ABSTRACT
Marjorie Reeves taught us that as a body of thought the principal genre of the works of Joachim of Fiore is that of scriptural exegesis. at is to say, in many instances, that his books constitute a certain kind of criticism or appreciation of sacred poetry as we nd it in the Psalms, the great prophets, or the Revelation of John. Joachim’s mind combined speculative daring and an appetite for taxonomies with the imagination of a poet to create the thematically opulent books that have enthralled so many readers, modern and medieval alike. But was he an actual poet? e principal subject of my contribution to the memory of a great scholar will be one of the only two poems to have been ascribed to him: an eschatological vision of the state of souls aer death in 118 lines. Yet I must enter it in a somewhat oblique manner through the brief consideration of two broader topics: the traditional relationship between poetry and prophecy on the one hand, and on the other some of the techniques used by medieval poets to infuse their composition with the prophetical energies of exegetical images.
