Abstract

Porphyry‘s “On the Cave of the Nymphs” inaugurates a style of philosophicoallegorical interpretation of literary texts that flourished in antiquity and finds analogues in criticism down to the present. It is distinguished by its use of literary interpretation to think through speculative problems of philosophy and theology. Although it became suspect in terms of Enlightenment philological principles prescribing interpretation of the text “on its own terms,” this kind of criticism reveals the originally philosophical motives and purpose of literary criticism and restores to literature the vocation of disclosing a properly poetic truth higher than that of fact or history. The history of this type of speculative criticism stemming from Porphyry‘s reading of Homer is traced forward through Latin allegorical readings of epic revolving around Virgil. This itinerary highlights the perennial and inevitable tensions between philological and philosophical approaches to interpreting literature as a revelation of truth.