Divine Comedy Research Articles

Collective Individuality: Dante’s Moral Philosophical and Psychological Message in Paradise XXXI

This is a philosophical-moral study on the concept of altruistic happiness, through a hermeneutic analysis of a fundamental episode of the Divine Comedy. The symbol of the White Rose, contemplated by Dante in Paradise XXXI, represents the communion of saints, that is, of those who can experience in their psyche the extinction of desire in full joy. The kingdom of heaven is seen by the pilgrim poet as a beautiful flower with many petals. Its value is in the whole, the flower, but also in its individual parts, the petals. The salvation of the soul is therefore linked to altruism, to denying ourselves for our neighbors, in the name of a collective good. However, the poet shows us that every human individuality is precious, and the paradisiacal abolition of egoism is not the destruction of the uniqueness of the soul but the fulfillment of the self. Inside hell, which is described by Dante like an emblem of selfishness, Beatrice appears as a divine creature, ready to save her beloved poet. This means that Christianity starts the process of human salvation from the lowest material depth of the universe. Consequently, the low is not the opposite of the high: since there is also a high within that low. The individual, if purified from selfishness, becomes in the kingdom of heaven the independent and complementary mirror of a universal joy, a collective joy. Dante, deeply linked to Franciscanism, defends the Mariological concept of ‘Immaculate Conception’ and, in the Divine Comedy, offers us a philosophical-moral message that translates the profound meaning of this same theological idea into secular terms. The solitude of the individual matter that forms the body of every man is only apparent. We are not alone. There is another invisible, silent, very pure reality that has sunk into this matter of ours and into consciousness. This reality can save mankind and bring every person back into joyful wholeness.

Forbidden Epics: The Censorship of Paradise Lost and The Divine Comedy in the Ottoman Empire

Forbidden Epics: The Censorship of Paradise Lost and The Divine Comedy in the Ottoman Empire

Literature and Mysticism in the Wake of Silvano Panunzio: From The Divine Comedy to the European Literature of the Twentieth Century

This article introduces one of the forgotten figures of religious and literary studies: the Italian scholar, philosopher, metaphysician, poet and writer Silvano Panunzio (1918–2010). His contribution has so far been relegated to the margins of academic debate, and, currently, there are no academic studies on his work, in which mysticism plays a pivotal role. Panunzio believed that the transcendental and mystical dimension is fundamental for fully understanding the social, cultural, historical and political events of humanity. Another relevant aspect of his work is the importance he gave to literature and its relationship with mysticism, as in the case of Dante’s Divine Comedy or other European and Eastern writers and poets, such as Goethe, Shakespeare, Ibn Arabi and Dostoevsky. Significantly, Panunzio saved from oblivion the work of a forgotten man of letters of the nineteenth century, Gabriele Rossetti (1783–1854), who proposed the first symbolic and esoteric interpretation of Dante’s literary production and of European medieval love literature. Raising awareness of the intellectual amnesia around the figure of Silvano Panunzio may be a useful contribution to future research, both in the field of religious and literary studies.

A Constructivist Leader Avoids the Bankruptcy of an Emblematic Company and the Deepening of Deindustrialization in Europe: Lessons From a Case Study

Confronting a complex reality always causes a mixture of shock that continues, even after acceptance. The moment Bertrand Martin takes over C.M.M. Sulzer-France in 1984, the company is in the disaster situation. With the Naval Construction crisis, the order book quickly ran out, the stock warehouses were full, and people's morale was at a level close to exhaustion. Everyone expected either closure or, at the very least, a massive collective dismissal. B. Martin's position surprises everyone and everything, equivalent to a real electroshock, according to his own expression. In a staff meeting, called by him to “say what he came for”, B. Martin (or a member of his management team) holds back and does not even formulate a word that evokes “solutions”. Faced with the dramatic events that the company was experiencing, B. Martin says he is at this staff meeting to hear… solutions, as an alternative to closure or massive layoffs. Rarely have words like these been heard in companies in a country accustomed to a hierarchical organizational culture and job cuts in response to crises. Voluntary problem-solving groups, involving more than 300 people from all hierarchical levels, developed a plan with 450 measures. The workers' assembly votes on the plan unanimously. In a short time, the company changes radically and comes out of the red, accepting a difficult challenge, associated with an order for two large power plant engines, for China, previously considered unrealizable. The dynamics introduced into the company become proverbial with unusual repercussions throughout France. The case seems to fit more into the order of counter factuality than a plausible situation. Four orders of reasons seem to have contributed to the novelty of the director general's communication: (1) A general director who, instead of starting by presenting a speech of hope (to create a climate of positive expectation), as is customary to do, exposes the naked reality for everyone to observe. (2) A leader who says he has no solutions but was available to listen to the solutions to be found within the organization. (3) An entrepreneur who knew how to listen to himself and listen to what he would call a “crazy dream” that mobilized the talents of each subject. (4) A people engineer who knew how to intuit, as an organizational reference, the thirst for collectively shared change and which would allow 70% of all four hundred proposals from the working groups to be carried out in six months. The constructivist transformational leadership of this leader, unlikely given the context, Bertrand Martin, made the difference, in a situation where “hope seemed to have disappeared”, in the words of Dante, in the “Divine Comedy” – sequel to Inferno.

Human Morality and Sustainability: Insights from The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri

In this paper it is argued that the root cause of the environmental crisis is the moral condition of mankind. Over-indulgence, over-consumption and a desire for material wealth and possessions, far in excess of what is needed for survival and comfort, callous use of technology to overexploit the land and seas for profit, lack of diligence in addressing threats to the environment, and the tendency towards aggressive conflict, all contribute towards the decimation of natural eco-systems. Moral improvement is therefore considered as a possible pathway towards sustainability. The impact of human morality upon the environment is examined using the system of capital vices and virtues. Particular reference is given to The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, which provides profound insight into the human condition. The capital vices are shown to play a significant part in the decline of the environment by driving mankind's overconsumption and overindulgence, while cultivation of the capital virtues is shown to provide a pathway of moral improvement allowing human beings to live responsibly and in greater harmony with the planet. Embracing these moral virtues can provide a necessary course correction for human beings today so that we can build upon the successes of our past and thrive as one species sharing the planet with other species and securing a sustainable future. Keywords: morality, ethics, sustainable development, The Divine Comedy, moral philosophy.

보스의 <쾌락의 정원>과 르네상스 - 단테 『신곡』의 관련성을 중심으로

This study attempted to reconstruct the full historical meaning of this work, which is the coexistence of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, by examining the Renaissance characteristics shown in Hieronymus Bosch’s <The Garden of Earthly Delights> (1503-4) with a focus on its relationship with Dante’s Divine Comedy (1320). <The Garden of Earthly Delights> has been discussed only within the scope of the Middle Ages because its theme warns against ‘lust’. However, the Bosch’s self-portrait in the work is a Renaissance characteristic of self-awareness, which Dante first raised. Accordingly, this article expanded the discussion of <The Garden of Earthly Delights> to the Renaissance, focusing on its relationship with Dante’s Divine Comedy’s “Inferno”. The reason Bosch wanted to go beyond the scope of the Middle Ages and include a new zeitgeist was fundamentally his extreme interest in humans and the world surrounding humans. This is the worldview of Renaissance humanism, which holds that human life must continue even though it is located in the midst of suffering. In this respect, the Renaissance characteristics of <The Garden of Earthly Delights> can be seen as recapturing historical significance.

Oleksandr Ivakhnenko and Oleksandr Danchenko are the Illustrators of Oleksandr Dovzhenko

The article is dedicated to the illustrations of the prominent Ukrainian graphic artists Oleksandr Ivakhnenko and Oleksandr Danchenko for the prose of Oleksandr Dovzhenko, as well as the issue of the existence of auto-illustrations by the filmmaker himself. Oleksandr Dovzhenko (also known as Alexander Dovzhenko) is not only a world-renowned filmmaker but also an outstanding artist – a painter and a graphic artist. Besides his painted portraits and thematic paintings, graphic caricatures, cartoons, and portraits, his drawings for films («Arsenal» – late 1920s, «Shchors» – late 1930s, «Michurin» – 1940s, «Poem on the Sea» – 1950s) are well-known. However, the topic “O. Dovzhenko is the Illustrator of His Own Literary Works” has hardly been explored by researchers of the master’s heritage, although the drawing Little Sashko which is both a portrait of the author in childhood and an image of the hero of the film story The Enchanted Desna, inspires further archival search in the filmmaker archives. V. Yevdokymenko (1967), M. Kompanets (1973), V. Yefymenko (1976), T. Kushch (2006), and others are among the illustrators of O. Dovzhenko’s prose. Oleksandr Ivakhnenko’s etchings for the film story The Enchanted Desna (1975–1976) have become a notable phenomenon in Ukrainian graphics during the period of the so-called “silent protest” (the 1970s–1980s). Having chosen a favourite graphic technique of that period, the artist, however, remained indifferent to the extremely popular “de-booking” technique of the 1970s–1980s. The Enchanted Desna is a book that is well-thought-out and coherent. In terms of space, the illustrations occupy as much space on the page as the printed text, and in shape, they are very elongated horizontally, thus creating a kind of pictorial “film strip”, logical and natural for a “film story”. Oleksandr Danchenko’s cycle of etchings for the collection of stories Unforgettable. 1941–1943 (1980) is another example. The artist has addressed frequently the theme of World War II tragedy (Koriukivka. March 1, 1943 (1971), Adzhimushkai (1985), a cycle of illustrations for O. Honchar’s novel Standard-Bearers (1989)). At the same time, his illustrations for O. Dovzhenko’s stories are internally connected with O. Danchenko’s series The Liberation War of the Ukrainian People of 1648–1654 (1954) and Chornobyl (1988–1990), as well as with the etchings for Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (1990–1992). All these works are based on the combination of documentary with epic, where elevation and poeticism arise precisely as a result of such a combination. The construction of the illustration as a frame, sometimes even a freeze-frame, is an artistic tribute to the creativity of the outstanding filmmaker.

The Divine Comedy (Hell) through Aristotelian ethics and Thomistic ontology

The first part of the Divine Comedy, the Inferno, should be interpreted through the prism of the Aristotelian conception of virtue. Against all expectations, Dante did not base his work on virtue as defined by Catholic morality, which makes his work seem less guided by established principles, even if the ontological essence of the text reflects the Thomistic structure. This is not without consequence. The characters of the Inferno are not approached from the angle of absolute morality, but rather through the accounts of their concrete lives, which Dante narrates and analyses in depth. In this way, he can position himself uniquely in relation to these figures, expressing his own personal feelings. The poet has a deep respect for those who had a direct or indirect influence on his life (such as Virgil, Brunetto Latini and the fictional character of Ulysses), even if they are among the damned. He sees them not in absolute terms, but relatively, considering their humanity, which, like all humanity, is imperfect and fallible. From this perspective, the term “transhumar”, one of the main vectors of the spiritual habitus in the Comedy, can be seen as an equivalent of the Greek term “eudaimonia”, which designates the supreme good or its quest. This is precisely what the poet aspires to, and what his most beloved characters cling to, whom he saves from eternal damnation by means of Aristotle’s moral teaching. That’s why the play is called “Comedy”. It is, after all, a story with a happy ending. And how could it be otherwise, when Dante, and those he holds in high esteem in the Inferno, aspire to maximum personal fulfilment in the light of “the love that moves the Sun and the other stars”? In the end, the “lectura aristotelica” proves to be a great help in grasping the dialectic of the poem.

Contrapasso, Violence, and Madness in Dante’s The Divine Comedy and Westworld

The medieval epic poem, The Divine Comedy, and Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s prestige drama, Westworld, have more in common than at first meets the eye. Both represent hellish and purgatorial geographies, both physical and psychological. And both share the view that what is regularly considered “perfect liberty”, or the liberty to indulge in any and every desire one wishes to with impunity, is in fact a form of slavery, as argued by Aristotle. Both the denizens in Dante’s Inferno and the guests in Westworld’s park, therefore, are ensnared by their own desires. This article will consider the structure of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy and Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy’s hit HBO show Westworld, which I will argue takes parts of its structure consciously from Dante’s The Divine Comedy. And though at the outset, the two works of art appear dissimilar, the theologically and philosophically infused medieval Catholic-Italian poetry of Dante and the sensuous, nihilistic, and provocative story-telling of Jonathan Nolan’s recent work on the generation and expression of consciousness, ultimately what they share is similarity in structure and an agreement on the connection between activity, suffering, madness, perfection, consciousness, and freedom of the will from sin.

Maxime Durand-Fardel (1815–1899), auteur du premier mémoire sur le suicide de l’enfant, paru dans les Annales Médico-Psychologiques en 1855

Since its creation in 1843, the Annales Médico-Psychologiques has reported on works or studies about insanity under different headings: memoirs, bibliography, French and foreign journals, and minutes of meetings of learned societies. In its second issue, the Annales Médico-Psychologiques reported on the first work on cerebral anatomical pathology by Charles Louis-Maxime Durand-Fardel (1815–1899). In 1845, it pointed out his Traité du ramollissement du cerveau (1843) and published one of his observations about a case of hypochondria (1852). Maxime Durand-Fardel was an extern in medicine (1834), then an intern (1836) and a Doctor of Medicine (1840). The same year he became a Doctor of Medicine, he was the first to describe a case of cholangiocarcinoma. He was a pioneer in vascular neurology; he described for the first time the “cribrosum status” following a chronic compromise of cerebral circulation (1842). For four years, Durand-Fardel worked as a country doctor practicing general medicine and minor surgery in Châtillon-sur-Loing (Loiret). In 1848, he published a series of original works on medical hydrology. He founded the Society of Hydrology and Medical Climatology (1853) and taught at the École pratique de la Faculté de médecine de Paris, where he taught a course on mineral waters and chronic diseases (1856–1876). In 1854, he was a member of a number of learned societies (The Anatomical Society, the Medical Observation Society, the Medical Society of Paris, the Medical-surgical Society of Paris, the Medical Society of the 10th Arrondissement of Paris, the Societies of Medical Sciences of Lille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nancy, Leipzick and a corresponding member of the Imperial Academy of Medicine) and worked as a medical inspector of the springs of Hauterive in Vichy (Allier). In the same year, he published his Traité clinique et pratique des maladies des vieillards (A Clinical and Practical Treatise on Diseases of the Elderly), following in the footsteps of the great clinicians of the nineteenth century who devoted scientific work to senile pathology (Canstatt, Pinel, Prus, Rostan). He was an erudite doctor, musician and watercolorist, and he was interested in the study of history and the Italian language, becoming fascinated by Dante Alighieri. He translated and commented the Divine Comedy. On March 19, 1899, Durand-Fardel died in Paris. In addition to having a predilection for anatomical-pathological studies and medical hydrology, Durand-Fardel was the first to publish, in France and abroad, a memoir in the Annales Médico-Psychologiques dealing with suicide in children in 1855. The publication of this monograph marks the groundbreaking role played by the Annales Médico-Psychologiques, a pioneering French journal of psychiatry founded in 1843 and the official bulletin of the Société Médico-Psychologique since 1852, in the emergence of a discipline – infant and juvenile psychiatry – which would not see the light of day until 1842.

Iconography of the Mythological Characters in the Divine Comedy Manuscripts of the XIV-XV Centuries: Functions and Iconographical Sources

The history of illustration of Dante’s Divine Comedy in the 14th-15th centuries rarely attracts the attention of researchers. Nevertheless, a careful analysis of some manuscripts would clarify the genesis process of specific iconographic schemes within the framework of a very specific task: illustrating a text replete with figures of speech and references to ancient sources that were often unknown to the iconography designer. This contribute is devoted to the iconography of mythological characters found in Dante’s text and their visual sources based on a few manuscripts of the Divine Comedy dated from mid-14th and 15th centuries, six of which are fully illustrated.

Nayman, A. (2023). Russian Long Poem. Moscow: Alpina non-fiction. (In Russ.)

Anatoly Nayman’s Russian Long Poem is devoted to six landmark works of Russian literature: opening with a discussion of I. Bogdanovich’s Dushenka, A. Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman [Medniy vsadnik], and N. Nekrasov’s Red-Nosed Frost [Moroz, Krasniy nos], the book goes on to analyze 20th-c. experimental long poems, including V. Mayakovsky’s A Cloud in Trousers [Oblako v shtanakh], A. Blok’s Dvenadtsat [The Twelve], and A. Akhmatova’s Poem without a Hero [Poema bez geroya]. The author proposes a new angle for viewing the poems, shifting the reader’s focus from preconceived interpretations to the poetics of the texts, which function primarily as a cultural rather than historical fact. Nayman’s book shows accurate appreciation of the uninterrupted tradition passed down among the poems and points out their ties with a common European context, such as C. Baudelaire’s poetry or Dante’s Divine Comedy. The author details the development of poetic writing, its form and meaning determined by cultural and historical circumstances.

Nayman, A. (2023). Russian Long Poem. Moscow: Alpina non-fiction. (In Russ.)

Anatoly Nayman’s Russian Long Poem is devoted to six landmark works of Russian literature: opening with a discussion of I. Bogdanovich’s Dushenka, A. Pushkin’s The Bronze Horseman [Medniy vsadnik], and N. Nekrasov’s Red-Nosed Frost [Moroz, Krasniy nos], the book goes on to analyze 20th-c. experimental long poems, including V. Mayakovsky’s A Cloud in Trousers [Oblako v shtanakh], A. Blok’s Dvenadtsat [The Twelve], and A. Akhmatova’s Poem without a Hero [Poema bez geroya]. The author proposes a new angle for viewing the poems, shifting the reader’s focus from preconceived interpretations to the poetics of the texts, which function primarily as a cultural rather than historical fact. Nayman’s book shows accurate appreciation of the uninterrupted tradition passed down among the poems and points out their ties with a common European context, such as C. Baudelaire’s poetry or Dante’s Divine Comedy. The author details the development of poetic writing, its form and meaning determined by cultural and historical circumstances.

Milesian Rewritings of the Annunciation to the Virgin in ‘The Martyr’s Crown’ via Petronius, Dante, and Shakespeare

Reading ‘The Martyr’s Crown’ as a parody of the Biblical Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, this article presents a previously unrecognised intertextual source to which the title of Brian Nolan’s story alludes: the liturgy of the Roman Catholic mass celebrated on the memorial day of Our Lady of Sorrows. As will be shown, this liturgical source serves as a key for an additional cluster of three interrelated literary echoes in Nolan’s short story. First, ‘The Martyr’s Crown’ is discussed as an ironic rewriting of the Biblical Annunciation story via the Mock-Marian imagery featured in the Paolo and Francesca da Rimini episode of the Divina Commedia – an indecent story or fabliau inserted in Dante’s epic framework. Secondly, Nolan’s tale is examined as a rewriting of the Biblical Annunciation story via Ophelia-related passages from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Thirdly, the story is approached as a rewriting of the ancient tradition of the naughty Milesian tale, as reflected in the ‘Widow of Ephesus’ episode inserted in Petronius’s Satyricon. Within the frame of ‘The Martyr’s Crown,’ the fabliaux- and Milesian tale-inspired mockery of the Biblical Annunciation to the Virgin recurs in the embedded narrative of the widow Mrs Clougherty told by the unreliable narrator Mr Toole. Finally, the article shows how this intertextual cluster is queered in the narrative situation of ‘The Martyr’s Crown.’

Rhetorical analysis techniques in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy

The diversity of languages of the digital real has led to the creation of new communication models which incorporate formal, synthetic, and approved-by-areas codes for smart communication. The emblem of our society is the Mood virtual communicator: this replaces words and sentences with algorithms and acronyms. Our course of direction is heading inexorably towards digital codes that transmit pre-established semantics generated by a fixed sentence. Thus, it makes sense to discuss communication styles. And what does education consist of? Although we can take sides with fixed and standardized synthetic communication, we also call for respect for traditional and cultural values in individual societies. Still, we call into question the methodologies of study and reference models, which are currently used for virtual communication. The disciplines of theoretical linguistics, computational linguistics, mathematics, quantum physics, sociology, psychology, pedagogical theories, and other related subjects are all included in Social Sciences and Digital Media. This work aims to present an unwavering logical progression that transitions from normative grammar to formal grammar to then examine the features of a poetic text, such as Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, from several perspectives.

The Odysseus of the “Divine Comedy” and the limits of human knowledge

The Odysseus of the “Divine Comedy” and the limits of human knowledge

The Narrative Ordeal of Enduring Love: A Divine Comedy Recast

Abstract This article establishes a connection between Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love and Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. It defends that the narrative journey of Joe Rose, protagonist of McEwan’s novel, to recover his idyllic lost love resembles Dante’s voyage through Hell and Purgatory led by Virgil to the threshold of Earthly Paradise, where he meets Beatrice. The psychological and metaphorical hell to which Joe is subjected in the wake of a ballooning accident constitutes an ordeal in which, led by Jed Parry’s obsessive love, he confronts and purges the trauma in a redemptive arc that brings him closer to a promising yet uncertain paradise.

Dialogue with St. K(aterina): An attempt at a prayer – a (not the) divine comedy

Dialogue with St. K(aterina): An attempt at a prayer – a (not the) divine comedy

“Donasdogama Micma”

To this day, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, written in the early fourteenth century, remains one of the most significant literary works of Western culture. It has not only been adapted in music, film, and art, but also in the world of video games. Since the early 1980s, video games have chosen the poetry as a basis for their plots, and various approaches to musical interpretation have emerged. With the release of Dante’s Inferno (2010), for the first time an approach was demonstrably chosen that resulted from an intensive examination of the Divine Comedy. This article explores the thesis that using literary works as a basis for video games not only affects the plot, gameplay, and character design, but also significantly influences the musical concept. Thus, it is evident that the literary source and its interpretation should be incorporated into the analysis of video game music. Thanks to Garry Schyman, who made the original scores available for analysis, the resulting musical concept will be examined more closely and compared with the previous Dante games.

Incarnation and Imagination in Jayber Crow : Wendell Berry’s Divine Comedy

Abstract: Wendell Berry models Jayber Crow on Dante’s Divine Comedy , and in doing so, he dramatizes a fundamental mystery of Christian theology: the Incarnation. Dante and Jayber make parallel errors on their winding pilgrimages to the beatific vision. At times they are tempted to enjoy created goods for their own sakes. At other times they experience frustration with the need to know Christ through the fallen-yet- redeemed members of his earthly body, and they seek instead to apprehend him directly. Yet both eventually enjoy the transcendent gift of God’s presence, and they do so mediated through his earthly body, the communion of saints.