Vertical Readings in Dante's Comedy: Volume 2 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Sursum Ductio. Reasoning Upward. An Investigation into the Vertical Structure of Dante's Commedia
2021
This dissertation investigates “vertical readings” of the Commedia, i.e., the interpretive method that compares and contrasts same-numbered cantos in the three canticles of the poem: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Although there is a consensus that specific vertical readings are intentional, critics remain skeptical of extrapolating it into a totalizing system. This dissertation aims to delineate the methodology’s parameters, trace its emergence in the field of Dante studies, and anchor it within the context of Italian Duecento and Trecento culture. This research investigates the methodology by gathering vertical readings in Dante studies into a comprehensive archive. This catalog provides valuable information regarding the history and emergence of the method and its practitioners’ different theoretical bases.
The Dore Illustrations for Dante ’ s Divine Comedy . 136 Plates
2013
Candid revelations of the tragic castration of theologian Abelard and the subsequent separation of the secretly married fornicators. Heloise emerges as the far more admirable, authentic and unconventional of the two. Abelard seems constitutionally incapable of recognizing, sympathizing understanding her professed suffering, her sexual frustration, her desire for a love relationship which is constant as it was before the mutilation even without the possibility of consummation, her sense of hypocrisy of entering the convent only to obey his wishes rather than any true vocation and her complaint against God for judging them so very harshly. Abelard does his best to theologize her out of these sentiments when (it would appear to me) he could move a mountain with a feather simply by commiserating with her in an honest manner, acknowledging her genuine sentiments even if he does not personally share them. His ego (albeit objectively humiliated) gets in the way of this Christian and humane...
"LE TRE CORONE" , 2020
When we consider its macrotextual solidity, it is easy to forget that Dante’s Comedy was initially conceived as a “trilogy” of cantiche, and was never published in its entirety by its author. Delving into the problem of the Comedy’s composition and early circulation, as suggested by the extant documentary evidence and related chronological issues, the article attempts to sum up recent proposals on these questions. Attention is paid both to internal historical references or allusions and various types of external evidence for establishing the chronology of the first two cantiche.
Vertical Readings in Dante's Comedy: Volume 2, 2016
We owe a particular debt to the wonderful community of students, academics and members of the public in Cambridge who have supported the lecture series, 'Cambridge Vertical Readings in Dante's Comedy' (2012-2016). We are also grateful to those who, following the series online, have contributed to this scholarly endeavour and experiment. The project has benefited from broad collaboration from the outset. Each public lecture was preceded by a video-conferenced workshop between the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Notre Dame on one of the three cantos in the vertical reading. There are many people who have helped us during the different stages of the project. We are deeply grateful to you all and we regret that, in these brief acknowledgements, we can only thank some of you by name.
J Hede: Ranking Types of Reading: Descriptive and Epic Readings in Dante Studies
In literary hermeneutics it is often maintained that whenever we argue in favour of an interpretation of a literary text, we cannot show that it is the true or correct one, and that every other interpretation is false or incorrect. This distinction is held to be untenable because literary interpretation is infected with semantic indeterminacy and based on a type of reasoning that does not permit precision and exactitude. But this does not mean that we cannot distinguish between good and bad readings or better and worse readings. Although we cannot prove a reading to be the correct one, we can render it probable that it is better than other readings. However, this is no easy task. It is difficult enough to compare only two readings and show that one of them is better than the other because there are many criteria for ranking two competing readings. Therefore it is much more difficult to show that one reading is better than all other readings. But we can use a typological approach to decide between different readings and classify the various readings into different types of reading. On this basis, we can show that one particular reading of a literary text is better in its approach to the thematic content than other types of reading. It is logistically easier to demonstrate the superiority of one type of reading over another type than to demonstrate the superiority of one particular reading over other particular readings.
Dante's ‘Divine Comedy’ was the subject of vivid illustrations from its earliest circulation and, when book making transitioned into the new medium of print in the late 1400s, it became the source of inspiration for new visual traditions. Seeking to see some of these early printed Dantes in more detail and to explore the meanings these books may still hold for us today, two University of Oxford specialists in Dante Studies and Book History, Rebecca Bowen and Simon Gilson, invited the artist and printmaker Wuon Gean-Ho to examine and respond to Renaissance editions of the Commedia held in the special collections of the University of Oxford’s Taylor Institution Library. The result is a body of work called ‘Looking for Dante’, a collection of artwork, film, and essays that explores universal themes in Dante’s text and considers their relevance today. Moving from morality and condemnation through love and redemption, ‘Looking for Dante’ offers a modern reading of the ‘Divine Comedy’ and the historical books that preserve it, reflecting on the universal appeal of ink on paper. Access the full, open-access publication here: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:43ea410b-2e64-4c81-8a97-5348d8c004d6/files/s3484zj61t