Divine dialectic : Dante's incarnational poetry / Guy P. Raffa.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-239) and index.

"In this book, Guy Raffa offers a fresh reading of Dante's major literary works - the Divine Comedy and the Vita nuova - that combines central tenets of incarnational theology and dialectical thought to illuminate the poet's renowned ability to 'have it both ways' on issues that conventionally elicit an 'either/or' response. Viewing Dante as a poet of revision, not conversion, Raffa challenges a dominant paradigm in Dante criticism and takes full account of the poet's unconventional approach to such conventional dichotomies as eros and spirituality, fame and humility, action and contemplation, and obedience and transgression. Divine Dialectic ultimately argues that Dante crosses textual and theological boundaries in his medieval epic to promote the paradoxical union of contradiction and resolution as a way of reading his poem and, by extension, the world itself."--Jacket

Introduction: Dante's Incarnational Dialectic -- Divisive Dialectic: Incarnational Failure and Parody -- Incarnation Manque in the Vita nuova -- Dante's Infernal Web of Pride -- Incarnational Dialectic Writ Large -- Incarnational (Dis) appearances: Virgil and Beatrice -- Dialectically Marked Spirits in the Shadowed Spheres -- Incarnational Reflections and Lines -- The Poet's Incarnate Word -- Dante's Incarnational Dialectic of Martyrdom and Mission -- Lifting the Hermeneutic Veil: Circling the Cross in the Sun and Mars -- The Bitter-Sweet Lessons of Cacciaguida and Scipio -- Dante's Divine Tetragon -- Intellectual Action and Dialectical Hermeneutics.

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