Dante’s Testaments : Essays in Scriptural Imagination / Peter S. Hawkins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hawkins, Peter S., Author.

Series:

Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (400 p.)

Place of Publication:

Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2022]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This book explores the wide range of Dante's reading and the extent to which he transformed what he read, whether in the biblical canon, in the ancient Latin poets, in such Christian authorities as Augustine or Benedict, or in the "book of the world"—the globe traversed by pilgrims and navigators. The author argues that the exceptional independence and strength of Dante's forceful stance vis-à-vis other authors, amply on display in both the Commedia and so-called minor works, is informed by a deep knowledge of the Christian Scriptures. The Bible in question is not only the canonical text and its authoritative commentaries but also the Bible as experienced in sermon and liturgy, hymn and song, fresco and illumination, or even in the aphorisms of everyday speech. The Commedia took shape against the panorama of this divine narrative. In chapters devoted to Virgil and Ovid, the author explores strategies of allusion and citation, showing how Dante reinterprets these authors in the light of biblical revelation, correcting their vision and reorienting their understanding of history or human love. Dante finds his authority for making these interpretive moves in a "scriptural self" that is constructed over the course of the Commedia. That biblical selfhood enables him to choose among various classical and Christian traditions, to manipulate arguments and time lines, and to forge imaginary links between the ancient world and his own "modern uso." He rewrites Scripture by reactivating it, by writing it again. To the inspired parchments of the Old and New Testaments he boldly adds his own "testamental" postscript.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Acknowledgments

Contents

Abbreviations

A Note on Citations and Translations

Prologue: Scripts for the Pageant

Part 1 Dante and the Bible

Chapter 1 The Scriptural Self

Chapter 2 Old and New Parchments

Chapter 3 ‘‘John Is with Me’’

Chapter 4 Self-Authenticating Artifact

Part 2 Dante and Virgil

Chapter 5 Descendit ad inferos

Chapter 6 Dido, Beatrice, and the Signs of Ancient Love

Part 3 Dante and Ovid

Chapter 7 The Metamorphosis of Ovid

Chapter 8 Watching Matelda

Chapter 9 Transfiguring the Text

Part 4 Dante and the Saints

Chapter 10 Divide and Conquer: Augustine in the Commedia

Chapter 11 Augustine, Dante, and the Dialectic of Ine√ability

Chapter 12 ‘‘By Gradual Scale Sublimed’’: Dante and the Contemplatives

Part 5 Dante and the World

Chapter 13 Crossing Over: Dante and Pilgrimage

Chapter 14 ‘‘Out upon Circumference’’: Discovery in Dante

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 31. Jan 2022)

ISBN:

1-5036-1791-2

OCLC:

1294426338