Guido Cavalcanti (d. 1300) is one of the greatest Italian poets of all time. His legacy consists of some fifty poems, of which his canzone on the nature of love, Donna me prega (A lady asks me) is the most famously difficult and complex. The poem is important not only because it sheds light on fundamental intellectual debates during the time of Dante, but also because of its influence on generations of poets and philosophers. In this study, Maria Luisa Ardizzone sets Donna me prega in an entirely new light - first, by examining its role in Cavalcanti's poetic practice, and second, by placing it in the context of ancient and medieval science and philosophy. The book deals with issues that are part of the intellectual history of Europe in the thirteenth century. Cavalcanti's work is interpreted by reconstructing the debate of ideas in which it partecipates, and the new model of poetry devised by Cavalcanti is one of the subjects of this book.
For Cavalcanti, as for Dante, Aristotle was a master. But unlike Dante, who followed a more orthodox interpretation of Aristotle's text, Cavalcanti preferred the Aristotelianism which derived from the Arabic commentator Averroes, whose approach was responsible for introducing a radical rereading of Aristotle incompatible with basic tenets of the Christian faith. In this alternative view, human desires and difficulties were resolved not through theology but through biology, natural philosophy, and medicine. While other scholars have noted Cavalcanti's Averroism, Ardizzone is the first to analyse it in light of sciences such as optics or logic, focusing on new issues of intellectual debate of Cavalcanti's time, as, for instance, the medieval theory of matter.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 851/.1
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 21
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 0802035914 9781442675568
- LCCN
- PQ4299.C2
- LCCN Item number
- A93 2001eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xi, 231 p.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)thg00600289 (OCoLC)244768208 (CaOOCEL)418251
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Contents 8
- Preface 10
- Note on Editions of Guido Cavalcanti's Texts 14
- Introduction 18
- 1 Love as a Metaphor: The Discourse and the Method 32
- 2 Vision and Logic 62
- 3 Love as Passion 86
- 4 Pleasure and Intellectual Happiness: Guido Cavalcanti and Giacomo da Pistoia 118
- 5 Cavalcanti at the Centre of the Western Canon: Ezra Pound as Reader of Donna me prega 149
- Appendix A: Donna me prega: The Italian Text and an English Translation 180
- Appendix B: The Letters of Ezra Pound and Etienne Gilson 184
- Notes 190
- Bibliography 230
- Index 242
- A 242
- B 242
- C 243
- D 243
- E 243
- F 243
- G 243
- H 244
- I 244
- J 244
- K 244
- L 244
- M 244
- N 245
- O 245
- P 245
- Q 245
- R 245
- S 245
- T 245
- V 245
- W 246
