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Part of the book: Dante and Epicurus

George Corbett

Italian Perspectives 25

Legenda

MedievalItalianTheologyPhilosophyPoetryopen

Abstract.  In the intellectual context of early-fourteenth-century Europe, Dante Alighieri's representation of the virtuous pagans, like his emphasis on the Epicureans, is surprising and peculiar. Dante's 'strange new fiction' of Cato in Ante-Purgatory similarly strikes another fourteenth-century reader with the disquieting taste of heresy. This chapter argues that these instances of theological unorthodoxy in the Commedia derive from Dante's controversial dualism. It considers the Limbus gentilium virtuosum and explores Cato's surprising presence as the gatekeeper of Ante-Purgatory. Alongside the pagan occupants of limbo, Cato embodies Dante's ethical and political ideal for the temporal sphere. The chapter examines how, through the liminal region of Ante-Purgatory, Dante dramatizes the dichotomy between the political imperative to maintain the imperial law against civic disorder, and the spiritual imperative of man's pilgrimage to his eternal goal. It deals with a comparison between the Limbus gentilium virtuosum and the Vallis Principium lacrimarumque.

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