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CC 102: Paradiso Prof. Amy Appleford April 29, 2014

CC 102: Paradiso Prof. Amy Appleford April 29, 2014. Enter into my breast; within me breathe the very power you made manifest when you drew Marsyas out from his limbs’ sheath. ( Paradiso 1.19-21). Lecture is in two parts. Each revolves around a question:

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CC 102: Paradiso Prof. Amy Appleford April 29, 2014

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  1. CC 102:ParadisoProf. Amy ApplefordApril 29, 2014

  2. Enter into my breast; within me breathe the very power you made manifest when you drew Marsyas out from his limbs’ sheath. (Paradiso 1.19-21)

  3. Lecture is in two parts. Each revolves around a question: What is the relation between God and (poetic) language in the poem? What is the relation between Love and God?

  4. Part One: Language

  5. inexpressibility topos = “emphasis upon inability to cope with the subject.” (E. R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, 1963 , p. 159) [note the paradox here – words say that words cannot say] occupatio

  6. Theologically speaking: the words of a finite creature (a human poet) cannot comprehend the nature of an infinite creator, God. We can’t say what God is actually like. God is greater and different from what we know as the created world.  We can’t use human language to represent or signify God without deforming what God is. Medieval theologians therefore use a strategy of negation. They say what God is not, and so describe what he is implicitly.

  7. “When we know that something is, it remains to inquire in what way it is, so that we may know what it is. But since concerning God we cannot know what he is but only what he is not, we cannot consider in what way God is but only in what way he is not.” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae) "We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being.” (John Scot Erugiena [9th century])

  8. How can a poet write a poem about God (or represent Paradise) if words can only misrepresent God?

  9. Part Two: Love "We do not know what God is. God Himself does not know what He is because He is not anything. Literally God is not, because He transcends being"

  10. Dante insists on the value of the human body, and mind, and of the created order, even as he suggests these things cannot apprehend the reality of God. We see this clearly in Dante’s original understanding of love and how love works in both sensual and in spiritual terms.

  11. Despite the violence of Inferno, the politics of Purgatorio and the difficulties of Paradiso, this is a love poem to Beatrice. Dante can see Paradise not because he is holy but because he is a man in love with a particular woman in a special way. It is love of Beatrice that allows him to see God.

  12. Tell us, I entreat you, by whom and to whom it is said: ‘Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth.’ ... The words spring out at us as if indicating one speaker to whom another is replying as she demands a kiss – whoever she may be. ... She does not, however, say: ‘Let him kiss me with his mouth; but something much more intimate: ‘with the kiss of his mouth.’ What a gorgeous turn of phrase this is, prompted into life by the kiss, with Scripture’s own engaging countenance inspiring the reader and enticing him on, that he may find pleasure even in the laborious pursuit of what lies hidden, with a fascinating theme to sweeten the fatigue of research.

  13. carità = caritas (Latin): love directed towards God and to God in other human beings (charity/ theological virtue) amor: love understood more generally – can refer to erotic love or to spiritual love

  14. St Bernard of Clairvaux and the Virgin Mary parallel Dante and Beatrice

  15. Virgin mother, daughter of your Son, more humble and sublime than any creature, fixed goal decreed from all eternity, you are the one who gave to human nature so much nobility that its Creator did not disdain His being made its creature. (Paradiso33.1-6)

  16. Two Female Mediators • Beatrice, both living and dead, is the means by which Dante comes to desire and approach God • Mary, having given birth to God in his human form, is the mediating figure for all of humanity to approach God

  17. In the deep and bright essence of that exalted Light, three circles appeared to me; they had three different colors, but all of them were of the same dimension; one circle seemed reflected by the second, as rainbow is by rainbow, and the third seemed fire breathed equally by those two circles. (Paradiso33.114-120)

  18. That circle – which, begotten so, appeared in You as light reflected – when my eyes had watched it with attention for some time, within itself and colored like itself, to me seemed painted with our effigy, so that my sight was set on it completely. (Paradiso33.127-132)

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