[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-1-en-105":3,"doc-seo-199028-105":53,"doc-detail-199028-en":126},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49],{"id":8,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":11,"show_sort_weight":12,"slug":13},11,1,"Template","Presentations",90,"presentations",{"id":15,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":16,"show_sort_weight":17,"slug":18},12,"Resumes",80,"resumes",{"id":20,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":21,"show_sort_weight":22,"slug":23},14,"Invoices",70,"invoices",{"id":25,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":26,"show_sort_weight":27,"slug":28},15,"Posters",60,"posters",{"id":30,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":31,"show_sort_weight":32,"slug":33},16,"Social Media",50,"social-media",{"id":35,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":36,"show_sort_weight":37,"slug":38},17,"Forms",40,"forms",{"id":40,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":41,"show_sort_weight":42,"slug":43},18,"Letters",30,"letters",{"id":45,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":46,"show_sort_weight":47,"slug":48},21,"Paper Templates",5,"papers-templates",{"id":50,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":51,"show_sort_weight":4,"slug":52},158,"General","general-158",{"code":4,"msg":54,"data":55},"ok",{"site_id":56,"language":57,"slug":58,"title":59,"keywords":60,"description":61,"schema_data":62,"social_meta":119,"head_meta":121,"extra_data":123,"updated_unix":125},105,"en","florilegium-vol-22-academic-article","Florilegium - vol. 22 - academic article","","The study examines Alan of Lille’s De planctu Naturae in relation to medieval Christian exegesis and the problem of reading pagan erotic—especially homoerotic—material allegorically. It argues that interpretive practices attempt to evacuate literal sex by converting it into figural meaning, yet this process produces a discursive category of sodomy and reflects exegetical dysfunction back onto the reader. The work further reviews recent scholarship on Alan, including approaches that read rhetorical excess as self-reflexive while reassessing concerns about linguistic abuse versus theological use.",{"@graph":63,"@context":118},[64,80,101],{"@type":65,"itemListElement":66},"BreadcrumbList",[67,71,74,77],{"item":68,"name":69,"@type":70,"position":9},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":72,"name":10,"@type":70,"position":73},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/",2,{"item":75,"name":11,"@type":70,"position":76},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/presentations/",3,{"item":78,"name":59,"@type":70,"position":79},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/florilegium-vol-22-academic-article/199028/",4,{"url":78,"name":59,"@type":81,"image":82,"author":87,"headline":59,"publisher":90,"fileFormat":93,"inLanguage":57,"description":61,"dateModified":94,"datePublished":95,"encodingFormat":93,"isAccessibleForFree":96,"interactionStatistic":97},"DigitalDocument",{"url":83,"@type":84,"width":85,"height":86},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/florilegium-vol-22-academic-article/199028.png","ImageObject",442,249,{"name":88,"@type":89},"Lucas Vance","Person",{"url":68,"name":91,"@type":92},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-19","2026-09-04",true,{"@type":98,"interactionType":99,"userInteractionCount":73},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":100},"ViewAction",{"@type":102,"mainEntity":103},"FAQPage",[104,110,114],{"name":105,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":107},"Why do medieval Christian readers encounter difficulties when interpreting Ovid’s erotic material?","Question",{"text":108,"@type":109},"Because Christian exegesis required allegorical interpretation of pagan texts, explicit erotic and homoerotic representations in Ovid became embarrassing. Readers were pushed to interpret the erotic as a figure for something else rather than its literal meaning.","Answer",{"name":111,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":112},"How does the text connect sodomy to the act of reading in De planctu Naturae?",{"text":113,"@type":109},"It argues that sodomy functions as inseparable from exegetical discourse. The exegetical desire to read sex out of pagan works generates a “spectre” of the sodomitic body that figures exegetical dysfunction.",{"name":115,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What scholarly disagreement is highlighted regarding Alan of Lille’s aims?",{"text":117,"@type":109},"Some readings treat De planctu Naturae as an invective against homosexuals, while others caution that Alan may instead be focused on the use or misuse of pagan poetry within Christian theology. The text positions itself as wary of reducing the issue to purely linguistic or literary abuses.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":78,"og:type":120,"og:title":59,"og:site_name":91,"og:description":61},"article",{"robots":122,"canonical":78},"index,follow",{"doc_id":124,"site_id":56},199028,1788504535,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":127},{"doc_id":124,"user_id":128,"nickname":88,"user_avatar":129,"doc_module":9,"category_id":8,"category_name":11,"doc_title":59,"doc_description":61,"doc_content":130,"file_id":131,"file_url":132,"file_type":133,"file_size":134,"view_count":73,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":9,"is_downloadable":9,"audit_status":9,"page_count":135,"language":136,"language_code":57,"site_id":56,"html_lang":57,"table_of_contents":137,"faqs":138,"seo_title":139,"seo_description":61,"update_tm":125,"read_time":140},549768064622,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_6f874abed73319feea01a86fa6f0fab8","Translatio Ganymedis: Reading the Sex Out of Ovid in Alan of Lille’s The Plaint of Nature  \nMichael A. Johnson  \nSe negat esse uirum Nature, factus in arte  \nBarbarus. Ars illi non placet, immo tropus.  \nNon tamen ista tropus poterit translatio dici.  \nIn uicium melius ista figura cadit.1  \n[Becoming a barbarian in grammar,[the sodomite] disclaims the manhood given him by nature. Grammar does not find favour with him but rather a trope. This transposition [translatio], however, cannot be called a trope. The figure here more correctly falls into the category of defects [uicium, or vitium].2 ]  \n—Alan of Lille, The Plaint of Nature (Meter 1, lines 21-24)  \nBecause Scriptural exegesis offered readers the only thing close to a systematic model for textual interpretation during the High Middle Ages, problems arose when Christian readers set out to explicate pagan literature. Unabashed representations of erotic, and particularly homoerotic, desire in the works of Ovid proved to be particularly embarrassing to medieval exegetes seeking to demonstrate the efficacy of Christian allegorical interpretation applied to profane works. Readers found themselves pressed to interpret Ovidian representations of erotic desire as a figure for something else. But is it really possible in this model of reading to evacuate literal sex from the text by making  \n1 Alan of Lille, Deplanctu Naturae, ed. Häring, 806.21-807.24. Subsequent page and line references cite this edition.  \n2 Alan of Lille, The Plaint of Nature, trans. Sheridan, p. 68. Subsequent passages in English translation are taken from this work, with page references indicated.  \nFlorilegium, vol. 22 (2005): 171-90 © Florilegium  \n172 Michael A. Johnson  \nit a figure, especially given the importance of literal meaning as the grounding, or fondatio, of allegorical meaning? Is this use offiguration to evacuate literal sex not itself an abuse or even a perversion of the exegetical process as it was understood to function? Alan of Lille asks this very question in his allegorical work Deplanctu Naturae. For Alan and authors influenced by his work, including Jean de Meun and Chaucer, sodomy comes to name this particular exegetical dilemma. Nature’s complaint refers not so much to the existence of sodomites in the world as it does to the representation of sodomy in pagan literature and more precisely to the temptation the Christian reader might feel to make it re-signify. The question of sodomy and the question of reading are virtually inseparable in De planctu Naturae. Indeed, sodomy as a discursive category—and along with it Western homophobia—arose out of the discursive practices of medieval Christian exegesis. As Larry Scanlon explains,“Insofar as it imposes a teleology on modes of pleasure, the ideal of a ‘natural’ sexuality is pre-eminently an interpretive or exegetical one.”3  \nIn effect, Alan of Lille’s De planctu Naturae, more than any other literary work of its time, construes sodomy as inseparable from exegetical discourse. In it, an exegetical problem is presented through an example of pagan representation of same-sex desire while same-sex desire is presented as a dysfunction in allegorical meaning. In my reading ofDe planctu Naturae, I begin to outline what might be called a rhetoric of sodomy, that is, a more or less systematic taxonomy of the tropes associated with sodomy—namely, metalepsis and translatio—and of their particular function(s) in the works that use them. I claim that the desire of the Christian exegete to read sex out of pagan works produces the spectre of the sodomitic body which comes to figure exegetical dysfunction and ultimately mirrors the reader’s desire back to him.  \nIn recent years, a number of scholars have read Deplanctu Naturae with an eye to situating sexuality in relationship to exegetical discourse.4 Alexandre Leupin’s groundbreaking Barbarolexis places Alan in a lineage of medieval writers who deliberately highlight the gaps and flaws of referential l","cbCaibIAQZiNXkXX","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaibIAQZiNXkXX","pdf",176936,20,"English","# Introduction\n## Exegesis and allegorical reading\n## Sodomy as a discursive category\n## Scholarship and interpretive disputes","[{\"question\":\"Why do medieval Christian readers encounter difficulties when interpreting Ovid’s erotic material?\",\"answer\":\"Because Christian exegesis required allegorical interpretation of pagan texts, explicit erotic and homoerotic representations in Ovid became embarrassing. Readers were pushed to interpret the erotic as a figure for something else rather than its literal meaning.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the text connect sodomy to the act of reading in De planctu Naturae?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that sodomy functions as inseparable from exegetical discourse. The exegetical desire to read sex out of pagan works generates a “spectre” of the sodomitic body that figures exegetical dysfunction.\"},{\"question\":\"What scholarly disagreement is highlighted regarding Alan of Lille’s aims?\",\"answer\":\"Some readings treat De planctu Naturae as an invective against homosexuals, while others caution that Alan may instead be focused on the use or misuse of pagan poetry within Christian theology. The text positions itself as wary of reducing the issue to purely linguistic or literary abuses.\"}]","Florilegium - vol. 22 - academic article | PDF",7]