Believing in Dante

Tackles specific issues in the Divine Comedy that seem particularly alien to modern ways of thinking and renders them compelling.

Alison Cornish offers a compelling new take on the Commedia with modern sensibilities in mind. Believing in Dante re-examines the infernal dramas of Dante's masterpiece that alienate and perplex modern readers, offering an invigorating view of the whole Divine Comedy, bringing it to meaningful life today. Addressing the characteristics that distance an author like Dante from the modern world, Alison Cornish shows the value of critically and constructively engaging with texts that do not coincide with current worldviews. She thereby reveals how we might discover constellations by which to navigate the process of reading. Written with incisiveness and sophistication, this landmark book elucidates Dante's eminently readable universe: one where we can and must choose what we want to believe.

Autorentext
Alison Cornish is Professor and Chair of Italian Studies at New York University and current President of the Dante Society of America. She is the author of Reading Dante's Stars (2000), Vernacular Translation in Dante's Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2011), a commentary on Dante's Paradiso (2017), and numerous essays on Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. She is a former fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities and the Harvard Center for Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti. She is also the curator of the YouTube series, 'Canto per Canto: Conversations with Dante in Our Time'.

Klappentext

Eminently readable, this book tackles specific issues in the Divine Comedy that seem particularly alien to modern ways of thinking and renders them compelling. It shows why faith is a question of trust and cannot be bracketed off as merely religious; rather it is a central theme of literature generally.

Inhalt
Introduction; 1. 'So great a lover': Facts and narratives in the love stories of the lustful; 2. 'Bad light': Factionalism and the Facts in the cemetery of the heretics; 3. 'Never broke faith': Losing credibility in the wood of the suicides; 4. 'Where your soul is pointed': Facts and values in Ulysses' quest and the examination on love; 5. 'Against Her Will': Diversity of desire in the heaven of the moon; 6. 'How much from the point': Saving appearances at the edge of the universe; Conclusion.