The paper is part of a ‘work in progress’ on the influence of oriental cultures and religions on Western ancient literature (The Seven Gates). After a short history of use and symbolic role of the ...“planetary ladder” from Sumerians to Islamic literatures and cultures via Greece, Rome and Jewish mysticism, the essai tries to show that the early Christians writers preferred to avoid employing the planetary ladder as a cipher of an itinerary to God. It was only Dante, in his Divina Commedia, who resumed to use with high perfection the planetary ladder: he re-elaboreted the circular Islamic hell in the Inferno, the Islamic heaven in the Paradiso and the Islamic paradise in the Purgatorio (his source was the Latin translation of The book of the ladder of Mahomet).
The paper is part of a ‘work in progress’ on the influence of oriental cultures and religions on Western ancient literature (The Seven Gates). After a short history of use and symbolic role of the ...“planetary ladder” from Sumerians to Islamic literatures and cultures via Greece, Rome and Jewish mysticism, the essai tries to show that the early Christians writers preferred to avoid employing the planetary ladder as a cipher of an itinerary to God. It was only Dante, in his Divina Commedia, who resumed to use with high perfection the planetary ladder: he re-elaboreted the circular Islamic hell in the Inferno, the Islamic heaven in the Paradiso and the Islamic paradise in the Purgatorio (his source was the Latin translation of The book of the ladder of Mahomet).
The paper is part of a ‘work in progress’ on the influence of oriental cultures and religions on Western ancient literature (The Seven Gates). After a short history of use and symbolic role of the ...“planetary ladder” from Sumerians to Islamic literatures and cultures via Greece, Rome and Jewish mysticism, the essai tries to show that the early Christians writers preferred to avoid employing the planetary ladder as a cipher of an itinerary to God. It was only Dante, in his Divina Commedia, who resumed to use with high perfection the planetary ladder: he re-elaboreted the circular Islamic hell in the Inferno, the Islamic heaven in the Paradiso and the Islamic paradise in the Purgatorio (his source was the Latin translation of The book of the ladder of Mahomet).
Dante's metaphysics — his understanding of reality — is very different from our own. To present Dante's ideas about the cosmos, or God, or salvation, or history, or poetry within the context of ...post-Enlightenment presuppositions, as is usually done, is thus to capture only imperfectly the essence of those ideas. This book argues that the recovery of Dante's metaphysics is essential if we are to resolve what has been called “the central problem in the interpretation of the Comedy. ”That problem is what to make of the Comedy's claim to the “status of revelation, vision, or experiential record — as something more than imaginative literature.” This book offers a sustained treatment of the metaphysical picture that grounds and motivates the Comedy, and of the relation between those metaphysics and Dante's poetics. The book carries this out through an examination of three notoriously complex cantos of the Paradiso, read against the background of the Neoplatonic and Aristotelian tradition from which they arise.
Dante, cinema, and television Iannucci, Amilcare A
Dante, cinema, and television,
c2004, 20041006, 2004, 2014, 2004-01-01
eBook
TheDivine Comedyof Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is one of the seminal works of western literature. Its impact on modern culture has been enormous, nourishing a plethora of twentieth century authors ...from Joyce and Borges to Kenzaburo Oe. Although Dante's influence in the literary sphere is well documented, very little has been written on his equally determining role in the evolution of the visual media unique to our times, namely, cinema and television.Dante, Cinema, and Televisioncorrects this oversight.
The essays, from a broad range of disciplines, cover the influence of theDivine Comedyfrom cinema's silent era on through to the era of sound and the advent of television, as well as its impact on specific directors, actors, and episodes, on national/regional cinema and television, and on genres. They also consider the different modes of appropriation by cinema and television.Dante, Cinema, and Televisiondemonstrates the many subtle ways in which Dante'sDivine Comedyhas been given 'new life' by cinema and television, and underscores the tremendous extent of Dante's staying power in the modern world.
The California Lectura Dantis is the long-awaited companion to the three-volume verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum of Dante's Divine Comedy. Mandelbaum's translation, with facing original text and ...with illustrations by Barry Moser, has been praised by Robert Fagles as "exactly what we have waited for these years, a Dante with clarity, eloquence, terror, and profoundly moving depths," and by the late James Merrill as "lucid and strong . . . with rich orchestration . . . overall sweep and felicity . . . and countless free, brilliant, utterly Dantesque strokes." Charles Simic called the work "a miracle. A lesson in the art of translation and a model (an encyclopedia) for poets. The full range and richness of American English is displayed as perhaps never before." This collection of commentaries on the first part of the Comedy consists of commissioned essays, one for each canto, by a distinguished group of international scholar-critics. Readers of Dante will find this Inferno volume an enlightening and indispensable guide, the kind of lucid commentary that is truly adapted to the general reader as well as the student and scholar.
This book explores the Islamic roots of the Western values of tolerance and religious pluralism, and considers Dante from the perspective of the Arab- Islamic philosophical tradition. It examines the ...relations between Islamic and Western thought, the historical origins of Western values, and the tradition of tolerance in classical Islamic thought.
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.
Boldrini's study examines how the literary and linguistic theories of Dante's Divine Comedy helped shape the radical narrative techniques of Joyce's last novel, Finnegans Wake. This book will appeal ...to scholars and students interested in Joyce, Dante, and questions of literary relations.
Dante's Commedia Montemaggi, Vittorio; Treherne, Matthew
03/2010
eBook
In Dante's Commedia: Theology as Poetry, an international group of theologians and Dante scholars provide a uniquely rich set of perspectives focused on the relationship between theology and poetry ...in theCommedia. Examining Dante's treatment of questions of language, personhood, and the body; his engagement with the theological tradition he inherited; and the implications of his work for contemporary theology, the contributors argue for the close intersection of theology and poetry in the text as well as the importance of theology for Dante studies. Through discussion of issues ranging from Dante's use of imagery of the Church to the significance of the smile for his poetic project, the essayists offer convincing evidence that his theology is not what underlies his narrative poem, nor what is contained within it: it is instead fully integrated with its poetic and narrative texture.
