In the twelfth century there are obvious hierarchies in almost all phases of life and thought, even a moral hierarchy: reason over sensuality.

"The hierarchy of social organization was a fruitful source of analogy in thought and expression; inevitably one hierarchy suggested all the others and all could be thought of as illustrative of a body of related principles" (Robertson).

"The medieval writer reflected a reality outside of himself. The accepted technique involved the use of an enigmatical arrangement of visible things which would serve to call attention to invisible truth" (Robertson).

Late Medieval Style:

Romanesque: The Romanesque style combines classical materials with European. The rise of Romanesque art marks the beginning of the tradition in which Chaucer worked. In the juxtaposition of pagan and Christian elements there is no "reconciliation of opposites" (Abrams). They simply reveal the assumption that the wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Romans was fulfilled in much the same way that the wisdom of the Hebrews was fulfilled.

Gothic: "In the twelfth century a tendency developed toward the systematic organization of materials of every kind, and to make this new organization explicit and functional in the attitudes and lives of the people. More practical forms of theology are introduced as the society seeks to organize itself in accordance with its own intellectual traditions and to meet the needs of a steadily growing population. The theme of appearance and reality is applied to the secular. External knighthood becomes a figure for internal knighthood, and without the internal the external is vain and empty. The ideals of knighthood are organized into a system and developed in ritual form to make them effective. The change that takes place in the fourteenth century does not represent a change in direction but rather an intensification of the tendency to make the new intellectual and spiritual organization explicit and functional in the attitudes and lives of the people. This resulted in over-elaboration and obscuring of the basis for ritual" (Robertson).

The chief difference between Medieval and Romantic poets: "For romantics and modern post-romantics there is a dialectic, a tension between opposites that is held to be necessary for creation, life itself, but for medieval man there was desire to reduce contrasts to a state of repose within the set degrees of a hierarchy" (Abrams).

Post-romantic literary criticism interprets all poetry as romantic, envisioning the artist as a man opposed to the conventions of his society, and has tended to see Renaissance and Medieval artists as rebels, too, throwing off the restraints of the Medieval church, but not so. Rebelliousness in the middle ages was usually within the limits of the hierarchical ideal (Abrams).

In Beowulf, for instance, conflict between good and evil is not internalized as it would be if it were a romantic poem.

"The romantic is no mirror of traditional values, but an apostle of freedom; this is the object of his quest and the goal of his expression. For the romantic, artistic expression is a search for self-expression. In medieval literature there is a system of convention which is oblivious to "the cry of the Heart." Medieval artistic expression involved subordination of the artist's personality to the needs of his patron. The dialectic, polarity or duality or dichotomy we project on the medieval man between sacred and profane, paganism (classical and primitive mythology) and Christianity is not a reality for a medieval writer. There was a 'proper' use for classical mythology, no being torn between the fascination for the untrammeled freedoms of his pagan inheritance and the confining bonds of Christian morality" (Abrams).

According to Augustine, figurative expression was divinely ordained to overcome pride by work, and to prevent the mind from disdaining a thing too easily grasped.

Augustine distinguishes between those things which are to be used and those things which are to be enjoyed. A work of art should thus lead us to appreciate the conception of the artist, and this, like the beauty of nature itself, should lead us to a contemplation of the immutable beauty which is its source.

"Medieval man had not yet developed a general consensus of the limits of the 'holy'; nor had they the dramatic opposition between spirit and flesh. Contrasts were actually elements of the hierarchy. According to Augustine the warfare of spirit and flesh is a natural state but arises from sin in which the ordered hierarchy of created nature is disturbed. It does not involve two mighty opposites but a superior being and an inferior being whose struggle is like lord and vassal, a husband and disobedient wife. Both elements in hierarchy are good and useful" (Robertson).

D. W. Robertson. A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives. Princeton: Princeton U P, 1962.

M.H. Abrams. The Mirror and the Lamp.