Jonathan Usher
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264133
- eISBN:
- 9780191734649
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264133.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter examines the concept of the solitary Petrarch and suggests that Petrarch's theory of secular fame and the various stages of death, fame, time, and eternity are already present in nuce in ...
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This chapter examines the concept of the solitary Petrarch and suggests that Petrarch's theory of secular fame and the various stages of death, fame, time, and eternity are already present in nuce in the early Latin elegy on his mother's death. It highlights the influence of Dante's Inferno in Petrarch's development of an iterative mortality/vitality related to memory early in his career and on his Metrica on the death of his mother.Less
This chapter examines the concept of the solitary Petrarch and suggests that Petrarch's theory of secular fame and the various stages of death, fame, time, and eternity are already present in nuce in the early Latin elegy on his mother's death. It highlights the influence of Dante's Inferno in Petrarch's development of an iterative mortality/vitality related to memory early in his career and on his Metrica on the death of his mother.
John Casey
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195092950
- eISBN:
- 9780199869732
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195092950.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
The Aristotelian background to Dante, and Dante's expressing in poetic terms the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas is explored. Like Swift, Dante presents what Aristotle called “probable ...
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The Aristotelian background to Dante, and Dante's expressing in poetic terms the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas is explored. Like Swift, Dante presents what Aristotle called “probable impossibilities,” and shows sinners punished less by an external agency than by their own obsessive immersion in their vices—hence a chosen eternity of suffering. The structure of Inferno: sins against charity, in increasing gravity, lead to images of spirits in ice, removed as far as possible from the light and warmth of the good, which is God. The precision and concreteness of the moral and spiritual geography of Dante, and the paradox that love created hell, are explored.Less
The Aristotelian background to Dante, and Dante's expressing in poetic terms the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas is explored. Like Swift, Dante presents what Aristotle called “probable impossibilities,” and shows sinners punished less by an external agency than by their own obsessive immersion in their vices—hence a chosen eternity of suffering. The structure of Inferno: sins against charity, in increasing gravity, lead to images of spirits in ice, removed as far as possible from the light and warmth of the good, which is God. The precision and concreteness of the moral and spiritual geography of Dante, and the paradox that love created hell, are explored.
Cornelia Pearsall
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195150544
- eISBN:
- 9780199871124
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195150544.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Chapter Four engages in a detailed reading of Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” described as the prototypical Victorian dramatic monologue. The first section, “The Character of the Homeric Statesman,” ...
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Chapter Four engages in a detailed reading of Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” described as the prototypical Victorian dramatic monologue. The first section, “The Character of the Homeric Statesman,” establishes the monologue’s persistent stress on the importance of the knowledge of Tennyson’s Ulysses, examining the poem’s many sources, and a youthful epistolary debate between William Gladstone and Arthur Henry Hallam on Ulysses’ responsibility for the ruin of Troy. The second section, “Ulysses and the Rapture of Troy,” explores the political implications of the character of Ulysses, suggesting that his powerful resonance with his immediate audience within the monologue, as well as with the wider British public, is due to the illusion of a democratic ideal of equality conjured by his monologue. Ulysses’ desire is to effect a “rapture” of his audience, just as he formerly effected the “rapture” of Troy, illuminating the destruction of the fabled city as the monologue’s subtext.Less
Chapter Four engages in a detailed reading of Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” described as the prototypical Victorian dramatic monologue. The first section, “The Character of the Homeric Statesman,” establishes the monologue’s persistent stress on the importance of the knowledge of Tennyson’s Ulysses, examining the poem’s many sources, and a youthful epistolary debate between William Gladstone and Arthur Henry Hallam on Ulysses’ responsibility for the ruin of Troy. The second section, “Ulysses and the Rapture of Troy,” explores the political implications of the character of Ulysses, suggesting that his powerful resonance with his immediate audience within the monologue, as well as with the wider British public, is due to the illusion of a democratic ideal of equality conjured by his monologue. Ulysses’ desire is to effect a “rapture” of his audience, just as he formerly effected the “rapture” of Troy, illuminating the destruction of the fabled city as the monologue’s subtext.
William Clare Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691180816
- eISBN:
- 9781400883707
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691180816.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This book reconstructs the major arguments of Karl Marx's Capital and inaugurates a completely new reading of a seminal classic. Rather than simply a critique of classical political economy, the book ...
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This book reconstructs the major arguments of Karl Marx's Capital and inaugurates a completely new reading of a seminal classic. Rather than simply a critique of classical political economy, the book argues that Capital was primarily a careful engagement with the motives and aims of the workers' movement. Understood in this light, Capital emerges as a profound work of political theory. Placing Marx against the background of nineteenth-century socialism, the book shows how Capital was ingeniously modeled on Dante's Inferno, and how Marx, playing the role of Virgil for the proletariat, introduced partisans of workers' emancipation to the secret depths of the modern “social Hell.” In this manner, Marx revised republican ideas of freedom in response to the rise of capitalism. Combining research on Marx's interlocutors, textual scholarship, and forays into recent debates, the book traces the continuities linking Marx's theory of capitalism to the tradition of republican political thought. It immerses the reader in socialist debates about the nature of commerce, the experience of labor, the power of bosses and managers, and the possibilities of political organization. The book rescues those debates from the past and shows how they speak to ever-renewed concerns about political life in today's world.Less
This book reconstructs the major arguments of Karl Marx's Capital and inaugurates a completely new reading of a seminal classic. Rather than simply a critique of classical political economy, the book argues that Capital was primarily a careful engagement with the motives and aims of the workers' movement. Understood in this light, Capital emerges as a profound work of political theory. Placing Marx against the background of nineteenth-century socialism, the book shows how Capital was ingeniously modeled on Dante's Inferno, and how Marx, playing the role of Virgil for the proletariat, introduced partisans of workers' emancipation to the secret depths of the modern “social Hell.” In this manner, Marx revised republican ideas of freedom in response to the rise of capitalism. Combining research on Marx's interlocutors, textual scholarship, and forays into recent debates, the book traces the continuities linking Marx's theory of capitalism to the tradition of republican political thought. It immerses the reader in socialist debates about the nature of commerce, the experience of labor, the power of bosses and managers, and the possibilities of political organization. The book rescues those debates from the past and shows how they speak to ever-renewed concerns about political life in today's world.
John Woodhouse
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159117
- eISBN:
- 9780191673498
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159117.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, European Literature
The title of the present volume is intended deliberately to reflect the difference between Dante's view of politics and today's view, based on 20th-century concepts of political science. But while it ...
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The title of the present volume is intended deliberately to reflect the difference between Dante's view of politics and today's view, based on 20th-century concepts of political science. But while it would be anachronistic to impose upon his thought the paradigm of post-Machiavellian political assumptions, it would be pedantic to insist upon an esoterically specific terminology, simply to avoid combining the idea of Dante and politics: the word politics certainly crops up frequently in the chapters which follow. This first chapter suggests and shows that Dante and Governance, may be seen as a more appropriate title.Less
The title of the present volume is intended deliberately to reflect the difference between Dante's view of politics and today's view, based on 20th-century concepts of political science. But while it would be anachronistic to impose upon his thought the paradigm of post-Machiavellian political assumptions, it would be pedantic to insist upon an esoterically specific terminology, simply to avoid combining the idea of Dante and politics: the word politics certainly crops up frequently in the chapters which follow. This first chapter suggests and shows that Dante and Governance, may be seen as a more appropriate title.
George Holmes
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159117
- eISBN:
- 9780191673498
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159117.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, European Literature
Dante's relationship with the papacy runs throughout his life from the 1290s to the end and is an important theme. But this chapter suggests that Inferno XIX, which implies a denunciation of the ...
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Dante's relationship with the papacy runs throughout his life from the 1290s to the end and is an important theme. But this chapter suggests that Inferno XIX, which implies a denunciation of the simonist Pope Clement V was written later than most of Inferno, after 1312, and that Dante became interested in the papacy from the point of view expressed in the Monarchia only at a subsequent stage. This was partly the result of Clement's betrayal of Dante's potential saviour, the Emperor Henry VII in 1312, which made Dante both an imperialist and an anti-papalist. Dante never questioned the spiritual power of the papacy, but he became a severe critic of its claims to temporal power, most strongly in Monarchia III. At an even later stage, however, in Paradiso, this chapter argues that Dante abandoned the extreme criticism of the papacy.Less
Dante's relationship with the papacy runs throughout his life from the 1290s to the end and is an important theme. But this chapter suggests that Inferno XIX, which implies a denunciation of the simonist Pope Clement V was written later than most of Inferno, after 1312, and that Dante became interested in the papacy from the point of view expressed in the Monarchia only at a subsequent stage. This was partly the result of Clement's betrayal of Dante's potential saviour, the Emperor Henry VII in 1312, which made Dante both an imperialist and an anti-papalist. Dante never questioned the spiritual power of the papacy, but he became a severe critic of its claims to temporal power, most strongly in Monarchia III. At an even later stage, however, in Paradiso, this chapter argues that Dante abandoned the extreme criticism of the papacy.
Valerio Lucchesi
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159117
- eISBN:
- 9780191673498
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159117.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, European Literature
In Inferno X, Farinata degli Uberti provides a curious example of the internecine strife and at the same time of Florence's inability to recognize a worthy citizen destroyed by the schismatic forces ...
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In Inferno X, Farinata degli Uberti provides a curious example of the internecine strife and at the same time of Florence's inability to recognize a worthy citizen destroyed by the schismatic forces inevitably created by contemporary affiliations. Farinata's arrogance, here put into relief by Cavalcante's timidity, was a widespread feature of the Florentine aristocratic class, the magnates, to which he belonged. The great Ghibelline's social presumptuousness and his claim to be beyond and above human justice were projected into his afterlife, notably by his denial of the possible survival of the soul. In this episode, parochial politics is extended not only to the imperial struggle but also beyond the grave in a display of arrogance which involves the loss of Farinata's mortal resting place in Florence and the eternal possession of a fiery tomb in Hell.Less
In Inferno X, Farinata degli Uberti provides a curious example of the internecine strife and at the same time of Florence's inability to recognize a worthy citizen destroyed by the schismatic forces inevitably created by contemporary affiliations. Farinata's arrogance, here put into relief by Cavalcante's timidity, was a widespread feature of the Florentine aristocratic class, the magnates, to which he belonged. The great Ghibelline's social presumptuousness and his claim to be beyond and above human justice were projected into his afterlife, notably by his denial of the possible survival of the soul. In this episode, parochial politics is extended not only to the imperial struggle but also beyond the grave in a display of arrogance which involves the loss of Farinata's mortal resting place in Florence and the eternal possession of a fiery tomb in Hell.
Martin Mclaughlin
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159117
- eISBN:
- 9780191673498
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159117.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, European Literature
This chapter considers the analogy between the fate of Dante and that of his literary precursor here, Pier della Vigna. It considers the role of the intellectual in the politics of Italy and Empire. ...
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This chapter considers the analogy between the fate of Dante and that of his literary precursor here, Pier della Vigna. It considers the role of the intellectual in the politics of Italy and Empire. Starting from the many analogies between the two men, it discusses the treatment of their particular emperors (Frederick II and Henry VII) as revealed in an analysis of their Latin works, notably Pier della Vigna's Elogium and Dante's Epistolae. The comparison throws up some crucial differences between the two propagandists' exploitation of the imagery of Empire, which in turn casts light on certain approaches to the management of imperial government.Less
This chapter considers the analogy between the fate of Dante and that of his literary precursor here, Pier della Vigna. It considers the role of the intellectual in the politics of Italy and Empire. Starting from the many analogies between the two men, it discusses the treatment of their particular emperors (Frederick II and Henry VII) as revealed in an analysis of their Latin works, notably Pier della Vigna's Elogium and Dante's Epistolae. The comparison throws up some crucial differences between the two propagandists' exploitation of the imagery of Empire, which in turn casts light on certain approaches to the management of imperial government.
Alexander Murray
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207313
- eISBN:
- 9780191677625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207313.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History, Social History
Theology is an exact science. Its methods and aims may differ from those of the empirical sciences. But it remains exact in the sense of calling for painstaking accuracy in the formation of its main ...
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Theology is an exact science. Its methods and aims may differ from those of the empirical sciences. But it remains exact in the sense of calling for painstaking accuracy in the formation of its main propositions. In defining ‘occasional’ theology, the answer lies in the nature of the present enterprise, which is not theological but historical, and history must take occasional liberties with terms. This chapter considers Dante's Inferno, particularly Canto 13, and examines the poet's thought about suicide and his moral system.Less
Theology is an exact science. Its methods and aims may differ from those of the empirical sciences. But it remains exact in the sense of calling for painstaking accuracy in the formation of its main propositions. In defining ‘occasional’ theology, the answer lies in the nature of the present enterprise, which is not theological but historical, and history must take occasional liberties with terms. This chapter considers Dante's Inferno, particularly Canto 13, and examines the poet's thought about suicide and his moral system.
Matthew Reynolds
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199605712
- eISBN:
- 9780191731617
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199605712.003.0018
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This capacity of translation to stage conventionality lay dormant until Byron, who was much indebted to Italian romances and their English translations. In Book 1 of Don Juan, he replays great ...
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This capacity of translation to stage conventionality lay dormant until Byron, who was much indebted to Italian romances and their English translations. In Book 1 of Don Juan, he replays great phrases about love (many from Dante's episode of Paolo and Francesca) in such a way as to make them seem both guarantees of authenticity and tell‐tale marks of secondhandness: the same sensibility is evident in his correspondence with his Italian lover Teresa Guiccioli which is again laced with recollections of Dante. In his translation of Francesca's speech from Inferno, Byron allows himself to be overcome by the text in a way that is unfaithful to Dante but (as he sees it) faithful to Francesca. This is an instance of translation‐as‐passion—which differs from translation‐as‐desire in that it takes the source text as the origin of an impulse rather than as an object to be pursued.Less
This capacity of translation to stage conventionality lay dormant until Byron, who was much indebted to Italian romances and their English translations. In Book 1 of Don Juan, he replays great phrases about love (many from Dante's episode of Paolo and Francesca) in such a way as to make them seem both guarantees of authenticity and tell‐tale marks of secondhandness: the same sensibility is evident in his correspondence with his Italian lover Teresa Guiccioli which is again laced with recollections of Dante. In his translation of Francesca's speech from Inferno, Byron allows himself to be overcome by the text in a way that is unfaithful to Dante but (as he sees it) faithful to Francesca. This is an instance of translation‐as‐passion—which differs from translation‐as‐desire in that it takes the source text as the origin of an impulse rather than as an object to be pursued.
Guy P. Raffa
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226702674
- eISBN:
- 9780226702780
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226702780.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
One of the greatest works of world literature, Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy has, despite its enormous popularity and importance, often stymied readers with its multitudinous characters, ...
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One of the greatest works of world literature, Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy has, despite its enormous popularity and importance, often stymied readers with its multitudinous characters, references, and themes. But until now, students of the Inferno have lacked a suitable resource to guide their reading. This book takes readers on a geographic journey through Dante's underworld circle by circle—from the Dark Wood down to the ninth circle of Hell—in much the same way Dante and Virgil proceed in their infernal descent. Each chapter—or “region”—of the book begins with a summary of the action, followed by detailed chapters, significant verses, and useful study questions. The chapters, based on a close examination of the poet's biblical, classical, and medieval sources, help locate the characters and creatures Dante encounters and assist in decoding the poem's vast array of references to religion, philosophy, history, politics, and other works of literature.Less
One of the greatest works of world literature, Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy has, despite its enormous popularity and importance, often stymied readers with its multitudinous characters, references, and themes. But until now, students of the Inferno have lacked a suitable resource to guide their reading. This book takes readers on a geographic journey through Dante's underworld circle by circle—from the Dark Wood down to the ninth circle of Hell—in much the same way Dante and Virgil proceed in their infernal descent. Each chapter—or “region”—of the book begins with a summary of the action, followed by detailed chapters, significant verses, and useful study questions. The chapters, based on a close examination of the poet's biblical, classical, and medieval sources, help locate the characters and creatures Dante encounters and assist in decoding the poem's vast array of references to religion, philosophy, history, politics, and other works of literature.
Teodolinda Barolini
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227037
- eISBN:
- 9780823241019
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823227037.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This book explores the sources of Italian literary culture in the figures of its lyric poets and its three crowns: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The author views the origins of Italian literary ...
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This book explores the sources of Italian literary culture in the figures of its lyric poets and its three crowns: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The author views the origins of Italian literary culture through four prisms: the ideological/philosophical, the intertextual/multicultural, the structural/formal, and the social. The essays in the first section treat the ideology of love and desire from the early lyric tradition to the Inferno and its antecedents in philosophy and theology. The second section focuses on Dante as heir to both the Christian visionary and the classical pagan traditions (with emphasis on Vergil and Ovid). The essays in the third part analyze the narrative character of Dante's Vita nuova, Petrarch's lyric sequence, and Boccaccio's The Decameron. The author also looks at the cultural implications of the editorial history of Dante's Rime and at what sparso versus organico spells in the Italian imaginary. In the section on gender, she argues that the didactic texts intended for women's use and instruction, as explored by Guittone, Dante, and Boccaccio—but not by Petrarch—were more progressive than the courtly style for which the Italian tradition is celebrated. Moving from the lyric origins of the Divine Comedy in “Dante and the Lyric Past” to Petrarch's regressive stance on gender in “Notes toward a Gendered History of Italian Literature”—and encompassing, among others, Giacomo da Lentini, Guido Cavalcanti, and Guittone d'Arezzo—these sixteen essays frame the literary culture of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy in fresh, illuminating ways.Less
This book explores the sources of Italian literary culture in the figures of its lyric poets and its three crowns: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The author views the origins of Italian literary culture through four prisms: the ideological/philosophical, the intertextual/multicultural, the structural/formal, and the social. The essays in the first section treat the ideology of love and desire from the early lyric tradition to the Inferno and its antecedents in philosophy and theology. The second section focuses on Dante as heir to both the Christian visionary and the classical pagan traditions (with emphasis on Vergil and Ovid). The essays in the third part analyze the narrative character of Dante's Vita nuova, Petrarch's lyric sequence, and Boccaccio's The Decameron. The author also looks at the cultural implications of the editorial history of Dante's Rime and at what sparso versus organico spells in the Italian imaginary. In the section on gender, she argues that the didactic texts intended for women's use and instruction, as explored by Guittone, Dante, and Boccaccio—but not by Petrarch—were more progressive than the courtly style for which the Italian tradition is celebrated. Moving from the lyric origins of the Divine Comedy in “Dante and the Lyric Past” to Petrarch's regressive stance on gender in “Notes toward a Gendered History of Italian Literature”—and encompassing, among others, Giacomo da Lentini, Guido Cavalcanti, and Guittone d'Arezzo—these sixteen essays frame the literary culture of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy in fresh, illuminating ways.
Heather Webb
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- June 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198733485
- eISBN:
- 9780191797941
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198733485.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, Early and Medieval Literature
This volume explores the concept of personhood in Dante’s Commedia and seeks out the constituent ethical modes that the poem presents as necessary for attaining a fullness of persona. This study ...
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This volume explores the concept of personhood in Dante’s Commedia and seeks out the constituent ethical modes that the poem presents as necessary for attaining a fullness of persona. This study suggests that Dante presents a vision of ‘transhuman’ potentiality in which the human person is, after death, fully integrated into copresence with other individuals in a network of relations based on mutual recognition and interpersonal attention. The Commedia, the author argues, aims to depict and to actively construct a transmortal community in which the plenitude of each individual’s person is realized in and through recognition of the personhood of other individuals who constitute that community, whether living or dead. Webb focuses on the strategies the Commedia employs to call us to collaborate in the mutual construction of persons. As we engage with the dead that inhabit its pages, we continue to maintain the personhood of those dead. Webb investigates Dante’s implicit and explicit appeals to his readers to act in relation to the characters in his otherworlds as if they were persons. Moving through the various encounters of Purgatorio and Paradiso, this study documents the ways in which characters are presented as persone in development or in a state of plenitude through attention to the ‘corporeal’ modes of smiles, gazes, gestures, and postures. Dante’s journey provides a model for the formation and maintenance of a network of personal attachments, attachments that, as constitutive of persona, are not superseded even in the presence of the direct vision of God.Less
This volume explores the concept of personhood in Dante’s Commedia and seeks out the constituent ethical modes that the poem presents as necessary for attaining a fullness of persona. This study suggests that Dante presents a vision of ‘transhuman’ potentiality in which the human person is, after death, fully integrated into copresence with other individuals in a network of relations based on mutual recognition and interpersonal attention. The Commedia, the author argues, aims to depict and to actively construct a transmortal community in which the plenitude of each individual’s person is realized in and through recognition of the personhood of other individuals who constitute that community, whether living or dead. Webb focuses on the strategies the Commedia employs to call us to collaborate in the mutual construction of persons. As we engage with the dead that inhabit its pages, we continue to maintain the personhood of those dead. Webb investigates Dante’s implicit and explicit appeals to his readers to act in relation to the characters in his otherworlds as if they were persons. Moving through the various encounters of Purgatorio and Paradiso, this study documents the ways in which characters are presented as persone in development or in a state of plenitude through attention to the ‘corporeal’ modes of smiles, gazes, gestures, and postures. Dante’s journey provides a model for the formation and maintenance of a network of personal attachments, attachments that, as constitutive of persona, are not superseded even in the presence of the direct vision of God.
Conor Mccarthy
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780197266144
- eISBN:
- 9780191860027
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266144.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
Ciaran Carson’s translations of two major medieval texts, The Inferno (2002) and The Táin(2007), are part of a broader body of translation within his work. Appearing during a decade when a number of ...
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Ciaran Carson’s translations of two major medieval texts, The Inferno (2002) and The Táin(2007), are part of a broader body of translation within his work. Appearing during a decade when a number of English-language poets turned their attention to the Middle Ages, Carson’s translations are in tune with other recent approaches in seeing affinities between his own circumstances and those of the medieval texts he translates. Carson’s approach is notable for a commitment to the formal qualities of the source texts. But these translations are also informed by Carson’s practice elsewhere, and both texts intersect with an interest in the themes of time, place, language, and translation across Carson’s broader body of work.Less
Ciaran Carson’s translations of two major medieval texts, The Inferno (2002) and The Táin(2007), are part of a broader body of translation within his work. Appearing during a decade when a number of English-language poets turned their attention to the Middle Ages, Carson’s translations are in tune with other recent approaches in seeing affinities between his own circumstances and those of the medieval texts he translates. Carson’s approach is notable for a commitment to the formal qualities of the source texts. But these translations are also informed by Carson’s practice elsewhere, and both texts intersect with an interest in the themes of time, place, language, and translation across Carson’s broader body of work.
James Simpson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526129154
- eISBN:
- 9781526141996
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526129154.003.0015
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
James Simpson’s central hermeneutic perception for knowledge in the Humanities is that cognition is re-cognition. Before we can know, we must already have known. He examines this paradox with ...
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James Simpson’s central hermeneutic perception for knowledge in the Humanities is that cognition is re-cognition. Before we can know, we must already have known. He examines this paradox with reference to literary examples of facial recognition from, in particular, Chaucer and his reception in the early modern period. Linking literary face to textual face – the whole text as a kind of face – he applies the lessons learnt from facial recognition to textual recognition; and answers some possible objections to the paradox of knowing being dependent on having already known.Less
James Simpson’s central hermeneutic perception for knowledge in the Humanities is that cognition is re-cognition. Before we can know, we must already have known. He examines this paradox with reference to literary examples of facial recognition from, in particular, Chaucer and his reception in the early modern period. Linking literary face to textual face – the whole text as a kind of face – he applies the lessons learnt from facial recognition to textual recognition; and answers some possible objections to the paradox of knowing being dependent on having already known.
Teodolinda Barolini
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227037
- eISBN:
- 9780823241019
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823227037.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Inferno 5 elicited from the ancient commentators two basic views of its structure: while one group divides it into numerous small sections, Buti puts forth the suggestion that has proved more ...
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Inferno 5 elicited from the ancient commentators two basic views of its structure: while one group divides it into numerous small sections, Buti puts forth the suggestion that has proved more congenial to modern interpreters, namely that the canto falls into two parts. Indeed, like Inferno 1 which is also sundered by a dramatic encounter that divides the narrative into two halves—pre-Vergil and post-Vergil—so Inferno 5 pivots around the central tercet that paves the way for its monumental encounter with Francesca da Rimini.Less
Inferno 5 elicited from the ancient commentators two basic views of its structure: while one group divides it into numerous small sections, Buti puts forth the suggestion that has proved more congenial to modern interpreters, namely that the canto falls into two parts. Indeed, like Inferno 1 which is also sundered by a dramatic encounter that divides the narrative into two halves—pre-Vergil and post-Vergil—so Inferno 5 pivots around the central tercet that paves the way for its monumental encounter with Francesca da Rimini.
Daniela Caselli
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719071560
- eISBN:
- 9781781701973
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719071560.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter addresses the argument that How It Is mobilises Inferno VII to produce a notion of reality as the unreliable outcome of repetition. It studies the canto where Virgil translates the ...
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This chapter addresses the argument that How It Is mobilises Inferno VII to produce a notion of reality as the unreliable outcome of repetition. It studies the canto where Virgil translates the incomprehensible gurgling that is coming from the bubbles on the surface of the river Styx into the ‘hymn’ sung by the invisible slothful damned. This discussion shows that this illustrates how ‘credence’ for the reality of such scenes is taken from the quickly diminishing ‘incontrovertibility’ of Virgil's authority. This chapter also shows that the mud in How It Is is what allows the passing of the murmuring and what prevents it.Less
This chapter addresses the argument that How It Is mobilises Inferno VII to produce a notion of reality as the unreliable outcome of repetition. It studies the canto where Virgil translates the incomprehensible gurgling that is coming from the bubbles on the surface of the river Styx into the ‘hymn’ sung by the invisible slothful damned. This discussion shows that this illustrates how ‘credence’ for the reality of such scenes is taken from the quickly diminishing ‘incontrovertibility’ of Virgil's authority. This chapter also shows that the mud in How It Is is what allows the passing of the murmuring and what prevents it.
William Clare Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691180816
- eISBN:
- 9781400883707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691180816.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This book examines Karl Marx's critique of capitalism by rereading his Capital as political theory. It considers Capital's ambition to lay bare, for the first time, the inner workings of the ...
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This book examines Karl Marx's critique of capitalism by rereading his Capital as political theory. It considers Capital's ambition to lay bare, for the first time, the inner workings of the capitalist mode of production and the political economy that analyzes it. It argues that, in Capital, Marx had a grand aspiration—to write the definitive analysis of what is wrong with the rule of capital—and that he modeled this aspiration on a grand literary framework: rewriting Dante's Inferno as a descent into the modern “social Hell” of the capitalist mode of production. The book also contends that Capital is best read as a critical reconstruction of and rejoinder to the other versions of socialism and popular radicalism that predominated in France and England in the 1860s and 1870s. This chapter provides an overview of the book's argument.Less
This book examines Karl Marx's critique of capitalism by rereading his Capital as political theory. It considers Capital's ambition to lay bare, for the first time, the inner workings of the capitalist mode of production and the political economy that analyzes it. It argues that, in Capital, Marx had a grand aspiration—to write the definitive analysis of what is wrong with the rule of capital—and that he modeled this aspiration on a grand literary framework: rewriting Dante's Inferno as a descent into the modern “social Hell” of the capitalist mode of production. The book also contends that Capital is best read as a critical reconstruction of and rejoinder to the other versions of socialism and popular radicalism that predominated in France and England in the 1860s and 1870s. This chapter provides an overview of the book's argument.
William Clare Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780691180816
- eISBN:
- 9781400883707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691180816.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter argues that Karl Marx composed Capital as a modern, secular Inferno. It first considers the similarities between Capital and Dante's Inferno before discussing the history of socialists ...
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This chapter argues that Karl Marx composed Capital as a modern, secular Inferno. It first considers the similarities between Capital and Dante's Inferno before discussing the history of socialists comparing modern society to a “social Hell.” It then examines how Marx's nemesis, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, developed this trope in two texts with which Marx was well acquainted and how Marx appropriated the same trope for his own critique of political economy. Finally, it analyzes the notion that modernity amounts to “a social Hell,” tracing its origin to the works of Charles Fourier. The chapter contends that Marx is not trying to convince some ideal-typical bourgeois economist to come over to the side of socialism. Rather, he is trying to convince his fellow socialists to cast aside their reliance upon ideas and arguments derived from or typified by Proudhon and other has-been and would-be leaders and theorists of the movement against capitalism.Less
This chapter argues that Karl Marx composed Capital as a modern, secular Inferno. It first considers the similarities between Capital and Dante's Inferno before discussing the history of socialists comparing modern society to a “social Hell.” It then examines how Marx's nemesis, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, developed this trope in two texts with which Marx was well acquainted and how Marx appropriated the same trope for his own critique of political economy. Finally, it analyzes the notion that modernity amounts to “a social Hell,” tracing its origin to the works of Charles Fourier. The chapter contends that Marx is not trying to convince some ideal-typical bourgeois economist to come over to the side of socialism. Rather, he is trying to convince his fellow socialists to cast aside their reliance upon ideas and arguments derived from or typified by Proudhon and other has-been and would-be leaders and theorists of the movement against capitalism.
Maria Esposito Frank
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823263868
- eISBN:
- 9780823266302
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823263868.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
After surveying a variety of apologetical and polemical Christian texts on Islam which circulated in medieval Eastern and Latin Christendom, this study traces the changing Christian perceptions of, ...
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After surveying a variety of apologetical and polemical Christian texts on Islam which circulated in medieval Eastern and Latin Christendom, this study traces the changing Christian perceptions of, and responses to, Islam. The trajectory followed in this study shows a progression from widespread — with few, precious exceptions — views of Islam as barbarism and idolatry, doomed to soon disappear, to more serious considerations of Islam as the theological ones that emerged in the late Middle Ages, when Ecclesiastic authorities began to address it on adoctrinal basis, as a Christological heresy. This study argues that, within a faulty understanding of Islam and of his Prophet, but outside the prevailing views at his time, Dante’s portrayal of Islam and his Prophet in Inferno 28 is the expression Dante’s own peculiar understanding of the Islamic faith and of Muhammad’s life. Subtly distinguishing between heresy and schism, Dante’ s Muhammad concludes that the image of the Prophet in the eighth circle of Hell is reminiscent of Arius, a controversial figure connected with a long history of theological division within Christendom. Additional arguments pointing at Dante’s references to Arius in Paradiso 13, and at the strong influence on Dante of Boethius’s writings and vicissitudes — especially his martyrdom by decree of the Arian king Theodoric — further explain the violation of the unity of the Christian community, which is the center of Inferno 28.Less
After surveying a variety of apologetical and polemical Christian texts on Islam which circulated in medieval Eastern and Latin Christendom, this study traces the changing Christian perceptions of, and responses to, Islam. The trajectory followed in this study shows a progression from widespread — with few, precious exceptions — views of Islam as barbarism and idolatry, doomed to soon disappear, to more serious considerations of Islam as the theological ones that emerged in the late Middle Ages, when Ecclesiastic authorities began to address it on adoctrinal basis, as a Christological heresy. This study argues that, within a faulty understanding of Islam and of his Prophet, but outside the prevailing views at his time, Dante’s portrayal of Islam and his Prophet in Inferno 28 is the expression Dante’s own peculiar understanding of the Islamic faith and of Muhammad’s life. Subtly distinguishing between heresy and schism, Dante’ s Muhammad concludes that the image of the Prophet in the eighth circle of Hell is reminiscent of Arius, a controversial figure connected with a long history of theological division within Christendom. Additional arguments pointing at Dante’s references to Arius in Paradiso 13, and at the strong influence on Dante of Boethius’s writings and vicissitudes — especially his martyrdom by decree of the Arian king Theodoric — further explain the violation of the unity of the Christian community, which is the center of Inferno 28.
