Reading

Abstract

Focused on canto I of Inferno and the frame narrative of the Vita Nova, this essay examines the medieval cultural traditions and techniques involved in careful reading. These derive from two bodies of traditional education, ancient Greco-Roman and early Judeo-Christian. These were enhanced by reforms from the twelfth century, many disseminated from the abbey of St Victor by Augustinians and other monastic orders, and later by friars including St Bonaventure. Reading, remembering, and imagining are interdependent activities in the practices of contemplative thinking. Such reading has three characteristics. It is forcefully engaged and intense, not detached and objective. It is frequent, in the sense of being often re-visited, for creative meditation begins with something familiar and expands on it. And it is profoundly social. Medieval meditational reading is a set of continuing conversations, not intended to close off interpretation but to stimulate fruitful reflection and contemplation.