Dante's Hermeneutics of Salvation

Dante's Hermeneutics of Salvation PDF Author: Christine O'Connell Baur
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0802092063
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Widely considered one of the greatest works produced in Europe during the Middle Ages, Dante's La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) has influenced countless generations of readers, yet surprisingly few books have attempted to explain the philosophical relevance of this great epic. Dante's Hermeneutics of Salvation takes on this ambitious project. Turning to Heidegger to provide a theoretical framework for her study, Christine O'Connell Baur illustrates how Dante's poem invites its readers to undertake their own existential-hermeneutic journey to freedom. As the pilgrim progresses in his journey, she argues, he moves beyond a merely literal, 'infernal' self-interpretation that is grounded on present attachments to things in the world. If we readers accompany the pilgrim in this hermeneutic conversion, we will see that our own existential commitments can help disclose the meaning of our world and our own finite freedom. A work of considerable importance both for and teachers and students of Dante studies, Dante's Hermeneutics of Salvation will also prove useful to scholars working in medieval studies, philosophy, and literary theory.

Dante's Hermeneutics of Salvation

Dante's Hermeneutics of Salvation PDF Author: Christine O'Connell Baur
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0802092063
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book

Book Description
Widely considered one of the greatest works produced in Europe during the Middle Ages, Dante's La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) has influenced countless generations of readers, yet surprisingly few books have attempted to explain the philosophical relevance of this great epic. Dante's Hermeneutics of Salvation takes on this ambitious project. Turning to Heidegger to provide a theoretical framework for her study, Christine O'Connell Baur illustrates how Dante's poem invites its readers to undertake their own existential-hermeneutic journey to freedom. As the pilgrim progresses in his journey, she argues, he moves beyond a merely literal, 'infernal' self-interpretation that is grounded on present attachments to things in the world. If we readers accompany the pilgrim in this hermeneutic conversion, we will see that our own existential commitments can help disclose the meaning of our world and our own finite freedom. A work of considerable importance both for and teachers and students of Dante studies, Dante's Hermeneutics of Salvation will also prove useful to scholars working in medieval studies, philosophy, and literary theory.

The Biblical Dante

The Biblical Dante PDF Author: V. Stanley Benfell
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442694793
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Dante Alighieri cited the Bible extensively in his Commedia, but also used his epic poem to meditate on the meaning of the Scriptures as a 'true' text. The Biblical Dante provides close readings of passages from the Commedia to explore how Dante's concept of Biblical truth differs sharply from modern notions. V. Stanley Benfell examines Dante's argument that the truth of the sacred text could only be revealed when engaged with in a transformative manner - and that a lack of such encounters in his time had led to a rise in greed and corruption, notably within the Church. He also illustrates how the poet put forth a vision for the restoration of a just society using Biblical language and imagery, revealing ideas of both earthly and eternal happiness. The Biblical Dante provides an insightful analysis of attitudes towards both the Bible and how it was read in the Medieval period.

Dantologies

Dantologies PDF Author: William Franke
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000937518
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
This book comprises a searching philosophical meditation on the evolution of the humanities in recent decades, taking Dante studies as an exemplary specimen. The contemporary currents of theory have decisively impacted this field, but Dante also has a strong relationship with theology. The idea that theology, teleology, and logocentric rationalities are simply overcome and swept away by new theoretical approaches proves much more complex as the theory revolution is exposed in its crypto-theological motives and origins. The revolutionary agendas and methodologies of theoretical currents have ushered in all manner of minorities and postcolonial and gender studies. But the exciting adventure they inaugurate shows up in quite a surprising light when brought to focus through the scholarly discipline of Dante studies as a terrain of dispute between traditional philology and postmodern theory. On this terrain, negative theology can play a peculiarly destabilizing, but also a conciliatory, role: it is equally critical of all languages for a theological transcendence to which it nevertheless remains infinitely open.

Dante and Aquinas

Dante and Aquinas PDF Author: Christopher Ryan
Publisher: Ubiquity Press
ISBN: 1909188115
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
Christopher Ryan's study of Dante and Aquinas, touching on issues of nature and grace, of explicit and implicit faith, and of desire and destiny, is intended to mark the difference between them in key areas of theological sensibility. Re-shaped and revised by John Took on the basis of papers made available to him from Christopher Ryan's estate, it seeks to deepen our understanding of one of the great cultural encounters in European letters.

Paganism in the Middle Ages

Paganism in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Carlos G. Steel
Publisher: Leuven University Press
ISBN: 9058679330
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
In this volume, the persistence, resurgence, threat, fascination, and repression of various forms of pagan culture are studied in an interdisciplinary perspective from late antiquity to the upcoming Renaissance. The contributions deal with the survival of pagan beliefs and practices as well as with the Christianization of pagan rural populations and with the different strategies of oppression of pagan beliefs. They deal with the problems raised by the encounter with pagan cultures outside the Muslim world and examine how philosophers attempted to "save" the great philosophers and poets from ancient culture notwithstanding their paganism. The contributors also study the fascination of classic "pagan" culture among friars in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the imitation of pagan models of virtue and mythology in Renaissance poetry. Contributors: Carlos Steel, KU Leuven-University of Leuven; John Marenbon, Trinity College, Cambridge; Ludo Milis, University of Ghent; Marc-André Wagner, Brigitte Meijns, University of Leuven; Rob Meens, University of Utrecht; Edina Bozoky, Université de Poitiers; Henryk Anzulewicz, Albertus-Magnus Institut, Bonn; Robrecht Lievens, KU Leuven-University of Leuven; Stefano Pittaluga, Università di Genova; Anna Akasoy, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum

Vertical Readings in Dante's Comedy

Vertical Readings in Dante's Comedy PDF Author: George Corbett
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783741724
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy is a reappraisal of the poem by an international team of thirty-four scholars. Each vertical reading analyses three same-numbered cantos from the three canticles: Inferno i, Purgatorio i and Paradiso i; Inferno ii, Purgatorio ii and Paradiso ii; etc. Although scholars have suggested before that there are correspondences between same-numbered cantos that beg to be explored, this is the first time that the approach has been pursued in a systematic fashion across the poem. This collection – to be issued in three volumes – offers an unprecedented repertoire of vertical readings for the whole poem. As the first volume exemplifies, vertical reading not only articulates unexamined connections between the three canticles but also unlocks engaging new ways to enter into core concerns of the poem. The three volumes thereby provide an indispensable resource for scholars, students and enthusiasts of Dante. The volume has its origin in a series of thirty-three public lectures held in Trinity College, the University of Cambridge (2012-2016) which can be accessed at the ‘Cambridge Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy’ website.

Dante and Augustine

Dante and Augustine PDF Author: Simone Marchesi
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442642106
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
At several junctures in his career, Dante paused to consider what it meant to be a writer. The questions he posed were both simple and wide-ranging: How does language, in particular 'poetic language,' work? Can poetry be translated? What is the relationship between a text and its commentary? Who controls the meaning of a literary work? In Dante and Augustine, Simone Marchesi re-examines these questions in light of the influence that Augustine's reflections on similar issues exerted on Dante's sense of his task as a poet. Examining Dante's life-long dialogue with Augustine from a new point of view, Marchesi goes beyond traditional inquiries to engage more technical questions relating to Dante's evolving ideas on how language, poetry, and interpretation should work. In this engaging literary analysis, Dante emerges as a versatile thinker, committed to a radical defence of poetry and yet always ready to rethink, revise, and rewrite his own positions on matters of linguistics, poetics, and hermeneutics.

Dante's Masterplot and Alternative Narratives in the Commedia

Dante's Masterplot and Alternative Narratives in the Commedia PDF Author: Nicolò Crisafi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192672150
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Dante's Masterplot and Alternative Narratives in the 'Commedia' questions the familiar narrative arc at play in the writings of Dante Alighieri and opens his masterpiece to three alternative models that resist it. Dante's masterplot is the teleological trajectory by which the poet subordinates the past to the authority of a new experience. The book analyses the masterplot's workings in Dante's text and its role in the interpretation of the poem, and it documents its overwhelming success in influencing readings of the Commedia over the centuries. The volume then explores three competing narrative models that resist and counter its monopoly which are enacted by paradoxes, alternative endings and parallel lives, and the future. By focusing on these non-linear modes of storytelling and testing the limits of linear narration, the book questions critical paradigms in the scholarship of the Commedia that favour a single normative master truth, exposes their problematic authoritarian implications, and highlights the manifold poetic, theological, and ethical tensions that are often neglected due to the masterplot's influence. The new picture of a vulnerable author and open-ended text that emerges from this study thus doubles as a metacritical reflection on the state of the field. The book's impassioned argument is that, alongside established notions of his trademark plurality of linguistic registers and styles, Dante's narrative pluralism can, and should, come to play a key role in contemporary and future readings of the Commedia.

Dante’s Inferno

Dante’s Inferno PDF Author: Raymond Angelo Belliotti
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030407713
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This book provides a recipe for healthy moral and personal transformation. Belliotti takes seriously Dante’s deepest yearnings: to guide human well-being; to elevate social and political communities; to remedy the poisons spewed by the seven capital vices; and to celebrate the connections between human self-interest, virtuous living, and spiritual salvation. By closely examining and analyzing five of Dante’s more vivid characters in hell—Piero della Vigna, Brunetto Latini, Farinata degli Uberti, Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti, and Guido da Montefeltro—and extracting the moral lessons Dante intends them to convey, and by conceptually analyzing envy, arrogance, pride, and human flourishing, the author challenges readers to interrogate and refine their modes of living.

Dante's Deadly Sins

Dante's Deadly Sins PDF Author:
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118112415
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Dante’s Deadly Sins is a unique study of the moral philosophy behind Dante’s master work that considers the Commedia as he intended, namely, as a practical guide to moral betterment. Focusing on Inferno and Purgatorio, Belliotti examines the puzzles and paradoxes of Dante’s moral assumptions, his treatment of the 7 deadly sins, and how 10 of his most powerful moral lessons anticipate modern existentialism. Analyzes the moral philosophy underpinning one of the greatest works of world culture Summarizes the Inferno and Purgatorio, while underscoring their moral implications Explains and evaluates Dante’s understanding of the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ and the ultimate role they play as the basis of human transgression. Provides a detailed discussion of the philosophical concepts of moral desert and the law of contrapasso, using character case studies within Dante’s work Connects the poem’s moral themes to our own contemporary condition