Dante Philomythes and Philosopher :Man in the Cosmos

Publication subTitle :Man in the Cosmos

Author: Patrick Boyde  

Publisher: Cambridge University Press‎

Publication year: 1983

E-ISBN: 9780511866753

P-ISBN(Paperback): 9780521273909

Subject: I109.2 ancient (about 3500 B.C. to A.D. 476)

Keyword: 作品评论和研究

Language: ENG

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Dante Philomythes and Philosopher

Description

This book is devoted to a full and lucid exposition of Boyde's ideas. In the first two parts, the author presents a systematic account of the universe as Dante accepted it, and explains the processes of 'creation' and 'generation' as they operate in the non-human parts of the cosmos. Dr Boyde then shows how the two processes combine in Dante's theory of human embryology, and how this combination affects the issues of love, choice and freedom. The third and last part of the book consolidates these expository sections with a generous selection of quotations from Dante's authorities and from his own works in prose. At the same time, the book offers far more than a clear account of Dante's cosmology and anthropology. Dr Boyde is interested in Dante's ideas in so far as they inspired and gave shape to the Divine Comedy. Furthermore, in every chapter he demonstrates how the relevant concepts and habits of thought were transmuted into imagery, symbolism, and dramatic scenes, or simply transformed by the energy and concision of Dante's poetic style.

Chapter

International politics: the Emperor Henry VII

‘Monarchia’

Dante’s third age: the ‘Comedy’

‘By profession, a poetic philosopher’

Part 1: The cosmos

1 Wonder and knowledge

The living dead

A day of marvel

Dante philomythes

‘Propter admirari incoeperunt philosophari’

Knowledge and causation

The hunt for man

‘Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas’

2 The elements

Usque ad elementa

The nature and origins of Aristotle’s theory

Substrate and potentiality

Primary matter

Heat and cold, lightness and gravity

The concentric spheres

Elemental love in prose and poetry

Fiction and fact in Dante’s underworld

Words and blood

3 Meteorology

The scope and influence of Aristotle’s meteorology

Condensation and evaporation

Dry exhalations

Meteorology in narrative and simile

Meteorology and divine punishment

Wind in Dante’s poetry

The highest mountain

Meteorology and the language of prophecy

Lightning and velocity

Earthquakes

4 Land and sea

‘Questa parte del mare e della terra’

Geography, language and politics

Geography, place-names and poetry

Geographical periphrasis in the Heaven of Venus

The cosmic perspective

Geography and theology

5 The natural world and the Scale of Being

The ‘Comedy’ as microcosm

Metals and minerals in the ‘Comedy’

Animals in the ‘Comedy’

Birds in the ‘Comedy’

Corporeity, form, quality and composition

Complexion, powers and virtues, ‘differentiae’

Compound bodies: inanimate, vegetative and sensitive

The Ladder of Being or the Scale of Nature

6 Concerning the heavens

The material cause of the heavenly body

The Empyrean

The planetary and stellar spheres

Body into body will go

The planetary heavens in Cicero and Dante

The difficulties of geocentric astronomy

The movements of the earth and the solar system

Dante and the movements of the sun

The ninth heaven in the ‘Comedy’

The cosmic clock: (a) ‘moontime’

The cosmic clock: (b) the ‘ideal’ Easter

The cosmic clock: (c) counting the years

The heavenly luminaries as terms of comparison

The stars around the southern pole

7 The angels

The Keeper at the Gate

Didactic narrative: (a) the angel of humility

Didactic narrative: (b) the angels of love and forgiveness

Didactic narrative: (c) the angel of moderation

Angels in the Bible

Biblical angels in the ‘Comedy’

The ‘Celestial Hierarchy’: (a) St Paul and Dionysius

The ‘Celestial Hierarchy’: (b) Dante

Demonology

Angels, demons and the pagan gods

‘Substances separate from matter’

L’essetnplo e I’essemplare

Part 2: Coming into being

8 Images of God as maker

Metaphorismatics

Light: (a) its nature and properties

Light: (b) ‘God is light’

Light: (c) The scale of luminosity

Light: (d) relaying by reflection

Light: (e) negative and positive connotations

Water

The bowshot

Numbers: (a) the one and the many

Number: (b) proportion and harmony

Hierarchy

The wax seal

Seed and plant

The craftsman

9 Creation (Paradiso xxix, 1-57)

The problems presented by Genesis 1.1

Prelude: the point of space and time

The unfolding of God’s eternal love

The ‘triform effect’

‘Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever’

10 Generation and universal nature

Aristotle’s account of generation

The impact of astrology

Dante’s account of generation and the celestial influences

Determinism in the natural order

Corruption, privation and death

Dante’s view of the ‘opus distinction’: a reconstruction

The poet of Christian Neoplatonism

11 The makings of a man

The vain embrace

Generation: (a) From the formation of seed to conception

Generation: (b) The transformations of the embryo

Creation: (a) The intellect and the error of Averroes

Creation: (b) The breath of human life

The shadow-bodies and the role of the heavens

‘Man in Society’ and ‘Man and God’

Our likeness to God: (a) Knowledge and freedom

Our likeness to God: (b) God-longing and immortality

The human person

The goodness of man s ‘natural’ functions

The ‘winged caterpillar’

‘In my beginnings are my ends’

Part 3: Texts, references and notes

Introductory notes to Part 3

Abbreviations

Notes

Suggestions for further reading

Index of longer quotations

Index

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