Subjective Experience in Allegorical Worlds: Four Old French Literary Examples

Abstract

The phenomenological epoche formulated by Edmund Husserl is fundamental to his egological philosophy. Allegory as a literary genre in the middle ages can be elucidated by a phenomenological approach which focuses particularly on the epoche. This study will consider three types of “bracketing” which are essential to the entire understanding of the transcendental ego, and discuss them in light of allegorical literature, specifically, four Old French texts from the thirteenth century: Raoul de Houdan’s Dream of Hell, 1224, Huon de Méry’s Tournament of the Antichrist, 1234, Guillaume de Lorris’ Romance of the Rose, 1230, and Jean de Meun’s continuation or conclusion of the same, 1270. First, I will discuss bracketing the external world in order to focus on the perceptions of the conscious ego. Second, I will discuss the bracketing of the ego itself, the “je” or “I” of allegory. Thirdly, I will discuss the notion of intersubjectivity and bracketing objects in experience.