Year: 2017
Type: book-review
Abstract: The interplay of horizontal and vertical movement is perhaps one of the most intriguing features of the Comedy's narrative structure.As the pilgrim progresses along a horizontal plane, i.e. the road of our life, his road is blocked.His journey then takes a distinctively vertical turn as he descends into hell and then ascends through purgatory and heaven.The two trajectories together give shape to the Comedy and as Dante's pilgrim traces the shape of a cross, the salvific nature of this intersection is revealed.But the significance of this interplay may also extend beyond explicating the meaning of the pilgrim's journey.Increasingly, scholars have explored the notion that Dante / poet was also constructing a similar iter for his readers; urging us to "travel" up and down the cantos as well as across them.As part of this exploration, Vertical Readings in Dante's Comedy provides compelling evidence that Dante had such a construction in mind as he designed his poem.Indeed, the entire volume urges the reader to consider the multiplicity of trajectories that the Commedia may contain.In the Introduction, Heather Webb and George Corbett observe that the overall structure of the Comedy encourages not only horizontal and vertical readings, but also quite possibly, diagonal readings as well as back and forth movement through the text.They note, moreover, that the mere naming of a method of reading raises questions of the self-conscious creation of spatial maps on the part of the reader.Recognition of this self-consciousness marks an interesting possibility, that is, that the reader is an active participant in the creation of the Comedy.This potential reading was raised several years ago by Stanley Benfell in The Biblical Dante where he argued that for Dante the textual truth of the Bible arose "through the encounter of a reader with the text, that is, a more subjective truth, that need not hinge on what the original author in his or her own historical context may or may not have intended." (8)
Source: Quaderni d italianistica
Language: English
Subfield: General Arts and Humanities
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2916828680