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Part of the book: Dante and Epicurus

George Corbett

Italian Perspectives 25

Legenda

MedievalItalianTheologyPhilosophyPoetryopen

Abstract.  This chapter explores how the liminal condition of the Christian souls in Ante-Purgatory dramatizes the tension in Dante Alighieri's dualistic theory between reason and faith, nature and grace, man's temporal felicity and his eternal salvation. It addresses the intertextuality of Purgatorio II in which Dante, for the first time in the Commedia, juxtaposes a Scriptural psalm of spiritual redemption with his own philosophical canzone. The chapter describes the episode of Dante-character's solitary shadow within the context of Dante's discussions of the horizon between reason and faith in the prose works. It analyses Dante's incorporation of an astronomical lecture and ethical lesson from the Convivio into the narrative dialogue of Virgil and Dante-character in Purgatorio IV. The episode, which culminates in Dante-character's encounter with the Epicurean excommunicate Manfred, represents the epistemological transition from philosophical wonder to belief in miracle, as the foundation of Christian faith in the divine authority of Scripture.

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