La parola che salva: per un ritratto di Dante filosofo del linguaggio

Abstract

In this essay I discuss some topics about the image of Dante as language philosopher who was concerned with a shifting of his writing from earthly and human values to signifiers of high theological speculation. So I analyze, by tracing critically some specific topics of the poem (together with the three twenty-sixth canti ) the ways in which the poet is going to attain the ordo originalis of biblical and theological writing. Here they are the places where Dante shows his purpose of overturning the platonic refusal of poetry — cause of its doubtful connection with truth — while aiming at transforming the volgare into the very language of philosophical knowledge, in whose sensus literalis we can discern universalia . We have here a gigantic phenomenon of shifting from the human word to a divine one: in it, historical and material individuality of the first is going to be defended in order to determine what we may define the first pattern of ‘metaphysical realism’. So I study the ways in which Dante shares the whole ‘earthly’ poetical tradition of previous and contemporary times, leading to the example of Arnaut who may represent the poetical key to a via salvationis which starts from the human «andar lacrimando» in order to obtain a language speaking «quasi come per se stesso mosso» and paired to the language of a new Adam. The whole universe of the senses is made speaking through the new language of sacrato poema, at last strenghtened onto the pattern of biblical writing which was eternally trusting more on believing than on seeing.