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Katharine Breen proposes that medieval personifications should be understood neither as failed novelistic characters nor as instruments of heavy-handed didacticism. She argues that personifications are instead powerful tools for thought that help us to remember and manipulate complex ideas, testing them against existing moral and political paradigms. Specifically, different types of medieval personification should be seen as corresponding to positions in the rich and nuanced medieval debate over universals. Breen identifies three different types of personification - Platonic, Aristotelian, and Prudentian - that gave medieval writers a surprisingly varied spectrum with which to paint their characters.

Literature, Medieval --- Personification in literature. --- Allegory. --- Literature --- History and criticism. --- Philosophy.