SOURCE: Fuehrer, M. L. “The Cosmological Implications of the Psychomachia in Alan of Lille's Anticlaudianus.” Studies in Philology LXXVII, no. 4 (fall 1980): 344-53.

In the following essay, Fuehrer justifies the concluding psychomachia, or spiritual battle, in Alan's Anticlaudianus by interpreting it as an action that unites earth and heaven by means of virtue's opposition to vice.

The “psychomachia” with which Alan of Lille closes his Anticlaudianus presents a distinct crux for those who would explicate the work as a whole. Although an analysis of the entire poem is beyond the scope of one paper, insight into the intention of the “psychomachia” may well provide a key to solving the rest of the difficulties of the work.

The Anticlaudianus, written sometime between 1181 and 1184, constitutes Alan's efforts to construct an epic on the level of cosmology. The full title is Anticlaudianus de Antirufino. The rather obvious reference to Claudian's In Rufinum...