it is not an end to the discussion on myth/fabula, it is a “starting point for further

theory and discussion.”18 Dronke (1985) carefully analyses William of Conches’ com-

mentary on Macrobius for its literary principles, and I will rely principally upon his uratively, and teaches through symbols; intending something other than the words themselves express)…. In de anima, I, 8. This statement of Aquinas interestingly echoes William of Conches’ definition of the fabula as ‘omnem illam orationem, in qua verba non sonant hoc, quod habent significare a prima significa-cione (every kind of speech in which the words do not express what they were meant to signify in their original sense). Commentarium in Macrobii I, 2, 7. In Dronke 1985, 68. 16 For the purpose of this essay, I will pass over the relation of the Macrobian treament of fabula to its Cice-ronian source. 17 Macrobius 1966, II, 6-11. 18 1972, 47.

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treatment of William’s commentary, to examine his understsanding of the role and func-

tion of myth precisely in the context of the Platonic tradition, and therefore, however dis-

tantly, an attempt to answer Plato’s question.

William’s Commentarium may be looked at as a sort of dialogue with Macrobius, an

author of such weight that Peter Abelard called him “…ille non mediocris philosophus, et

magni Ciceronis expositor Macrobius…(…that eminent philosopher and interpreter of

Cicero…)”19 In the first instance, William poses a Horatian tertium quid20 between those

tales that were meant for delight and those for moral instruction, namely the tale that

achieves both. In this case, there would be no essential division between delight and in-

struction. Dronke remarks that this is William’s first move in which William, “explicitly

rejects the narrow definition of Cicero [i.e. fabula = impossible fiction] and also goes be-

yond anything stated or implied in Macrobius.”21 This is precisely because William,

“wants fabula to embrace every kind of imaginary narrative —omne illud quod confingi-

tur vel configi potest…”22 The overarching purpose of widening the embrace of fabula is

to allow the widest possible play to philosophy in the realm of imaginative literature. To

this end, William disregards Macrobius’ fraught distinction between fabula and narratio

fabulosa: “…because he is determined to readmit the philosopher to every kind of fabula,

to envisage the possibility of metaphorical reading in a far wider range of fictional mate-

rial than Macrobius allowed.”23 What becomes clear from William’s argumentation is the

assumption that, in one way or another, fabulae have to answer to philosophia. Just as for

19 Introd. ad Theologiam, I, 19, Migne, PL, CLXXVIII, col. 1022. 20 “aut prodesse volunt aut delectare poetae/ aut simul et iucunda et idonea dicere vitae (poets desire either to profit or to please/ or all at once to describe things both delightful and suitable to life).” Horace, De arte poetica, 333-4. 21 Dronke 1985, 16. 22 Ibid., 17. 23 Ibid., 21.

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Plato, in order to be serviceable to humanity, the fabula, the myth, must answer to this

higher authority.

In order to make suitable to philosophy the imaginary material which Macrobius had

discarded as particularly unsuitable, William brings two complimentary schemata into

play: the first is a reinterpretation of Macrobius’ relegation of pleasant tales to the nurse-

ry: Hoc totum fabularum genus quod solas aurium delicias profitetur e sacrario suo in

nutricum cunas sapientiae tractatus eliminat (Philosophical discourse banishes from its

sanctuary, and into the nursery, this complete genus of fable which promises only the de-

light of the ears).24 While Macrobius ‘banishes’ these delightful fables to another realm,

William will reinterpret this ‘banishment’ as a kind of beginning of the same realm, un-

derstanding the cunas nutricum as a kind of first step in philosophical training:

He calls the literary authors ‘children’s nurseries’: for as the nurse nurtures the infant in the cradle on lighter foods, so is the student nurtured on matter from the lighter authors; this is also for the sake of practice, so that he may more easily understand the heavier ones.25

Thus William interprets fabulae quae aurium deliciae profitentur not, as would Mac-

robius, contra philosophiam or ex philosophia, but ad philosophiam, and for this very

reason we cannot say that they only please the ear. Importantly, these tales are justified in

relation to philosophy, and stand as valuable not in their own right, but as instruments of

learning, as the trivium was instrumental to the quadrivium, and all arts instrumental to

theology. Fabulae were the pablum of incipient philosophers.

The second schema which William brought into play to make fabulae of all descrip-

tions amiable and subservient to philosophical interests was the peculiar device of the

24 Comm. I. 2. 8. 25 William of Conches Commentary (2b), in Dronke 1985, 17.

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integumentum, a widespread term in the twelfth century. In a basic sense, integumentum

functioned as allegory: a species of writing in which the intended ‘message’ was actually

something other than what the words themselves convey. For many ancient sources, from

Heraclitus and Plato through to Macrobius it is a commonplace that the truth is primarily

a hidden thing, which must be discovered. For Macrobius, however, as for Martianus Ca-

pella (ca. 5th c.) there is a further complement to this: namely, that important truths must

not be stated baldly and obviously, “nakedly” (nude) they would say, but must be veiled

or clothed. For Martianus, an even more significant medieval auctor than Macrobius, this

clothing is poetical allegory that will allow the Seven Liberal Arts to maintain their digni-

ty in the court of Jupiter,26 clothing maintains propriety, but does not necessarily hide.

For Macrobius, the human appearance of the gods sculpted in marble, and the physical

rites that attended them, and all the secrets of nature were more in the line of veils which

protected these spriritual beings and eternal truths from the eyes of the vulgar.

De dis autem, ut dixi, ceteris et de anima non frustra se, nec ut oblectent, ad fabulosa convertunt, sed quia sciunt inimicam esse naturae apertam nudamque expositionem sui: quae sicut vulgaribus hominum sensibus intellectum sui vario rerum tegmine operi-mentoque subtraxit, ita a prudentibus archana sua voluit per fabulosa tractari. But, as I have said, [Philosophers] turn matters concerning the other gods and the soul in-to fables, and not so, and not with an eye to giving pleasure, but because they know that an open and naked exposition of nature is inimical to nature herself: nature, who just as she has hidden the understanding of herself under diverse clothing and covering, so she has desired that her secrets be treated by the wise under the guise of fables.27

As Macrobius goes on to indicate, only those of strong mind will be able to attain to

these secrets, while the outward clothing, form, ceremony, etc. prevents them from be-

26 De nuptiis philologiae et mercurii, III, 222, 7-13: at haec iocante rictu/ 'nil mentiamur' inquit/ 'et vesti-antur Artes./ an tu gregem sororum/ nudum dabis iugandis,/ et sic petent Tonantis/ et caelitum senatum? (But she, in jesting tone, said: let us by no means lie, and [yet] let the Arts be clothed. Or will you give this tribe of sisters naked to those who will be wed, and will they thus enter the senate of the Thunderer and the heavenly gods?) 27 Commentarium. 1, 2, 17.

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coming common in a most vile sense, as the dream of Numenius and the harlot goddesses

shows.28 William, in his turn accepts this idea of clothing or covering, and that is the fun-

damental significance of integumentum. For William the integumentum is a “fable with a

hidden meaning”,29 one whose interpretation is subject, as with Macrobius, to the philos-

opher. “Le mot même d’«integumentum» suggère l’idée d’un vêtement, d’une espèce de

manteau poétique sous lequel une vérité d’ordre moral ou philosophique est cachée. (The

very word “integumentum” suggests the idea of a piece of clothing, a kind of poetical

cloak under which a truth of the moral or philosophical order is hidden).”30

Any tale conceived as an integumentum will possess both an immediate significance

and a deeper cosmological and/or moral meaning: William gives the example of Bacchus

defending himself against the giants with a donkey’s jaw bone, only to be torn to pieces

and finally return to life three days later. William will read this integumentum:

Bacchus here designates the soul, which fights against the giants, i.e. against the cravings of the body—for the body is called ‘giant’ as being earth begotten—with the jawbone of an ass. An ass is a beast of burden, so that soul must take on a great burden of restraint, to resist the body at least a little. And yet the soul is overcome, for no one is so perfect that at times he does not succumb to transient things and to the body’s rapture.31

The philosopher can thus understand the truth of what, to the ignorant, seems only a

story of a god torn to pieces by giants, and then raised back to life. Macrobius would be

very comfortable with the application of the integumentum thus far.

However, unlike Macrobius, William will not limit his specific theory of ‘covering’

to a certain class of fables; all are open to philosophical interpretation. Whereas Macrobi-

us will impose a strict injunction against the approach of the fabulous to the highest

28 Ibid. 1, 2, 19. 29 Dronke 1968, 23. 30 Jeauneau 1973, 129. 31 Conches. Commentarium (5), in Dronke 1985, 23.

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things (the Highest Good, nous, the First Cause, the Good),32 William will insist that even

the Aesopian fable may have a theological import, since ‘impossible’ forms of fiction

“such as we find in the animal-fables of Aesop’s kind, is also the basis of theological al-

legory.”33 For William of Conches, it seems, all fables are open to the philosopher and

can yield hidden meanings.

William further answers Macrobius’ injunction against the use of base tales for

transmitting philosophical truth in such a way that reveals another aspect of the integu-

mentum that makes it a new species of allegory, the fact that its internal meaning, that

which is covered, determines the philosophical value of the baseness or beauty of its

outward form.

Clearly in William’s mind that beauty and dignity are scarcely separable in practice from the cosmological and moral meanings that he wishes to elicit. Yet he has kept the con-cepts pulcrum et honestum logically distinct from the operations that a philosopher works upon the fables. It is ‘through that adultery’ that the honourable and beautiful meaning emerges—not, or at least not primarily, through the philosopher’s ingenuity. Plato and Macrobius were misled by appearances: the fables about Olympians can have a beauty and dignity and significance intrinsic to them.34

To quote an example from William himself:

Again, Mars is fabled to have been an adulterer and lain adulterously with Venus. This in truth is nothing but the fact that Venus is a benevolent star, Mars a horrible and malevo-lent one, and that when these stars are in conjunction Mars is said to lie with her in adul-tery, for he corrupts her benevolence by his malice.35

For both the literary critic and the philosopher, a question must arise at this point:

what is the relation of the elements of the external and mythic element of the integumen-

tum—plot, structure, symbol, character, etc.—to the internal and philosophical elements?

Is the connection an arbitrary one? Why is a star such as Venus presented as a goddess,

32 Macrobius. Commentarium. 1, 2, 15-16. 33 Dronke 1985, 19. 34 Ibid., 28. 35 Conches. Commentarium (7c), in Dronke 1985, 29.

17

who in turn is portrayed as a human being? One cannot necessarily argue that these re-

semblances and images are governed by propriety alone, since William, in dismissing the

baseness of some myths as nugatory, has mooted the question of appropriateness from

both the mythic and the philosophic point of view.

An answer, or a beginning of an answer, arises in connection with Macrobius’ injunc-

tion, mentioned above, against fables that would treat of the highest things: the Summum

Bonum, the First Cause, Mind, etc. Condign to these matters, fables are not; here the phi-

losopher avails himself, curiously, of analogies and analogical illustrations.36 What is

curious is that Macrobius does not seem to see the essential continuity between allegori-

cal fables on the one hand, and similes and likeness on the other. William, on the other

hand is alive to this continuity. With regard to his sources, William is not limited to Mac-

robius in his discusion of likenesses. William of Conches also wrote a sort of commen-

tary on the Chalcidius’ Latin version of Plato’s Timaeus, in which William would have

been introduced to a hierarchical account of likenesses:

There in the Latin Timaeus he had read that, because we have only the image (imago) of the physical universe to go by, and cannot offer an account of the creator and his creation of the cosmos which would be consistent, evident and unassailable (ratio constans per-spicuaeque et inexpugnabilisi). The best we can hope for is an ‘imagined account, as of an image, the semblance of an account, borrowing an inexact likeness’ (utpote imaginis imaginaria, simulacrum rationis, perfunctoria similudinem mutatur).37

William was thus equipped to see exempla, for instance, not simply as illustrative of

abstract points, but as constitutive of a world of living imagines. Thus there is an ontolog-

ical link between exemplum and imago which allows the world of imagines to perform a

36 “…ad similitudines et exemplae confugiunt.” Macrobius. Commentarium, 1, 2, 14. “…analogies and analogical illustrations” is Dronke’s (1985) translation. Stahl translates, “similes and analogies”, the basic sense, at any rate is ‘likenesses’ whatever it is that constitutes that likeness, of which the widest genus, in an Aristotelian schema would be analogy, of which metaphor a species and simile is a species of metaphor, cf. Αrs Rhetorica Γ. 4. 37 Dronke 1985, 33; Calcidius’ Timaeus 29b-c. 1961.

18

cognitive function with regard to the exempla, and furthermore allows the verbal imagi-

nes of fabulae to perform an associated cognitive function. “This mutable world is not

merely an image of the immutable divine: in a profound sense, there is only one imago.

Every attempt to know the divine wisdom must proceed through it, for it is all we have.

Under these assumptions, analogies and analogical illustrations are not essentially of a

different order from images and fables.” In William’s own words:

But now in the meantime everything is imago, which is far from the truth, and yet it does what it can, namely it turns the mind (in the direction of truth), though it does not lead it to the goal. Thus it is said the God is fire, and this is a manifestly acceptable figura, and yet God isnot comparable to the nature of fire, for fire is corporeal and God is not. But there is another, incorporeal nature that is said to be nearer to God, according to which a sublime likeness to God is formed for us when tiis said, God is spririt, wisdom reason, love, for our own soul is spirit, and an angel is spirit, and in that spirit dwell reason, wis-dom and love .. [sic] And yet we do not know how far this is from the truth, which is of an unfathomable perfection. But in such a comparison (collatio), one term is eternal, the other temporal; the one measureless, the other fathomable; the one always unchanging, the other mutable, And yet, becuae nothing else can be said, this is said, lest nothing should be said at all, for as yet we cannot grasp the truth itself, until figura passes and the truth is manifestly open. So now figurae remain, so that intimations (signa) of the truth may be accepted as it were in place of the truth, till that comes which is complete truth in itself.38

It is clear from the preceding text that William sees the both an essential continuity

and discontinuity between the symbols and images that this world presents in reflecting

the immutable divine order. Fabulae partake of this order of imagery, and work as an ex-

ternal covering which both conceals and reveals the naked truth of reality—which could

be scientific, moral, or theological—they are integumenta. Because of this double opera-

tion of concealment and revelation, William would have full scope to make use of both

seemly and unseemly fables, pace Macrobius.

What fabulae, integumenta, myths—of all kinds—are and do according to William of

Conches is both reveal and conceal the truth: the truth is hidden from vulgar eyes to pre- 38 In Dronke, 35.

19

vent it from becoming common. Perplexingly, they also point to the truth through that

which constitutes their likeness to the exemplum, though, especially in terms of the high-

est realities (such as the mystery of the Trinity) they can never attain to that full truth: we

still live in the mode of imagines and not in the realm of full truth. Fabulae, integumenta,

myths, are thus part of the very mode of this present existence. Because in the first in-

stance, they relie on likenesses which are at the same time completely distinct from that

which they represent, these integumenta are of an analogical order: ‘omnem illam ora-

tionem, in qua verba non sonant hoc, quod habent significare a prima significacione

(every kind of speech in which the words do not express what they were meant to signify

in their original sense).39 Because of the underlying ground of a world of imagines, all

fabulae, whether ‘historial’ or ‘fabulous’, whether noble or base, all partake of the same

fundamental order. Even the Incarnation of Christ partakes of this order and is no less a

true birth of God in time, but is the most perfect imago of the eternal world.40 Myth, then,

is essential to the very order of human communication, at least in the present dispensa-

tion. However, myths reveal an aspect of a fundamental divide in the social state of hu-

manity, of whom some (philosophers) are privy to the truth, while the rest of mankind

live at the level of the clothed imago.

There remain some persistent questions which may not have concerned Willliam, or

Dronke, upon whose analysis this very summary, and perhaps insufficiently nuanced

treatment of William’s thought, has been based: what is the origin of myths and fables,

i.e., the ones we already possess? Is there a purpose to the continual fabrication of new

myths and integumenta, or is the philosopher’s business simply to mine existing ones? 39 Commentarium in Macrobii I, 2, 7. In Dronke, 68. 40 Donke, 35.

20

I.e. are there new aspects of truth which when uncovered, must be recovered with integ-

umenta in order to be fittingly presented to the world of minds? If the mythic and poetic

elements, or outer layer of the integument bears a natural resemblance to the inner, then,

are some mythic elements more fitting than others, or given the dual purpose of conceal-

ing and revealing, is any image fair game, even when it does not seem to point to the in-

ner at all, or is imagery really a case of an Anaxagorean “all in all”? Since William

defines fabulae, basically, as “words the presentation of whose sense is other than their

original”, how does language, and the origin of language, affect this theory? Is it perfect-

ly consistent, for instance, with an Augustinian semiotic, and is language completely ar-

bitrary? Does the mythic element lie primarily, or only, in mythic ‘plot’?

III) A Twentieth Century Answer

To questions such as these last, Owen Barfield (1898-1997) focuses a more intense

ray of interest. In his Poetic Diction,41 Barfield begins with the question of what kind of

effect poetry has on the mind, and what is the cause of that effect. His answers have that

breath of clarity and simplicity which are the marks both of beauty and of genius, when

our own thought returns to us “with a certain alien majesty”, slightly to misquote Emer-

son.42 Poetry, (by which term Barfield, like Aristotle, does not mean simply ‘metrical

speech’, but, unlike Aristotle and like Coleridge, “‘the best words in the best order;’ in

other words, it is ‘the best language,’”)43 has effects proper to itself, which he terms

‘pleasure’ and ‘knowledge’. Poetry may produce a sensual pleasure by means of its

41 1973, but first appeared in 1928. 42 Emerson 1888, 52. 43 Barfield 1973, 58.

21

schemes: the ear, for instance, delights to catch a rhyme, and to float along on a spell-cast

of rhythm. It is not this particular species of pleasure, however, which Barfield wishes to

adumbrate, but a species of intellectual pleasure in the realm of the ‘aesthetic imagina-

tion’. He describes this pleasure occurring in a ‘felt change of consciousness’. Barfield

gives the example of how the Pidgin phrase for ‘steamer” can open a new world of per-

ception:

Now when I read the words ‘thlee-piecee bamboo, two-piecee puff-puff, walk-along-inside, no-can-see’, I am for a moment transported into a totally different kind of con-sciousness. I see the steamer, not through my own eyes, but through the eyes of a primi-tive South-Sea Islander. His experience, his meaning, is quite different from mine, for it is the product of quite different concepts. This he reveals by the choice of his words; and the result is that, for the moment, I shed Western civilization like an old garment and be-hold my steamer in a new and strange light.44

This example is minimally poetic in a conventional sense, but for that very reason it

emphasizes the important intellectual element that Barfield discovers as an effect of poet-

ry, one that lies not primarily in poetic convention, but in the ability to provide aesthetic

pleasure through an ‘expansion of consciousness’. Barfield calls this expansion of con-

sciousness ‘knowledge’, and defines it as a power to perceive new, real, and meaningful

relations in the world of experience. The significance of this ‘knowledge’ (and of the im-

aginative and memorative) to all human experience Barfield illustrates in a simple

thought experiment:

Let the reader imagine for a moment that he is standing in the midst of a normal and fa-miliar environment—houses, trees, grass, sky, etc.—when, suddenly, he is deprived by some supernatural stroke of every vestige of memory—and not only memory, but also of all those assimilated, forgotten experiences, which comprise his power of recognition. He is asked to assume that, in spite of this, he still retains the full measure of his cognitive faculty as an adult. It will appear, I think, that for the first few moments his conscious-ness—if it can bear that name—will be deprived not merely of all thought, but even of all perception, as we ordinarily understand the word…45

44 Ibid. 49. 45 Ibid., 56.

22

It is these inner resources, those “which comprise the power of recognition” that poet-

ry is able to expand, by bringing new force and depth to the power of recognition. The

chief linguistic instruments of this expansion are metaphor and simile:

“the absorption of this metaphor into my imagination has enabled me to bring more than I ever could before. It has created something in me, a faculty or part of a faculty, enabling me to observe what I could not hitherto observe. This ability to recognize significant re-semblances and analogies, considered as an action, I shall call knowledge; considered as a state, and apart from the effort by which it is imparted and acquired, I shall call it wis-dom.”46

Central, therefore to Barfield’s discussion, since they are the instruments that bring

about this knowledge and wisdom, is the concept of metaphor. For Barfield, metaphor is

no mere rhetorical or poetical ornament, though it could be reduced to this, it is rather,

tied to the very origin and primitive function of language.

There is an old debate about the origin of language, whether words, for instance are

essentially univocal in origin, logical constructs, or whether they are metaphori-

cal/analogical; e.g. when one looks in an etymological dictionary under ‘spirit’ and finds

that it originally meant ‘breath’, and then came to mean ‘life’ or ‘soul’ through a meta-

phorical extention. The one camp will heartily agree with the conslusions of the etymo-

logical dictionary, and the second will insist that a given term originally signified both

distinct concepts since language is originally metaphorical.

To this debate Barfield proposes a third alternative.47 We might say, instead, that he

proposes a second alternative, since both the univocal/logical and the metaphori-

cal/analogical theories ultimately amount to the same thing: since to respect the definition

of metaphor, as a carrying over from one to another, one must logically posit a pre-

46 Ibid., 55. 47 His full discussion of this question is contained in chapters III and IV, 60-92.

23

metaphorical time in which all terms, or a given term, were univocal and then artificially

stretched in meaning to include a metaphorical significance. These theories differ really

only in value judgement, one seeing a progressive re-purification of language through

analysis and definition, the other seeing an eventual impoverishment of language through

analysis and definition. For Barfield the only way to read the consistent linguistic trend of

verbal analysis as we move forward in time and linguistic synthesis as we move back-

ward, is to arrive at something other than a logical or a metaphorical origin of language;

it is to arrive at a period of more comprehensive linguistic unities, representative of ob-

jects that were perceived as unities, before they were perceived as distinct. For example

‘spirit’ originally meant neither “breath” nor “life” nor “spirit”, but something that com-

prised all three without a perceived distinction. Once a distinction was intellectually rec-

ognized between these realities, the same word was perhaps used in the same sense, but

as time wore on, new words were used to differentiate for the logical purpose of clarity.

Metaphor, however, has the power to re-propose these original perceptual unities to

the one who receives and assimilates it. Thus, a phrase such as “he breathed forth his

soul,” strikes one as meaningful, since through the metaphor an original perceptual unity

is re-proposed:

This is the answer. It is these ‘footsteps of nature’ whose noise we hear alike in primitive language and in the finest metaphors of the poets. Men do not invent those mysterious re-lations between separate external objects, and between objects and feelings or ideas, which it is the function of poetry to reveal. These relations exist independently, not in-deed of Thought, but of any individual thinker. And according to whether the footsteps are echoed in primitive language or, later on, in the made metaphors of poets, we hear them after a different fashion and for different reasons. The language of primitive men reports them as direct perceptual experience. The speaker has observed a unity, and is not therefore himself conscious of relation. But we, in the development of consciousness, have lost the power to see this one as one. Our sophistication, like Odin’s, has cost us an eye; and now it is the language of poets, in so far as they create true metaphors, which must restore this unity conceptually, after it has been lost from perception. Thus, the ‘be-fore-unapprehended’ relationships of which Shelley spoke, are in a sense ‘forgotten’ rela-

24

tionships. For though they were never yet apprehended, they were at one time seen. And imagination can see them again.

It must be said, however, that not all metaphors that one finds in poetry or any form

of speech are capable of prompting this expanse of consciousness. Barfield will distin-

guish bewteen ‘true metaphors’ and ‘false’:

Reality, once self-evident, and therefore not conceptually experienced, but which can now only be reached by an effort of the individual mind—this is what is contained in a true poetic metaphor; and every metaphor it ‘true’ only in so far as it contains such a real-ity or hints at it. The world, like Dionysus, is torn to pieces by pure intellect; but the poet is Zeus; he has swallowed the heart of the world; and he can reproduce it as a living body.48

We can thus discard as merely ornamental metaphors such as that mentioned by C.S.

Lewis, a friend of Barfield’s and deeply influenced by the theory of Poetic Diction, in

response to T.S. Eliot’s comparison of a sky to an etherized patient:49

I am so coarse, the things the poets see Are obstinately invisible to me. For twenty years I’ve stared my level best To see if evening–any evening–would suggest A patient etherized upon a table; In vain. I simply wasn’t able.…50

As support for his theory of original perceptual unity, Barfield again looks backwards

in time and sees that the farther back one goes, the more man becomes ‘mythic’, that is,

the greater the extent to which myth plays a shaping role in human culture. As with his

analysis of those arguments which see an ever greater degree of metaphor go back to a

period suddenly without metaphor, Barfield points to the inconsistency of a history which

sees an ever greater preponderance of myth suddenly give way before the dawn of history

to a pre-mythical and logico-scientific man:

“The remoter ancestors of Homer, we are given to understand, observing that it was dark-er in winter than in summer, immediately decided that there must be some ‘cause’ for this

48 Ibid., 88. 49 Eliot 1954, 11. 50 Lewis 1964. Excerpt from “A Confession.”

25

‘phenomenon’, and had no difficulty in tossing off the ‘theory’ of, say, Demeter and Per-sephone, to account for it. A good name for this kind of banality—the fruit, as it is, of projecting post-logical thoughts back into a pre-logical age [sic]—would perhaps be ‘Logomorphism’.

Barfield proposes another way to understand the origin of myths, such as that of De-

meter and Persephone:

Now by our definition of a ‘true metaphor’, there should be some older, undivided ‘meaning’ from which all these logically disconnected, but poetically connected ideas have sprung. And in the beautiful myth of Demeter and Persephone we find precisely such a meaning. In the myth of Demeter the ideas of waking and sleeping, of summer and winter, of life and death, of mortality and immortality are all lost in one pervasive mean-ing. This is why so many theories are brought forward to account for the myths, The nar-turalist is right when he conects the myth with the phenomena of nature, but wrong if he deduces it solely from these. The psycho-analyst is right when he connects the myth with ‘inner’ (as we now call them) experiences, but wrong if he deduces it solely from these.

And finally, most forcefully he adds:

Mythology is the ghost of concrete meaning. Connections between discrete phenomena, connections which are now apprehended as metaphor, were once perceived as immediate realities. As such the poet strives, by his own efforts, to see them, and to make others see them, again.

Thus the mythological inheritance is a treasure-house of lost perceptions which can

be accessed by the poet and reforged in the furnace of what Barfield, following Cole-

ridge, calls the ‘secondary imagination’—that creative, unitive, and poetic force. The de-

finitive poetic creations, those cognitive mechanisms which give privileged access to the

lost realm of perceptions, are the metaphor and simile, which in turn are the lifeblood of

the myth. But myth and metaphor will tend to break down under the weight of the opera-

tions of logico-scientific analyses which exert a force on human thought opposite to that

of poetry. The principle of definition continually restricts meaning; logical argumenta-

tion, to eradicate quibbles, has perpetual need of the terminological mint: every new dis-

tinction, if it is to be maintained either requires a new word, or bends the course of a

word’s history to its present purposes. The Oxford English Dictionary affords endless

26

examples of how words subtly change to suit their present circumstances. Thus the poetic

principle or the logical principle could be priviliged in a given system, but for Barfield,

they are complimentary. The poetic principle tends to the creation of poetry, while the

logical principle is necessary to the appreciation of poetry, since: “The absolute rational

principle is that which makes conscious of poetry but cannot create it; the absolute poetic

principle is that which creates poetry but cannot make conscious of it.”51 The poetic met-

aphor provides an experience of strangeness, a new perception, that awakens the power to

see the world anew through the faculty of that perception. However, one problem or issue

that Barfield’s theory faces is that, if the various experiences of men follow a principle of

reducing to original unitites, then the first speaker must have begun language with a sin-

gle word that expressed one all-encompassing experience. This, in fact, is the principle

from which J.R.R. Tolkien works in the linguistico-mythic framework of his Silmarillion,

all subsequent words and experience in the history of the elves relate to and derive from a

primal experience of the light of the stars.52

IV) Points of Convergence and Divergence

The historical relationship between William of Conches and Owen Barfield is a mat-

ter for study. Conches, obviously, can have had no relationship to Barfield, but Barfield

was evidently familiar with such twelfth-century authors as Chretien de Troyes, Jean de

Hanville, Alain de Lille, and more importantly when considering theories of integumenta,

51 Barfield 1973, 103. 52 For a fascinating study of Tolkien’s principles in this regard and their relation to Barfield’s theories, see Flieger 2002.

27

Bernardus Silvestris.53 It is thus a definite question to what extent twelfth-century think-

ers exercised any influence with regard to allegorical and metaphorical theory. That ques-

tion aside, and viewing their respective theories in their own light, it is possible to point

to various areas of overlap and similarity, as well as profound and poetentially irreconcil-

able differences.

On the side of similarity, there is a happy consensus that the imagination, in both its

perceptive and creative roles, has a decidedly cognitive role and is an essential faculty

with regard to the discovery of truth. For William, the imagination is directed by the

mythological imagery toward the image, which, at heart, bears an essential likeness to the

truth of things; in the highest matters this image falls short (but so will all human facul-

ties) of a direct experience of truth. For Barfield, the myth is a treasure-house of lost hu-

man perceptions, true ways of experiencing reality that the poet can recast and then re-

propose to our conceptual selves so that we recover or expand an essential cognitive

power which he calls ‘knowledge.’ Myths, for both authors, are essentially true, and as

long as the association of the mythic symbolism with truth is maintained in a genuine

correspondence, they are even essential for man.

Furthermore, for both thinkers it would seem that the way toward the truth for man

will always be in the direction of making myths, or making metaphors at the very least,

thus the poetic art as an ongoing practice is essential to the continual discovery or presen-

tation of the truth. For William, every naked truth must be clothed in the metaphorical

integumentum which will both shield it’s nature from the eyes of the vulgar. For Barfield,

the poet can discover, either through his own experience or through exposure to myth,

and represent the perceptions that contemporary humanity has lost. Also, a certain kind of 53 Cf. Barfield, The Rediscovery of Allegory (I) 1977.

28

education would be necessary in both case to profit from mythology/poetry; either a phil-

osophical education or a great deal of exposure to poetry along with an appropriate way

of appreciating it—exactly the sort of education almost never provided today. In both

thinkers there is an ultimate complementarity between the principles of rational thought

of metaphorical, mythic thought.

There are probably many other points of similarity between the two thinkers, but the

above strike me as the most significant. Nevertheless, there are important differences: for

William, myth and the metaphor is properly the domain of the philosopher, both, seem-

ingly in terms of creation, since the myth is a covering of a philosophical or scientific

truth which could be the possession of the philosopher alone, and must be the fruit of ab-

stract thinking. For Barfield, rather, the poet experience the awakening of a perception

and sees the world in a new way, though not analytically, but relationally.54 To a certain

extent the philosopher enters in to this cycle of creation of and awakening by poetry,

since the act of appreciation itself, that of becoming conscious of poetry (the way that

Homer’s first audience were probably not (is a rational and thus more properly philo-

sophical act).

William of Conches would not have agreed with a mytho-metaphorical theory of the

origin of language and poetry, for him the origin of the myth resides with the philoso-

pher. Whereas, for Barfield, who is likely far more conscious of the depth and develop-

ment of literary history, this could not be the case; the forward and backward tendencies

of literature point in opposite directions—the past to more metaphor, the future to more

prosaic language. The history of written language bears this timeline out: poetry precedes

prose according to the best evidence. Thus the poet must precede the philosopher, who 54 Barfield 1973, 92.

29

comes on the stage later and reacts to poetry, scandalized by its existence. For William of

Conches the mythical metaphor is intended both to hide and reveal the truth, while for

Barfield, metaphor is entirely revelatory.

A most interesting coincidence, if it is a coincidence—one that the attentive reader

will have caught above in this essay—is that both authors make use of the myth of Dio-

nysus being torn apart by the giants in order to illustrate a particular meaning, in both au-

thors a meaning concerned with the human condition. For William of Conches, Dionysus

is the soul being torn apart by the desires of the body; for Barfield, Dionysus represents

the original unitary human perceptions of the world which are torn apart by the giants of

pure analytical intellect.

V) Summary Conclusion

Does either thinker succeed in providing a cogent answer to Plato’s challenge? In a sense

the common answer of both these theorists demonstrate that myth and poetry stimulate

cognitive functions that are essential to the human quest for knowledge and true percep-

tion. Plato, after all, most often compared knowledge to perception, to sight, and his

analogy of the Cave results in a final vision of the Good Itself. If it could be shown that

the mythological poetry of Homer (even the so-called base tales) adduced to that vision,

as William of Conches thought they could (since at their core they could point towards

even the highest and most sacred truths) then Plato, confessedly, would have admitted

that poetry was indeed the best and truest thing. Furthermore, in Plato’s Timaeus, Critias

30

and elsewhere there are indications that man’s original perceptions and understandings

are more divine and more true, but become corrupted through improper education; in this

sense, Barfield’s theory, with an understanding of myth as a return to primitive percep-

tions which arrived more clearly at the unitive relationships of reality that are stored in a

treasure-house of myth, would have satisfied our wise Athenian. Not only that, the con-

commitant and bewitching pleasure that poetry and mythology exercise is only the sign

of an expansion of intellectual knowledge, and not merely a hedonistic exultation in sen-

sual pleasure: poetry is not simply the fodder of that black, bulgey-eyed horse of the sen-

sual appetite. With their essentially cognitive dimensions, I think that Plato would have

found both of these approaches to myth more satisfying than Aristotle’s theory of cathar-

sis, which orphans myth and poetry on the level of violent emotion.

31

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