In its structure, then, Boethius' work is an
anagogic eikon which formally depicts its content.
"La Dame a Lincorne" approaches the unicorn theme from the prophetic,
anagogic end of this spectrum:
A Counterreformation interpretation of this scheme would most likely replace the dialectic of presence-absence with dialectical oppositions on a moral, or
anagogic, trajectory: forgiveness-sin, heaven-hell, purgatory-redemption, death-rebirth, etc.
Finally, even his juxtaposition of Bishop's sixpoems--in the way it regains the wholeness of different modes ofexperience--is not unlike the unity of Dante's four levels ofexperience (the exemplar of teleologically centered literature):literal, historic, allegoric, and
anagogic. Related to this are theperceptions of the wholeness of human experience revealed inCarter's literary allusions and descriptions of the naturalhabitats that have inspired his music.
Confusion: where Cohen will emphasize the transcendent possibilities of translation understood as an abandonment of one's language and one's accustomed "relations of ruling" (Goddard 89) in the name of identification with some absolute outside (translation as
anagogic metaphor), Glover will problematize such transcendence, presenting translation as inevitably ironic, paradoxical, misplaced (translation as metaphor still, but verging on catachresis, disjuncture): "I have become a metaphor or a joke," Elle opines, "a piece of language sliding from one state into another [...].
(19) Central to the stability of interpretation in medieval culture was the theory of exegesis, according to which the Scripture had four senses: historical, tropological (moral), typological, and
anagogic. Patristic culture explored secular writings for these four senses.
The fact that medieval thinkers considered intellectual activity to be
anagogic, that is, something that brings us toward a higher being, enlightenment, etc., already helps us to understand, on the one hand, Dante's choice and, on the other, why the opposition to Cavalcanti's position reveals not only an alternative language but also an alternative purpose.
Blake's use and advocacy of the linear style and attention to the
anagogic principles of medieval art aligns him with the illustrator of Piers Plowman.
anagogic. Seeing is believing for a visionary allowed to touch a strong