Dante, Rome (Athens), Jerusalem, and Amor
Dante, Rome (Athens), Jerusalem, and Amor
This chapter takes a look at Dante and the Divine Comedy, a work that is regarded as one of the greatest poems of all time—right next to the works of Homer and Shakespeare. Looking at Dante's epic in its larger context, however, it is seen that his intellectual project was to bring together three powerful traditions. First, he renewed the synthesis of the Athens–Jerusalem tension on a vast scale—bringing together the likes of Virgil and Augustine, Cicero and Aquinas. At the same time he also added a third element: the so-called religion of Love, the religion of Amor which had become popular and widespread throughout eleventh-century Europe. The chapter thus examines and analyzes Dante's epic, his interiorizing of the heroic and his making it the ideal of inner perfection.
Keywords: Dante, Divine Comedy, Homer, Shakespeare, Athens-Jerusalem tension, Virgil, Augustine, Cicero, Aquinas
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