`In the world of Dante scholarship, there is a real need for studies such as The Poetics of Dante's Paradiso, which challenge our notions of the principal souls of the Paradiso. Rooted in a close analysis of the poem, Massimo Verdicchio's intelligent interpretation is supported by relevant textual evidence and provides an important counterpoint to the canonical readings of the cantica. Traditional readings of Dante's Paradiso have largely considered this third cantica of the Commedia as a poem apart. It deals with those blessed souls in Paradise who are free of sin and beyond punishment, in contrast to the sinners in the previous two cantica, and is thus no longer based on the principle of contrapasso. At the literal level this is true in that all the characters one encounters are either those who have been saved, religious leaders, or saints. However, at the allegorical level, as Massimo Verdicchio argues in The Poetics of Dante's Paradiso, the blessed souls still have something to hide, something shameful in their past earthly life, which is revealed nonetheless. In this book, Verdicchio provides a canto-by-canto analysis of Paradiso. He maintains that the cantica can allegorically be seen as a commentary on the political and religious establishment, framed as the punitive action of the DXV announced at the end of Purgatorio, denouncing the illicit and destructive alliance between the House of Anjou and the Church. Verdicchio focuses on the relationship that Dante establishes among the ten heavens, into which the poet divides the cantica and their equivalent in the Arts and Sciences of the Trivium and Quadrivium, as outlined in the Convivio. This approach provides the key to interpreting the cantos and the discourse of the inhabitants of Paradise who appear, on the surface, blameless. However, it is the earthly and human side of the blessed souls that captures Dante's attention, and this dichotomy is revealed in his characterization of the heavens. Poetic allegory and irony are the two principal modes of this cantica, and the source of much of its comedic complexity. As one of the characters puts it, in Heaven `we do not repent but we smile.' A highly original and comprehensive reading, The Poetics of Dante's Paradiso demonstrates that the intricacies of Dante's text reveal subversive undercurrents and a subtle irony, employed to deliver a critique of the Church and Empire of his own time.
The European Union and the single currency have given Europe more stability than it has known in the past thousand years, yet Europe seems to be in perpetual crisis about its global role. The many European empires are now reduced to a multiplicity of ethnicities, traditions, and civilizations. Europe will never be One, but to survive as a union it will have to become a federation of “islands” both distinct and connected. Though drawing on philosophers of Europe’s past, Cacciari calls not to resist Europe’s sunset but to embrace it. Europe will have to open up to the possibility that in few generations new exiles and an unpredictable cultural hybridism will again change all we know about the European legacy. Though scarcely alive in today’s politics, the political unity of Europe is still a necessity, however impossible it seems to achieve.
Massimo Cacciari is one of the leading public intellectuals in today's Italy, both as an outstanding philosopher and political thinker and as now three times (and currently) the mayor of Venice. This collection of essays on political topics provides the best introduction in English to his thought to date. The political focus does not, however, prevent these essays from being an introduction to the full range of Cacciari's thought. The present collection includes chapters on Hofmannstahl, Lukács, Benjamin, Nietzsche, Weber, Derrida, Schmitt, Canetti, and Aeschylus. Written between 1978 and 2006, these essays engagingly address the most hidden tradition in European political thought: the Unpolitical. Far from being a refusal of politics, the Unpolitical represents a merciless critique of political reason and a way out of the now impracticable consolations of utopia and harmonious community. Drawing freely from philosophy and literature, The Unpolitical represents a powerful contribution to contemporary political theory. A lucid and engaging Introduction by Alessandro Carrera sets these essays in the context of Cacciari's work generally and in the broadest context of its historical and geographical backdrop.
The essays in this volume provide a theorization of what we might call the “denatured” wild, in other words a notion of environmental “restoration” or "reinhabitation" that recognizes and reconfigures the human factor as an interdependent entity. Acknowledging the contributions of Marco Armerio, Serenella Iovino, Giovanna Ricoveri, Patrick Barron and Anna Re among others, Ecocritical Approaches to Italian Culture and Literature: The Denatured Wild negotiates the ground within the historicizing, theoretical perspectives, and surveying spirit of these writers. Despite the central role that nature has played in Italian culture and literature, there has been an evident lack of critical approaches free of the bridles of the socio-political manipulations of nationalism. The authors in this collection, by recognizing the groundbreaking work of many non-Italian ecocritics, challenge the narrowly defined conventions of Italian Studies and illuminates complexities of an Italian ecocriticism that reveals a rich environmentally engaged literary and cultural tradition.
`In the world of Dante scholarship, there is a real need for studies such as The Poetics of Dante's Paradiso, which challenge our notions of the principal souls of the Paradiso. Rooted in a close analysis of the poem, Massimo Verdicchio's intelligent interpretation is supported by relevant textual evidence and provides an important counterpoint to the canonical readings of the cantica. Traditional readings of Dante's Paradiso have largely considered this third cantica of the Commedia as a poem apart. It deals with those blessed souls in Paradise who are free of sin and beyond punishment, in contrast to the sinners in the previous two cantica, and is thus no longer based on the principle of contrapasso. At the literal level this is true in that all the characters one encounters are either those who have been saved, religious leaders, or saints. However, at the allegorical level, as Massimo Verdicchio argues in The Poetics of Dante's Paradiso, the blessed souls still have something to hide, something shameful in their past earthly life, which is revealed nonetheless. In this book, Verdicchio provides a canto-by-canto analysis of Paradiso. He maintains that the cantica can allegorically be seen as a commentary on the political and religious establishment, framed as the punitive action of the DXV announced at the end of Purgatorio, denouncing the illicit and destructive alliance between the House of Anjou and the Church. Verdicchio focuses on the relationship that Dante establishes among the ten heavens, into which the poet divides the cantica and their equivalent in the Arts and Sciences of the Trivium and Quadrivium, as outlined in the Convivio. This approach provides the key to interpreting the cantos and the discourse of the inhabitants of Paradise who appear, on the surface, blameless. However, it is the earthly and human side of the blessed souls that captures Dante's attention, and this dichotomy is revealed in his characterization of the heavens. Poetic allegory and irony are the two principal modes of this cantica, and the source of much of its comedic complexity. As one of the characters puts it, in Heaven `we do not repent but we smile.' A highly original and comprehensive reading, The Poetics of Dante's Paradiso demonstrates that the intricacies of Dante's text reveal subversive undercurrents and a subtle irony, employed to deliver a critique of the Church and Empire of his own time.
The European Union and the single currency have given Europe more stability than it has known in the past thousand years, yet Europe seems to be in perpetual crisis about its global role. The many European empires are now reduced to a multiplicity of ethnicities, traditions, and civilizations. Europe will never be One, but to survive as a union it will have to become a federation of “islands” both distinct and connected. Though drawing on philosophers of Europe’s past, Cacciari calls not to resist Europe’s sunset but to embrace it. Europe will have to open up to the possibility that in few generations new exiles and an unpredictable cultural hybridism will again change all we know about the European legacy. Though scarcely alive in today’s politics, the political unity of Europe is still a necessity, however impossible it seems to achieve.
Among today's Italian philosophers, Massimo Cacciari is perhaps the most assiduous commentator of Dante. Philosophy, Mysticism, and the Political collects all of Cacciari's writings on Dante to this day, from his masterful analysis of St. Francis of Assisi in Dante's Paradiso and Giotto's frescoes to a new consideration of Dante's "European" idea of empire as a federation of nations, peoples, and languages. Cacciari does not force Dante into any philosophical straitjacket. Rather, he walks with Dante, takes notes, asks questions, raises issues, and tries to understand the Divine Comedy in Dante's terms. Cacciari approaches Dante's Ulysses and the theologico-philosophical vertigo of Paradiso not as a critic but from the point of view of a faithful, assiduous, perceptive, sometimes perplexed, and sometimes worshipful reader. Cacciari's analysis shows once more that Dante does not belong to the past. Dante creates his own age and stays with us whenever we wish to follow his path.
Massimo Cacciari is one of the leading public intellectuals in today's Italy, both as an outstanding philosopher and political thinker and as now three times (and currently) the mayor of Venice. This collection of essays on political topics provides the best introduction in English to his thought to date. The political focus does not, however, prevent these essays from being an introduction to the full range of Cacciari's thought. The present collection includes chapters on Hofmannstahl, Lukács, Benjamin, Nietzsche, Weber, Derrida, Schmitt, Canetti, and Aeschylus. Written between 1978 and 2006, these essays engagingly address the most hidden tradition in European political thought: the Unpolitical. Far from being a refusal of politics, the Unpolitical represents a merciless critique of political reason and a way out of the now impracticable consolations of utopia and harmonious community. Drawing freely from philosophy and literature, The Unpolitical represents a powerful contribution to contemporary political theory. A lucid and engaging Introduction by Alessandro Carrera sets these essays in the context of Cacciari's work generally and in the broadest context of its historical and geographical backdrop.
This book addresses how the erosion of traditional forms of political association and legal regulation has given rise to a pluralism of "imperfect communities" constantly exposed to the risk of dissolution. These are niches and micro-worlds that are connected through precarious and ambivalent ties. Such a far-reaching transformation affects at one and the same time both our psychic and social identity. The book argues that this phenomenon is linked to the proliferation of new forms of psychic "disorder" – depression, personality disorder, dissociation – typical of hypermodern societies. However, while these can easily turn into genuine disorders, they can also open onto richer forms of identity, more complex than those of the past. Based on this analysis, the book’s main claim is that this dynamic epitomizes a general anthropological paradox – one that has always marked the human animal: humans are bound by their own biological constitution to fend off disorder by drawing the boundaries of artificial niches, and yet they are inclined to expose themselves to unlimited contingency so that they can find a truly suitable environment. Pursuing a novel understanding of the apparent collapse of traditional juridico-political settings, this book makes the case that the emergence of dissociations at several levels – individual, social, political, legal – does not stem from a lack of political imagination. Rather, it is a situation with which humans are inevitably confronted: a perennial tension between the limited and the unlimited, between the desire to take refuge and the desire to cross borders.
The first English translation of his work, The Withholding Power, offers a fascinating introduction to the thought of Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari. Cacciari is a notoriously complex thinker but this title offers a starting point for entering into the very heart of his thinking. The Witholding Power provides a comprehensive and synthetic insight into his interpretation of Christian political theology and leftist Italian political theory more generally. The theme of katechon - originally a biblical concept which has been developed into a political concept - has been absolutely central to the work of Italian philosophers such as Agamben and Eposito for nearly twenty years. In The Withholding Power, Cacciari sets forth his startlingly original perspective on the influence the theological-political questions have traditionally exerted upon ideas of power, sovereignty and the relationship between political and religious authority. With an introduction by Howard Caygill contextualizing the work within the history of Italian thought, this title will offer those coming to Cacciari for the first time a searing insight into his political, theological and philosophical milieu.
Se dovessi rinascere non cambierei nulla, ripercorrerei le mie strade, rifacendo esattamente le stesse cose per vedere se almeno questa volta mi riescono...
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