Medieval Interpretation of Phonation Through the Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri

The anatomic and medical knowledge of people throughout history is unexpectedly evident in some of the poems and texts written by intellectuals of the time. This article attempts to understand the conception of laryngology in the Middle Ages by analyzing the Divine Comedy, written by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) at the beginning of the 14th century. In the text, Dante mentions the throat several times. He recognizes that the larynx has the dual functions of allowing respiration (dead souls recognize that the poet is alive through movement of his throat when breathing) and speech (souls with their throat cut cannot speak). However, Dante does not seem to know of the existence of vocal cords, thinking that it is the tongue that allows for word formation. In general, Dante’s poem indicates that the anatomy and function of the throat were known during the medieval period, although this knowledge was not precise.

Dante’s Models in Romantic Music

Dante’s impact on music has been studied completely enough, but so far mainly in an empirical and descriptive way. The article examines the works of romantic composers of the 19th - early 20th centuries, based on the plot of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”: Liszt’s fantasy-sonata “After reading Dante” and the “Dante-Symphony”, the “Francesca da Rimini” by Tchaikovsky (symphonic fantasy) and Rachmaninoff (opera). The author analyses compositional and stylistic models of the romantic music inspired by Dante’s poetry as a system, which is relevant for modern musicology, in particular, for the theories of musical language, style, and musical meaning. Along with the traditional musicological methods of analysis of form and intonational dramaturgy, an interdisciplinary methodology is applied, associated with the coverage of the entire system of musical compositional prototypes as a structuring of meaning. This has a pronounced narrative poetic nature in romantic music. The results of the study demonstrate a system of structural and semantic invariants (secondary, musical models) conditioned by Dante’s figurative world and manifested in melody, harmony, fret organization, composition. The conclusions of the article reveal the roles of Dante’s models of the world in the works considered in the following aspects: in the process of extreme intensification of the contrasts of romantic music in the semantic coordinates of “Hell – Paradise”; “Love – Death”; in the approval of the concept of Liebestod; in the creation of new, extreme expressive possibilities for the given style, which significantly expanded the idea of the boundaries of beauty and caused transformations in musical sound (harmony, texture, melody); in the formation of stable idioms of romantic music from Liszt to Rachmaninov; in the modification of the structures of a one-part sonata, of the cyclic symphony, and of opera, which have received the quality of a vectorial dramaturgical process and open dramaturgy.

ICON OF THE APOCALYPSE FROM THE DORMITION CATHEDRAL OF THE KREMLIN. DATE AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The “Apocalypse” icon from the Domition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin has long been in the field of view of researchers, but still there is no common opinion about its dating, and therefore there is no context in which this monument would take its place. The icon has many inscriptions, all of which correspond to the text of the Revelation of John the Theologian. In the construction of the composition, the master of the “Apocalypse” could not rely on the Byzantine tradition of illustrating the Revelation, since it actually did not exist. So what could the author of the iconography of the Moscow Apocalypse have been inspired by? The process of penetration of Renaissance influences into Russian culture, which began in the reign of Ivan III, reached its highest point at the beginning of the XVI century. The coincidence of certain motives of the iconographic program of the «Apocalypse» with the motives of Botticelli’s illustrations for the Divine Comedy, as well as the role of the line in both works, indicate the penetration of Renaissance art influences into iconеpainting. The discovered parallels do not allow us to date the icon from the Domition Cathedral earlier than 1491-1500, the icon was most likely written after 1500, in the first decade of the XVI century. The icon became the “banner” of a new period of understanding of eschatological ideas.

Dante’s Influence on Seamus Heaney’s Poetry on the Troubles in Northern Ireland: “The Strand at Lough Beg,” “An Afterwards” and “Ugolino”

Dante’s Divine Comedy had an enormous influence on Seamus Heaney’s oeuvre, especially from Field Work (1979) onwards. Heaney exploits the great Dantean epic poem to create a framework that allows him to contextualise some of the most painful political and social episodes in Irish history, namely the Great Hunger and the secular clashes between Protestants and Catholics. Heaney pays special attention to the problems originating from the outburst of the atavistic and sectarian violence—euphemistically known as “the Troubles”—between the unionist and nationalist communities in Northern Ireland as from 1969, causing great suffering and wreaking havoc on the Northern Irish population for decades.

An Academic Sin: The Use of Ser Brunetto Lantini in The Divine Comedy

On his journey through The Inferno, Dante Alighieri is shocked to encounter his beloved former teacher, Ser Brunetto Latini, in the third ring of the seventh circle of Hell where Latini is eternally tormented with other men of his ilk—academics, poets, and learned men of rhetoric—are punished as sodomites. The question then, is why has Latini been placed there and what can be inferred about Dante’s understanding of the nature of medieval sodomy as academic blasphemy? The findings presented here indicate that one of the most offensive readings of sodomy is an unsexual one. Sins of fleshy sensuality are presented blatantly in both the Inferno and Purgatory, but I argue that Dante places Brunetto among the eternally damned not only to privilege the rhetoric of humility but to serve as a cautionary tale on how our teachers fail us. Dante’s disassociation with Latini’s need for cerebral acclaim forms the foundational pad for which Dante cautions himself against the ultimate heresy of pride, while Latini continually presses the immodest approach for both himself and his pupil. Intellectual sodomy is a crime that is valued higher in Dante’s penal hierarchy than any sexual sin is, with less chance for redemption, as is shown with the direct bridging of desexualized sodomy in Inferno 15 with the explicitly sexualized sodomy of Purgatory 27. The fact that Inferno XV does not contain obvious allegory or simply stated sins renders it one of the most enigmatic cantos. The position that Brunetto’s sin is hubristic supports Dante’s conflicted relationship with his own pride—the sin on which Dante dedicates his journey.

Fan fiction and premodern literature: Methods and definitions

It is a cliché of any introduction to fan fiction to claim its precursors in canonical authors, including Virgil, Shakespeare, Dante, Chaucer, and Milton. But what does it mean to call the Aeneid or the Divine Comedy fan fiction? What kinds of analyses might such an approach generate? A survey of the nascent field of premodern fan fiction studies reveals three main axes of approaches to reading premodern literature through the lens of fan fiction (poaching, transformation, and affect), which are organized in turn around different definitions of fan fiction, suggesting one possible interdisciplinary theoretical model. Rather than focusing on the selection of canonical texts, this burgeoning and vibrant field of study must instead focus on developing its methodology.

Dante Alighieri Science Communicator

This paper deals with the issue of communication and dissemination of scientific knowledge outside the circle of specialists. In particular, in the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, we will focus on the program for the popularization of knowledge outlined by Dante in the Convivio and De Vulgari Eloquentia, as well as several examples taken from his Divine Comedy concerning mathematical and natural sciences. Some solutions for communicating science proposed by Dante, such as the explanations of principles and scientific methods within a narrative framework (now often called the storytelling method), in addition to dialogues between characters, anticipate methods for science communication used by several authors after him. Examples are provided to show the depth of Dante’s knowledge concerning the basic concepts and methods of mathematics, physics and natural sciences (such as chemistry, meteorology, astronomy etc.). In addition, the examples demonstrate how effectively Dante used analogies and metaphors taken from sciences within his poetry.

Il personaggio delle Grandi Parodie Disney tra intertestualità e serialità

ABSTRACT: Le Grandi Parodie Disney dei classici della letteratura costituiscono un’originale e intensa impresa creativa, cominciata nel 1949 con L’Inferno di Topolino e ancora oggi portata avanti con successo dagli autori Disney italiani. L’articolo si concentra sui procedimenti adattivi alla base delle Parodie, privilegiando quelli che investono in prima battuta l’elemento narrativo del personaggio. Il close reading condotto sull’Inferno di Topolino, parodia antesignana e manifesto dell’intero corpus, permette di osservare come sul personaggio della parodia si giochi in larga misura il mix di intertestualità e serialità che, con una considerevole prevalenza della seconda sulla prima, caratterizza questi adattamenti. In conclusione, si mostra come le risorse espressive e semantiche del personaggio seriale non solo comportino l’immediata riconoscibilità della parodia, ma sostengano significative innovazioni di ordine tematico-ideologico rispetto all’opera dantesca e coraggiose prese di posizione sull’importanza del fumetto seriale nel sistema culturale contemporaneo.Parole chiave: Grandi Parodie Disney. personaggio seriale. Intertestualità. Divina Commedia. Topolino. Resumo: Le Grandi Parodie Disney dos clássicos da literatura constituem um trabalho criativo original e intenso, que começou em 1949 com o Inferno de Mickey e ainda hoje é apresentado com sucesso por autores italianos da Disney. O artigo enfoca os procedimentos adaptativos subjacentes às paródias, privilegiando aquelas que envolvem, principalmente, o elemento narrativo do personagem. A leitura atenta realizada em O Inferno de Mickey, precursor da paródia e presente em todo o corpus, permite-nos observar como a mistura de intertextualidade e serialidade desempenha, em grande medida, o caráter da paródia que, com uma prevalência considerável do segundo sobre o primeiro, caracteriza essas adaptações. Desse modo, observa-se como os recursos expressivos e semânticos do personagem serial não só levam ao reconhecimento imediato da paródia, mas também sustentam significativas inovações temático-ideológicas no que diz respeito à obra de Dante e às posturas corajosas sobre a importância dos quadrinhos seriados no sistema cultural contemporâneo.Palavras-chave: Grandi Parodie Disney. Personagem serial. Intertextualidade. Divina Commedia. Mickey Mouse. ABSTRACT: The Great Disney Parodies of the classics of literature are a major creative enterprise, begun in 1949 with L’Inferno di Topolino and still successfully carried out by Italian Disney authors today. The article investigates the adaptive procedures of the Parodies, with a special focus on those involving the pivotal narrative element of the character. From the close reading of L’Inferno di Topolino, the first parody to be written and a manifesto of the entire corpus, it is possible to observe how the mix of intertextuality and seriality which distinguishes these adaptations hinges largely on the expressive and semantic resources of Disney serial characters. In the conclusion, the main effects of the prevailing of seriality over intertextuality are discussed, showing how it makes for the immediate recognizability of the parody, supports significant thematic-ideological innovations with respect to Dante's work, and allows for courageous metaliterary assertion on the importance of serial comics in the contemporary cultural system.Keywords: Grandi Parodie Disney. Serial character. Intertextuality. Divine Comedy. Mickey Mouse.

“The lantern of the world rises to mortals by varied paths”: Paul Laffoley (1935–2015) and Dante

American artist and architect Paul Laffoley (1935–2015) had a life-long fascination with Dante. Not only did he refer to Dante and the Commedia throughout his writings and paintings, but he created a large-scale triptych illustrating the poem, as well as sketched out plans for a full-immersion Dante study center on a planetoid orbiting the Sun, complete with a to-scale replica of the medieval Earth, Mount Purgatory, the material heavens, and the Empyrean through which a “Dante Candidate” could re-enact the Pilgrim’s journey. Laffoley’s work is often placed by art critics within the visionary tradition and Laffoley himself embraced that label, even as he deconstructed the term in his writing. Among the many visionary artists, poets, and philosophers Laffoley studied, Dante was central. He was, for Laffoley, a model seeker of knowledge, a seer beyond the illusions of everyday life. The essay that follows offers a brief biography of Laffoley and his works; an overview of his two main Dante projects ( The Divine Comedy triptych [1972–1975] and The Dantesphere [1978]); and initial considerations on how Dante’s works and thought fit into Laffoley’s larger epistemological project.