Description
Book SynopsisJohn Took provides an entirely original view of one of the most important poets and thinkers in all of Western literature, Dante Alighieri.The year 2021 marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, a poet who, as T. S. Eliot put it, divides the world with Shakespeare, there being no third'. His, like ours, was a world of moral uncertainty and political violence, all of which made not only for the agony of exile but for an ever deeper meditation on the nature of human happiness.In
Why Dante Matters, John Took offers by way of three in particular of Dante's works the
Vita Nova as the great work of his youth, the
Convivio as the great work of his middle years and the
Commedia as the great work of his maturity an account, not merely of Dante's development as a poet and philosopher, but of his continuing presence to us as a guide to man's wellbeing as man. Committed as he was to the welfare not only of his contemporaries but of those
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Preface: Preliminary Confession Introduction: Dante and the Existential Point of View Dante at the Point of Ultimate Concern Dante: Who, What, Where and When? Course of the Argument
1 Dante, Self and Selfhood Love-Procession and the Love-Imperative: Preliminary Considerations in the Areas of Theology and Ethics Patterns of Self-Relatedness: Being as
Ahead of Self, as
Away from Self and
Alongside Self A Phenomenology of Being
2 The Vita Nova Preliminary Considerations: New Life and a New Book Love and Love-Understanding: The Pilgrim Way A
Commedia a minore 3 The Convivio Far-wandering and Friendship: The Courage of the
Convivio Feasting and Faring Well: A Guide for the Dispossessed Problems of Perspective and a Civic Ontology
4 The Commedia Preliminary Considerations: Spiritual Journeying and the Courage to Be A Song of Ascents:
The Commedia à la lettre Journeying under the Aspect of Seeing
(Inferno) Journeying under the Aspect of Striving
(Purgatorio) Journeying under the Aspect of Surpassing
(Paradiso) 5 The Power of the Word: Issues in the Area of Language and Literature Being, Becoming and the Sanctity of the Word The Triumph and the Image and a Writerly Text
Conclusion: In Conversation with Dante Further Reading Index of Names
