Machines of the Mind: Personification in Medieval Literature by Katharine Breen (review)

While Katharine Breen's acknowledgements state that Machines of the Mind begins and ends with Piers Plowman (ca. 1370–90), the book itself so carefully charts the history and modern-day relevance of personification that the reader almost forgets that at the center is Langland's own usage of the allegorical tool. Breen's four-part study charts three schools of personification—the Prudentian, the Neoplatonic, and the Aristotelian—before concluding with a dedicated chapter on Langland. The impetus of this text is the question of how exactly medieval personifications were utilized to educate the reader on large abstract concepts. The examples Breen points to are incredibly complex; they not only allow an intimacy to the otherwise vague concept but also point to the exchange of information, not just from the personification to the reader but from human limits to the personification. No detail is left unnoticed in this meticulous study. In surveying types of personification, Breen also looks toward modern-day relevance. As Breen points out, this concept of education via personification is a very modern and current teaching tactic, bringing to mind Highlight's Goofus and Gallant. In doing so, Breen marks a technological bridge between the two time periods. Machines of the Mind is one of the most thorough and insightful texts on personification available.

Breen begins her book by discussing how the tech industry rediscovered the usefulness of binding up data into a somewhat human shape in the early twentyfirst century. However, their use of the tool is a shallow one that doesn't go beyond marketing. It's a great entry-point, perhaps a good example for undergraduates, in understanding how personification works, although of course the medieval and early modern usage of personification is far more complex. As Breen moves into medieval personification, she starts with Gregory the Great, and here is where the book's eye-catching title is explained: Gregory describes the personifications as machina, an engine of thought. Breen's lengthy introduction both maps early medieval usages of these machines and charts early criticism of personification as a tool. In her words, she wishes to "dust off personification studies, like an unused machine in someone's attic," and bring them back into academic practice (8).

Chapters 1 and 2 are both contained under part 1, "Prudential Personification." Chapter 1 focuses on Breen's definition of the category of formative personification allegory. Formative personification allegory treats itself as the product of both a human and the divine. In defining formative personification thusly, Breen places both religious and rhetorical personification in conversation with each other. It is therefore fitting that Breen looks to Roman culture, focusing on Cicero's On the Laws and On the Nature of the Gods. Breen argues that rhetorical and religious personification, while separate phenomena, share the same creation. Both informing their namesake through their actions while being informed themselves, and both working as a tool to bring the listener to the correct moral path. Breen notes that looking into the future, Prudentius's allegories work less as a flat device than as a space for fostering morality in the reader. In chapter 2, "Fight Like a Girl," Breen turns to Prudentius's Pyschomachia. Breen disagrees with critics who have deemed it to be a crude, flat failure. Instead, she believes Prudentius's work is in the same vein as Cicero's. Lying underneath the virtue-named personifications, Breen says, are biblical figures. Attending to gender, Breen notes how Prudentius resculpts Faith to allow for male readers to see themselves in her actions. By doing this, Prudentius allows readers to see virtues as a trait of a person rather than the entirety of a person. This transformation of virtue into virtuous traits allows for a fluidity within the reader to inhabit the virtues as they need them.

Chapters 3 and 4 cover Neoplatonic personification. Chapter 3 looks at recent criticism regarding personification, and Breen uses the chapter to lay out her argument that...