Experiencing the Afterlife

Manuele Gragnolati

Description

Experiencing the Afterlife provides the first sustained analysis of popular, vernacular depictions of the afterlife written in Italy before the Divine Comedy by authors such as Uguccione da Lodi, Giacomino da Verona, and Bonvesin da la Riva. Manuele Gragnolati uses his readings of these poets to provide a new interpretation of Dante’s work. Combining elements from several disciplines, he investigates the richness of high medieval eschatology and the concept of personal identity it expresses. Gragnolati is particularly concerned with how the notions of body and pain characteristic of medieval spirituality and devotion inform the eschatological representations of the time, especially in their paradoxical urge to stress at once the physical experience of the separated soul and the final necessity of bodily resurrection.

By integrating lesser-known texts and scholarship from other disciplines into the specialized field of Dante studies, Gragnolati sheds new light on some of the most vigorously debated and crucial questions raised by the Divine Comedy, including the embryological discourse of Purgatorio 25, the relation between the soul’s experience of pain in Purgatory and the devotion that late medieval culture expressed toward Christ’s suffering, and the significance of the audacious vision of resurrected bodies that Dante the pilgrim enjoys at the end of his journey. At the same time, Gragnolati brings these questions back into contemporary discussions of medieval eschatology and opens new perspectives for current and future work on embodiment and identity. Scholars and students of Dante and Italian studies, as well as those in medieval history, religion, culture, and art history, will be rewarded by the fresh insights contained in Experiencing the Afterlife.

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• Medieval
• Edad Media
• Divine Comedy
• Middle Ages
• Italian
• Poetry
• European
• The Divine Comedy

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 02 août 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9780268075057
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Experiencing the A f t e r l i f e

The William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante Studies

Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., and Christian Moevs, editors Simone Marchesi, associate editor Ilaria Marchesi, assistant editor

       Understanding Dante John A. Scott

       Dante and the Grammar of the Nursing Body Gary P. Cestaro

       TheFioreand theDetto d’Amore:A LatethCentury Italian Translation of the Roman de la Rose, attributable to Dante Translated, with introduction and notes, by Santa Casciani and Christopher Kleinhenz

       The Design in the Wax: The Structure of the Divine Comedy and Its Meaning Marc Cogan

       TheFiorein Context: Dante, France, Tuscany edited by Zygmunt G. Baran´ski and Patrick Boyde

       Dante Now: Current Trends in Dante Studies edited by Theodore J. Cachey, Jr.

Manuele Gragnolati

Experiencing the A i f er l f t e

                                   

University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana

University of Notre DamePress Copyright ©by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved

Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Gragnolati, Manuele. Experiencing the afterlife : soul and body in Dante and medieval culture / Manuele Gragnolati. p. cm. — (The William and Katherine Devers series in Dante studies) Includes bibliographical references and index.  ---(cloth : alk. paper)  ---(pbk. : alk. paper) . Dante Alighieri,–—Criticism and interpretation. . Italian literature—To—History and criticism. . Future life in literature.. Future life—History of doctrines— Middle Ages,–.. Civilization, Medieval, in literature. I. Title. II. Series. .  '.—dc 

ISBN 9780268075057

∞This book was printed on acid free paper.

This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail].

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

C o n t e n t s

About the William and Katherine Devers Series

Acknowledgments

Preface

Eschatological Poems and Debates between Body and Soul in ThirteenthCentury Popular Culture

The Last Judgment and Bodily Return: Uguccione da Lodi and Giacomino da Verona From the Resurrection to the Separated Soul: Bonvesin da la Riva

Embryology and Aerial Bodies in Dante’sComedy

Individual Judgment, Experience, and Embodiment Competing Anthropological Models in LateThirteenthCentury Scholastics From Plurality of Forms to (Near) Unicity of Form: Embryology inPurgatorio The Power of the Soul: Aerial Bodies in Hell and Heaven

Productive Pain: TheRed Scripture,thePurgatorio, and a New Hypothesis on the “Birth of Purgatory” Puzzling Similarities Redemptive Suffering: Pain, Blood, and theRed Scripture Passion, Purgatory, and Pain The Pattern of Purgatory as a Journey to /as Christ Productive Pain

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Contents

Chapter

Now, Then, and Beyond: Air, Flesh, and Fullness in theComedy

Identity, Experience, and Eschatological Clashes

Epilogue:The Body’s Journey and the Pilgrim in theParadiso

Appendix

Notes

Bibliography

General Index

Index of Passages from Dante’s Works

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About the William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante Studies

The William and Katherine Devers Program in Dante Studies at the Uni versity of Notre Dame supports rare book acquisitions in the university’s John A. Zahm Dante collections, funds an annual visiting professorship in Dante studies, and supports electronic and print publication of scholarly research in the field. In collaboration with the Medieval Institute at the university, the Devers program has initiated a series dedicated to the publi cation of the most significant current scholarship in the field of Dante Studies. In keeping with the spirit that inspired the creation of the Devers pro gram, the series takes Dante as a focal point that draws together the many disciplines and lines of inquiry that constitute a cultural tradition without fixed boundaries. Accordingly, the series hopes to illuminate Dante’s position at the center of contemporary critical debates in the humanities by reflecting both the highest quality of scholarly achievement and the greatest diversity of critical perspectives. The series publishes works on Dante from a wide variety of disciplinary viewpoints and in diverse scholarly genres, including critical studies, com mentaries, editions, translations, and conference proceedings of exceptional importance. The series is supervised by an international advisory board composed of distinguished Dante scholars and is published regularly by the University of Notre Dame Press. The Dolphin and Anchor device that ap pears on publications of the Devers series was used by the great humanist, grammarian, editor, and typographer Aldus Manutius (–), in whose edition of Dante (second issue) and all subsequent editions it appeared. The device illustrates the ancient proverbFestina lente,“Hurry up slowly.”

Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., and Christian Moevs,editors Simone Marchesi,associate editor Ilaria Marchesi,assistant editor

A d v i s o r y B o a r d

Albert Russell Ascoli, Berkeley

ZygmuntG.Bara´nski,Reading

Teodolinda Barolini, Columbia

Piero Boitani, Rome

Patrick Boyde, Cambridge

Alison Cornish, Michigan

Robert Hollander, Princeton

Giuseppe Mazzotta, Yale

Lino Pertile, Harvard

Michelangelo Picone, Zurich

John A. Scott, Western Australia

A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

Several people have helped and supported me in the different stages of this book, and I would like to thank them most sincerely: Zygmunt Baranåski, Teodolinda Barolini, Caroline Walker Bynum, Anna Maria Digirolamo, Lisa Gourd, Barbara Hanrahan, Anna Harrison, Amy Hollywood, Elena Lombardi, Ilaria and Simone Marchesi, my brother Mici, Christian Moevs, Monika Otter, Piergiacomo Petrioli, John Rassias, Andrea Tarnowski, Peter Travis, and Keith Walker. I would also like to thank Dartmouth College for granting me the sabbatical leave that allowed me to complete the book. Finally, I would like to thank Christoph Holzhey for his generosity and intelligence. This book is dedicated to him.

Some of the work on Bonvesin da la Riva in chaptersandappeared in “From Decay to Splendor: Body and Pain in Bonvesin da la Riva’sBook of the Three Scriptures,” inLast Things: Death and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, edited by Caroline Walker Bynum and Paul Freedman (Philadelphia: Uni versity of Pennsylvania Press,),–. Portions of the material in chap terappeared in “From Plurality to (Near) Unicity of Forms: Embryology inPurgatorio,” inDante for the New Millennium,edited by Teodolinda Barolini and Wayne Storey (New York: Fordham University Press,), ‒.

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