It has its annoying moments, but it's really quite amazing.

He doesn't, alas, discuss that line between the physical and the allegorical, but the sensory detail and a lot of other things are in there. And he knows a huge amount about allegory and how to make it work from turning The Romance of the Rose inside out, shaking everything out of its pockets, standing it up again, brushing it off gently, and handing it back its possessions.

Um. I'm not sure where that came from. But he is magisterial in ways that one doesn't always quite like.

P.