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The Poetry of Dante's Paradiso

Lives Almost Divine, Spirits that Matter

Jeremy Tambling author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Published:9th Mar '21

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The Poetry of Dante's Paradiso cover

This book argues that Paradiso – Dante’s vision of Heaven – is not simply affirmative. It posits that Paradiso compensates for disappointment rather than fulfils hopes, and where it moves into joy and vision, this also rationalises the experience of exile and the failure of all Dante’s political hopes. The book highlights and addresses a fundamental problem in reading Dante: the assumption that he writes as a Catholic Christian, which can be off-putting and induces an overly theological and partisan reading in some commentary. Accordingly, the study argues that Dante must be read now in a post-Christian modernity. It discusses Dante's Christianity fully, and takes its details as a source of wonder and beauty which need communicating to a modern reader. Yet, the study also argues that we must read for the alterity of Dante’s world from ours. 

“If one is looking for an understanding of Dante’s cosmos informed in equal parts by Walter Benjamin, George Herbert, and Ptolemy, it is to be found in Tambling’s book. … his book undeniably shows that ideas explored in Paradiso continue to matter beyond Dante’s own immediate context.” (Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė, Modern Language Review, Vol. 117 (3), July, 2022)

ISBN: 9783030656270

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

314 pages

1st ed. 2021