The Metaphysics of Dante's Comedy [Hardcover]

The recovery of Dante's metaphysics - which are very different from our own - is essential, argues Christian Moevs, if we are to resolve what has been called the central problem in the interpretation of theComedy. That problem is what to make of theComedy'sclaim to the status of revelation, vision, or experiential record - as something more than imaginative literature. In this book Moevs offers the first sustained treatment of the metaphysical picture that grounds and motivates theComedy, and the relation between those metaphysics and Dante's poetics. Moevs arrives at the radical conclusion that Dante believed that all of what we perceive as reality, the spatio-temporal world, is in fact a creation or projection of conscious being. Armed with this new understanding, Moevs is able to shed light on a series of perennial issues in the interpretation of theComedy.

Christian Moevs has written a work of astonishing audacity profound learning, lucid style, and acute critical sensibility. No serious student of Dante can afford to ignore this book. --Renaissance Quarterly

Christian Moevs'sMetaphysics of Dante's Comedyis a brilliant book. From beginning to end Moevs compels us to rethink Dante's poem.The Metaphysics of Dante's Comedyis a remarkable book and a major contribution to our understanding ofCommedia. --Warren Ginsburg, University of Oregon

Christian Moevs has written the first truly comprehensive account of Dante's metaphysics. All the theories about creation, separate substances, relation between the intellect and the world of contingencies are finally put in their proper relationship with his poetic vision. This fresh, careful, and lucid examination of three notoriously complex cantos of Paradiso (XXVII, XXVIII, and XXIX) dismantles formalist accounts of the poem and it amounts to a persuasive argument in favor of its deeper theology. --Giuseppe Mazzol#&