Dante and Difference
Writing in the 'Commedia'

This book presents an interesting approach to Dante's Divine Comedy, drawing on medieval theories of reading and understanding a text.

Jeremy Tambling (Author)

9780521044622, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 November 2007

220 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.337 kg

This book presents an interesting approach to Dante's Divine Comedy, drawing on medieval theories of reading and understanding a text, and comparing them with modern critical theories of hermeneutics and approaches to the text associated with the work of Derrida. Dr Tambling rejects any attempt to identify a fundamental unity of thought in the poem and stresses the importance of opposition and divergence. This leads him to react against reductively 'allegorical' readings, and to ask in what way Christianity can be said to be articulated within the work. This important interpretation will be of value to all students and scholars of Dante, as well as to those whose work lies in the fields of general medieval literature, comparative literature and critical theory.

Acknowledgements
Introduction: Dante and difference
Part I. The First Book: The Pagan World: 1. Ulysses: Virgil: Dante
2. The eye of the eagle
Part II. Writing and Re-Writing in the Poem: 3. 'Si dentro impertrai': crisis of language in the Commedia
4. 'Ch'e' ditta dentro': art and the imagination in the Purgatorio
Part III. The Book of Memory and its Several Incipits: 5. Attitudes to language in Dante
Conclusion: making meanings
Notes
Select bibliography
Index to Dante's works
Index of names.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC], Translation & interpretation [CFP]