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1.i. Pagan Dawn of a Christian Vision
No full textThe chapter ‘Pagan Dawn of a Christian Vision’ is the first of the thirty-four ‘vertical readings’ in the three edited volumes (2015, 2016, 2017). The chapter demonstrates the hermeneutic fruitfulness of the ‘vertical perspective’, underlining Dante’s striking and strange emphasis on pagans and on natural ethics and philosophy at the beginning of each canticle about a different realm of the Christian afterlife: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. The chapter provides original arguments for the theological and political motivations underlining this peculiar emphasis, arguments which emerged because of approaching these cantos through the innovative paradigm of ‘vertical reading’
Introduction
No full textIn the Introduction, the co-editors first identify the core challenge issued to this volume’s contributors: how would you, with your own area of expertise, your own research experience, and your own research methodologies, address or seek to demonstrate the commonly-perceived connection between music and spiritual realities? They then situate the various chapters within the three scholarly fields which, in responding to this challenge, the volume brings together for the first time: Christian theology and music; new musicology, ethnomusicology, and congregational music studies; as well as psychology and neuroscience. While the majority of contributors to this volume focus on Christian music in Western contexts, the editors also emphasise the scope for future studies focused on another religious tradition, or engaging with non-Western understandings of music. Finally, they provide an introductory outline of the volume’s three Parts, eighteen chapters, Foreword and Afterword
Introduction
No full textAlthough scholars had suggested that there were correspondences between same-numbered cantos that begged to be explored, this approach had never been pursued in a systematic fashion across the poem. The introduction to the first volume sets out the novel project of 'vertical readings in Dante's Comedy', which involved an international team of thirty-four scholars. The introduction surveys the history of approaches of this kind, outlines some interpretative justifications for such a reading of the poem, and summarises some of the insights of the chapters in the volume
Introduction
No full textThe introduction to the second volume of Vertical Readings in Dante's 'Comedy' considers the variety of methodological approaches and interpretative insights which had emerged in the course of the thirty-three public lectures (2012-16) upon which the three published volumes are based. It also highlights how 'vertical readings' are proliferating outwith the bounds of the volume, evidence that this approach is already being adopted as part of the language of Dante Studies, as well as the influence of the research project on Dante pedagogy. Finally, it provides a synopsis of some of the particular insights of each of the eleven chapters in the volume
Introduction
No full textThe Introduction to the third and final volume of Vertical Readings in Dante's 'Comedy' assesses the 'vertical readings' project as a whole, and its potential influence of future modes of reading the poem. It then considers the particular contribution of the third volume, as well, to a wider reappraisal of Dante's theology. Finally, it provides a synopsis of some of the insights emerging from each of the eleven chapters in turn
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