Reading: (1) Plotinus, “On the Intellectual Beauty,” paragraphs 1–3 (CT, 100–101)
      (2) Saint Thomas Aquinas, from “The Nature and Domain of Sacred Doctrine” (CT, 117–119)
      (3) Dante Alighieri, from The Banquet and Letter to Can Grande (CT, 120–122)
      (4) Giovanni Boccaccio, from Life of Dante and Genealogy of the Gentile Gods (CT, 124–133)

      The reading assignment this time does not comprise a great number of pages, but the pages that it does comprise are divided among several different sources, extending over a period of more than a thousand years. The excerpt from Plotinus is included as the source of a classic inversion of Platonic thought, according to which products of mimetic art stand, at least in certain respects, closer to the original forms or ideas of things than do ordinary corporeal things, rather than further away, as Plato claimed. The other three readings are included for their relevance to the topic of the reception and propagation of ancient pagan literary traditions within Christian Europe.

      Writing question—option 1: How does Boccaccio rebut the charge that poets are liars (Genealogy of the Gentile Gods, IV.xiii)? (Be sure to spell “Boccaccio” correctly: both C’s are double.)

      Option 2: Invent your own question concerning any of the readings, and answer it; or use one of the discussion questions below.

      Questions for thought and discussion:
      1. In what respect or respects do products of imitative art, according to Plotinus, stand closer to the ideas than do ordinary corporeal things?
      2. How does Thomas Aquinas distinguish among (i) the historical, (ii) the allegorical, (iii) the moral, and (iv) the anagogical senses of a text?
      3. How does Dante’s distinction between the literal and the allegorical compare with Thomas’s fourfold classification?
      4. To what extent could either Thomas’s or Dante’s scheme be applied to literature that is without theological pretensions?
      5. Boccaccio devotes a chapter to “the Difference between Poetry and Theology.” Why does he even think that they are comparable? And what is the difference?
      6. What, according to Boccaccio, is the source of the value of poetry?