Acknowledgements -- Preface -- Understanding Medieval Humanism -- Chapter One From Paradise to Paradigm. An Introduction to the Problem of Twelfth-Century Humanism -- I The Quest for Universal Nature -- II The Return to Paradise -- III Paradise as a Human Abode -- IV Imagining the Return -- V History as Mimesis -- VI The Chartrian Controversy -- VII The End of Twelfth-Century Humanism -- Chapter Two Nature and Scripture: Tale of a Medieval Analogy and Its Demise -- Preamble -- I The Medieval Synthesis of Nature and Scripture -- A. The Referentiality of Scripture -- B. The Balance of Nature and Scripture -- II The Modern Disjunction of Nature and Scripture -- III Losing the Balance: Nature and Scripture in the Twelfth Century -- A. Rhetoric and Cosmology in the School of Chartres -- B. The Sliding Connection of Nature and Scripture -- B. 1. Physical Exegesis in Thierry of Chartres (d. after 1156) -- B. 2. Exegetical Nature-poetry in Alan of Lille (ca. 1120-1203) -- IV Conclusion -- Appendix: Alan of Lille's Poem De Miseria Mundi -- Chapter Three Opening the Universe: William of Conches and the Art of Science -- I William of Conches: Philosopher or Heretic? -- II The Importance of Plato's Timaeus for William's Cosmology -- A. The Lure of the Invisible -- B. Macro- and Microcosm -- III Literary Aspects of William's Cosmology -- IV The Vision of William's Dragmaticon -- A. Primo Levi's The Periodic Table -- B. William of Conches' Dragmaticon -- B. 1. God's Creation of the World -- B. 2. Nature and the Earth -- B. 3. Humanity and the Role of Reason -- B. 4. The Role of the Teacher -- V Conclusion -- Chapter Four Opening the Mind: Peter Abelard and the Makeover of Traditional Theology -- I The Incident: Talent versus Tradition -- II Turning Incident into Argument -- A. Ingenium -- B. Longevus Usus -- C. Debating the Divine.

III When Talent Meets Trinity -- IV Abelard's Theologies: Structure and Content -- V Abelard's Christology: Between Divine Justice and Human Sinfulness -- A. Philosophy and the Philosophers in Theologia Christiana -- B. Christ's Incarnation according to the Commentary on Romans -- Chapter Five Fortune or Failure: the Problem of Grace, Free Will and Providence in Peter Abelard -- I Introduction: Abelard and the Problem of Medieval Rationalism -- II Logic and Grace: From Augustine to Peter Abelard -- III Divine Providence in Abelard -- IV Providence: When Logic Meets Morality -- V Grace and the Self in Abelard -- VI Conclusion -- Chapter Six Tragedy in the Twelfth-Century Rhetorical Imagination: Bernard Silvestris on Suicide -- I Introduction: The Poetics of Paradise and Twelfth-Century Schools -- II Allegory, Integumentum and the Construction of Paradise -- III Poetry and Theory -- A. Nature versus Nurture -- B. Moral or Immortal Man? -- IV When Practice Meets Theory: The Case of the Mathematicus -- A. From Cosmographia to Mathematicus -- B. Interpreting the Mathematicus -- V The Art of Ambiguity: Suicide and the Suspense of Judgment -- Chapter Seven Conclusion. From Adam's Fall to Nature's Tear and Beyond: Paradise and Its Discontent -- I Paradise as Emblem -- II The Counter-Image of Nature's Tear -- III The Dynamic of the Return -- IV Early Medieval Standstill versus Late Medieval Development -- V Paradise and Its Twelfth-Century Discontent -- VI The Anticlaudianus and the New Poetics of Paradise -- VII The Fixity of Fiction: The Poetic Archi-Texture of the New Man -- List of Abbreviations -- Latin Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index of Names -- Index of Subjects.