Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Le metamorfosi di un arcidiavolo. Il personaggio di Belfagor da Machiavelli a oggi

2015; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 35; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.33137/q.i..v35i1.22359

2293-7382

Bernardina Moriconi, Marcello Sabbatino,

Historical and Environmental Studies

ferno XXX to demonstrate how the character uses language taken from the Book of Lamentations in order to differentiate himself from the other damned souls who surround him, thus illustrating the creation of identity through contrast.Throughout his essay, Tambling incorporates aspects of twentieth-century existentialism through the likes of Jacques Lacan and his psychoanalytic concept of the mirror stage, innovatively applying this modern concept to Dante's medieval work.Michelangelo Zaccarello focuses his essay on the Tenzone, the collection of six playful sonnets believed to have been exchanged between Dante and Forese Donati.Through a close reading of Purgatorio XXIII, Zaccarello notes the ambiguous link with the Tenzone; he continues by suggesting the possibility that the sonnets may be apocryphal.However, Zaccarello also stresses the importance of clarifying the meaning of the Tenzone's text first before considering Purgatorio XXIII in the analysis.As Zaccarello explains, only in this way may one avoid relying on predetermined interpretations as "universal reading guides" (155) and restore the individual identity of the text.Robin Kirkpatrick highlights Paradiso VII as the key to understanding Dante's intellectual development and his approach to poetry.Rather than offering a narrative of providential events, Kirkpatrick explains that this canto is one centered on Christian doctrine, which more than any other of Dante's writings, showcases the poet's most direct consideration of the tenets of Christianity.Kirkpatrick further breaks down this canto as an exercise in humility and obedience which, according to Dante, are essential components for intellectual and spiritual life.Kirkpatrick refers to the twentieth-century interest in language and how modern-day thinkers conceive of themselves as "inhabitants of a world of words" (175), interestingly applying this modern concept to Dante's view of all men as social beings.Kirkpatrick uses this conviction to explain why Dante's Convivio begins with a defence of the vernacular as a replacement for Latin.In the final essay, John Took approaches his reading of the Commedia through an ontological lens.Although a medieval text, Took asserts that the Commedia reveals a preoccupation with existence more so than any other of Dante's works.Took points to the priority of the image in all three canticles of the Commedia, wherein Dante employs the images as tools for both the elucidation and the affirmation of meaning communicated through the text.Took's essay acts as an appropriate ending for the book, tackling concepts of style and existentialism in Dante -concepts that run as linkages throughout the entire book -from a more holistic point of view and thus, bringing circularity to this collection of essays.