Redefining Faith in Dante's "Divine Comedy" offers a bold reinterpretation of one of the world's most studied poems. Through close readings of all three canticles, Jason Aleksander shows how Dante's poem provocatively reconfigures faith as a mode of creative and interpretive engagement grounded in the exercise of practical judgment ( phronsis ) and intellectual humility. Drawing on Dante's dramatic depictions of figures such as Farinata degli Uberti, Ulysses, Cato of Utica, Statius, Virgil, and Beatrice, Aleksander shows how the poem both illustrates and actively cultivates the virtues necessary for navigating a fragmented and polarized world.

Weaving together intellectual history, literary analysis, and sustained engagement with pagan, Christian, and Islamic philosophical traditions, the book traces how Dante's poem dramatizes and provokes reflection on theological concepts such as heresy, salvation, personal immortality, atonement, and freedom of will. In doing so, Redefining Faith in Dante's Divine Comedy offers a compelling account of how Dante's vision invites us to readand to livewith greater attentiveness, responsibility, and openness to the possibility of personal transformation.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of Dante, medieval and Renaissance philosophy and theology, philosophical hermeneutics, and anyone interested in how literature stimulates ethical imagination.

Offers a philosophically driven reading of the Divine Comedy that foregrounds the ethics of interpretation Interprets faith as an interpretive practice marked by practical wisdom (phronsis) and epistemic humility Brings pagan, Islamic, and Christian philosophy into dialogue with Dante's treatment of heresy, freedom, and salvation

Autorentext

Jason Aleksander is Professor of Philosophy at San José State University, USA. His work on Dante and Nicholas of Cusa explores the limits of knowledge and the ethics of interpretation, engaging broader interests in philosophical hermeneutics and the global history of philosophy, theology, and literature.

Klappentext

Redefining Faith in Dante’s "Divine Comedy" offers a bold reinterpretation of one of the world’s most studied poems. Through close readings of all three canticles, Jason Aleksander shows how Dante’s poem provocatively reconfigures "faith" as a mode of creative and interpretive engagement grounded in the exercise of practical judgment (phron sis) and intellectual humility. Drawing on Dante’s dramatic depictions of figures such as Farinata degli Uberti, Ulysses, Cato of Utica, Statius, Virgil, and Beatrice, Aleksander shows how the poem both illustrates and actively cultivates the virtues necessary for navigating a fragmented and polarized world. Weaving together intellectual history, literary analysis, and sustained engagement with pagan, Christian, and Islamic philosophical traditions, the book traces how Dante’s poem dramatizes and provokes reflection on theological concepts such as heresy, salvation, personal immortality, atonement, and freedom of will. In doing so, Redefining Faith in Dante’s Divine Comedy offers a compelling account of how Dante’s vision invites us to read—and to live—with greater attentiveness, responsibility, and openness to the possibility of personal transformation. This book will appeal to scholars and students of Dante, medieval and Renaissance philosophy and theology, philosophical hermeneutics, and anyone interested in how literature stimulates ethical imagination.

Inhalt

Chapter 1. Introduction: An Unorthodox Orientation to Faith in the Divine Comedy. - Chapter 2. No Room for Other Errors: The Peculiar Narrowness of Heresy in the Inferno.- Chapter 3. Myopia and Despair in the Drama of Inferno 10.- Chapter 4. Faith and the Implicit Poetics of Salvation in the Divine Comedy.- Chapter 5. Lo Maggior Don: Freedom as Poietic Praxis.- Chapter 6. The Problem of Theophany in Paradiso 33.