During his lifetime, Dante was condemned as corrupt and banned from Florence on pain of death. But in 1329, eight years after his death, he was again viciously condemned—this time as a heretic and false prophet—by Friar Guido Vernani. From Vernani’s inquisitorial viewpoint, the author of the Commedia “seduced” his readers by offering them “a vessel of demonic poison” mixed with poetic fantasies designed to destroy the “healthful truth” of Catholicism. Thanks to such pious vituperations, a sulphurous fume of unorthodoxy has persistently clung to the mantle of Dante’s poetic fame.
The primary critical purpose of Dante & the Unorthodox is to examine the aesthetic impulses behind the theological and political reasons for Dante’s allegory of mid-life divergence from the papally prescribed “way of salvation.” Marking the septicentennial of his exile, the book’s eighteen critical essays, three excerpts from an allegorical drama, and a portfolio of fourteen contemporary artworks address the issue of the poet’s conflicted relation to orthodoxy.
By bringing the unorthodox out of the realm of “secret things,” by uncensoring them at every turn, Dante dared to oppose the censorious regime of Latin Christianity with a transgressive zeal more threatening to papal authority than the demonic hostility feared by Friar Vernani.
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 851/.1
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 0889204578 9780889209275
- LCCN
- PQ4416
- LCCN Item number
- D35 2005eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (566 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)jme00323511 (OCoLC)60572043 (CaOOCEL)402697
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Title proper/short title
- Dante and the unorthodox
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Contents 8
- Acknowledgments 10
- Introduction: Retheologizing Dante 12
- Part I—Trapassar 74
- Dante's Limbo: At the Margins of Orthodoxy 74
- Saving Virgil 94
- Sacrificing Virgil 118
- Part II—Trasmutar 132
- Dido Alighieri: Gender Inversion in the Francesca Episode 132
- Fuming Accidie: The Sin of Dante's Gurglers 162
- Heresy and Politics in Inferno 10 181
- Original Skin: Nudity and Obscenity in Dante's Inferno 193
- Anti-Dante: Bataille in the Ninth Bolgia 218
- Part III—Trasumanar 260
- Rainbow Bodies: The Erotics of Diversity in Dante's Catholicism 260
- Dante/Fante: Embryology in Purgatory and Paradise 301
- The Cyprian Redeemed: Venereal Influence in Paradiso 321
- Part IV—Traslatar 338
- "Dantescan Light": Ezra Pound and Eccentric Dante Scholars 338
- Ezra Pound in the Earthly Paradise 357
- Part V—Tralucere 378
- Dante and Cinema: Film across a Chasm 378
- "Moving Visual Thinking": Dante, Brakhage, and the Works of Energeia 405
- Driftworks, Pulseworks, Lightworks: The Letter to Dr. Henderson 461
- Part VI—Trasmodar 500
- Calling Dante: An Exhibition of Sculptures, Drawings, and Installations 500
- Curatorial Essay: Prophet of the Paragone 501
- Calling Dante: Notes on the Artists 516
- Calling Dante: A Portfolio of Words and Images 520
- Calling Dante: From Dante on the Steps of Immortality 528
- Notes on Contributors 542
- Index 546
- A 546
- B 548
- C 550
- D 552
- E 555
- F 556
- G 557
- H 558
- I 560
- J 561
- K 562
- L 562
- M 563
- N 565
- O 565
- P 565
- Q 569
- R 569
- S 570
- T 572
- U 575
- V 575
- W 576
- X 577
- Y 577
- Z 577
