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Introduction

Toward the end of The Assembly of Gods*See Appendix I for a brief synopsis of the poem and information regarding manuscripts, authorship and date, and the title., the dreamer, now awake and discussing what he has seen and why he recorded it, says, “Were hit dreme or vysioñ, for your owñ wele, / All that shall hit rede, here rad, or se, / Take theof the best & let the worst be—” (2068-70). The narrator extends his exhortation not only to all who read or hear the account, but also to all who see it. This statement raises fundamental questions about the nature of the poem. Does the poet expect that there are there those who will experience this dream or vision for themselves? Is the poem intended for some kind of performance that would allow people to see the poet’s account of the vision? Is the poem intended to be visually descriptive enough that people who read or listen should be able to see the pictures that the poet paints with his words? Was the text meant to be illustrated? Or did the poet have trouble finding a rhyme for be?

A brief reading of the poem and of the critical responses to it*For an overview of the critical response to the poem see Appendix II could provide support for any of these interpretations. In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of the poem is the way that it incorporates a wide variety of popular medieval forms without giving full treatment to any of those forms. The work is at once a personification allegory in which most of the characters have the same personality, a morality play with limited dramatic action, a literary picture with few extended descriptions, a didactic Christian treatise that gives equal time to pagan deities, and a poem of “distressing metrical irregularity” (Klaber 117). Its elements are conventional but it does not seem to give full treatment to any of the conventions, and it combines conventions in ways that are often quite original. The complexity, or confusedness, of these elements has lead most critics of the work to focus their attention on individual elements of the poem and neglect its main themes.

The Assembly of Gods is about the accord of reason and sensuality. The poet openly declares this theme in the first stanza of the poem and later introduces Reason and Sensuality as characters to develop the theme. Under its surface, the poem focuses more specifically on the vital role of reason and sensuality in the proper understanding of allegory. It explains the need for these two elements to work together in an appropriate way and suggests that the proper use of reason and sensuality in the interpretation of allegory can help prepare the soul for death and judgement. The poet uses popular literary, visual and dramatic allegorical motifs, with a special emphasis on allegories of death, in a way that emphasizes the accord of reason and sensuality and reminds readers that in order to “take theof the best & let the worst be,” reason and sensuality must work together.

But the poem goes beyond explaining the principles of allegorical interpretation. It leads its readers through the process of interpretation as they are invited, by statements from characters and the irregularities of the narrative, to look beyond the sensual elements of the poem and, with the help of their own reason, to bring order and meaning to the poem’s disparate elements. The surface of The Assembly of Gods is so littered with fragments of other works that the poem seems to lose focus and become what critics have considered it, a shallow collection of common images. But this is a poem about allegory, about the process of reading an allegory, a process which requires looking beyond the surface to find a higher and more significant meaning. The Assembly of Gods is an allegory about allegory. The irregularity of its surface elements emphasizes the unreliability of surface meaning and forces the reader to look beyond these elements to find unity and lasting meaning. The individual elements of the poem are interesting and distracting, but the poem constantly reminds the reader, directly and through its inconsistencies, that the senses, and the immediate meaning they provide can be deceptive and unreliable. It emphatically invites the reader to look beyond its irregular poetry and the jumble of allegorical motifs, and yet through the years critics of the poem have complained about its imperfect skin, never accepting the invitation to look beneath it. The Assembly of Gods posits that to understand an allegory and find a significance beyond the literal level, one must apply reason to the information provided by the senses. It explains the principle, provides popular examples, and presents itself as support for its own argument.

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Introduction

Chapter 1
a. Reason and Sensuality in Medieval Literature
b. Reason and Sensuality in The Assembly of Gods

Chapter 2
a. Reason, Sensuality and Allegory
b. Reason, Sensuality and Allegory in The Assembly of Gods

Chapter 3: Literary, Visual and Dramatic Allegories
a. Literary
b. Visual
c. Dramatic

Chapter 4: Death and the accord of Reason and Sensuality
a. The Allegory of Death
b. The Accord of Reason and Sensuality in Death

Conclusion

Appendix 1
a. The Poem
b. Authorship and Date
c. Manuscripts
d. Title

Appendix 2: Critical response to The Assembly of Gods

Works Cited

Introduction

Contents