Reading Dante's StarsYale University Press, 2000 M01 1 - 226 pages Astronomy is one of the most prominent and perplexing features of Dante's Divine Comedy. In the final rhyme of the poem's three parts, and in scores of descriptions and analogies, the stars are an intermediate goal and a constant point of reference for the spiritual journey the poem narrates. This book makes a sustained analysis of Dante's use of astronomy, not only in terms of the precepts of medieval science but also in relation to specific moral, philosophical, and poetic problems laid out in each chapter.For Dante, Alison Cornish says, the stars offer optical representations of invisible realities, from divine providence to the workings of the human soul. Dante's often puzzling celestial figures call attention to the physical world as a scene of reading in which visible phenomena are subject to more than one explanation, Cornish contends. The poetry of Dante's astronomy, as well as its difficulty, rests on this imperative of interpretation. Reading the stars, like reading literature, is an ethical undertaking fraught with risk, not just an exercise in technical understanding. Cornish's book is the first guide to the astronomy of Dante's masterpiece to encompass both ways of reading his work. |
Contents
12 | |
26 | |
THE HARVEST OF READING Inferno 20 24 26 | 43 |
ORIENTATION Purgatorio 9 | 62 |
LOSING THE MERIDIAN From Purgatorio to Paradiso | 79 |
THE SHADOWS OF IDEAS Paradiso 13 | 93 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aeneid Albertus Magnus allegorical amore Angelitti angels Aquinas Aries Aristotle Astrology astronomical Augustine Aurora autem Beatrice Beatrice's beautiful beginning Calcidius called Cambridge canto Cassiodorus celestial celestial spheres Christian cielo ciò circle concubina constellations Convivio cosmos creation Dante Alighieri Dante Studies Dante's dawn Divina Commedia divine Dream of Scipio earth Easter eclipse enim equinox eternity exordium fiction Florence full moon Georgics heavens horizon ideo imagination Inferno instant John Freccero journey Libra light luna medieval mente meridian metaphor mondo morning motion move movement nature night nomical occhi Opera omnia Orosius Paradiso paschal Pharsalia Philosophy planetary planets poem poet poetic poetry pole primo primum Princeton Purgatorio quae quale quam quia quod reader reading says secondo shadow sicut simile sphere stelle sunt temporal tempus things Timaeus time-reference tion trans translation truth tutto vero Virgil Vita nuova
Popular passages
Page 21 - E come, per sentir più dilettanza bene operando, l'uom di giorno in giorno s'accorge che la sua virtute avanza, si m'accors'io che 1 mio girar dintorno col cielo insieme avea cresciuto l'arco, veggendo quel miracol più adorno.