The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Fourfold meaning (four levels of meaning / interpretation)

Fourfold meaning (four levels of meaning / interpretation): A method of analysis generally applied to biblical works (or allegories, particularly religious ones) in which meaning is found on four levels: (1) the literal level, that is, the surface story; (2) the moral or tropological level, at which generally applicable principles of human behavior are revealed; (3) the allegorical level, at which the reader understands the religious (usually New Testament) truth signified by the literal level; and (4) the anagogical level, which contains the highest spiritual, often eschatological, meanings of the work (i.e., those having to do with questions about what happens to the individual after death and, even more generally, at the end of time, on the Day of Judgment). This method of exegesis was common in the Medieval Period and continued to be widely used well into the eighteenth century. It has also been applied to, and adapted for, secular material, particularly secular poetry.