Dante Alighieri
1. Il Convivio –
Book Two – Chapter 1
a. Interpretations
of writings can be understood primarily through four senses.
i. Literal:
That which doesn’t go beyond the surface of the letter.
ii. Allegorical: When meaning is hidden beneath the letters
and the truth is hidden in a beautiful fiction.
iii. Moral: What we ought to do and what teachers should
intently seek to discover.
iv. Anagogical: Meaning beyond the senses. It occurs when meaning is explained in a
spiritual sense.
b. The
literal should always be interpreted first as it is the foundation for the
other senses.
i. One
must understand the literal to understand deeper levels of meaning.
ii. We
learn from what we don’t know from things we know better.
2.
Letter
to Can Grande
a. There
are six questions that should be asked at the beginning of any written work.
i. What
is its subject?
ii. What
is its form?
iii. What
is its agent?
iv. What
is its end?
v. What
is the title of the book?
vi. What
is its branch of philosophy?
b. The
first three should be specifically asked in a discussion of the whole work.
c. Description
of the work:
i. It
contains several senses.
1. The
first sense is that which is contained in the letter. This is called the literal.
2. Another
sense is contained by what is signified by the letter. This is called allegorical,
moral, or anagogical sense.
3. Not
every symbol is required to contain all of the senses.
d. The
work as a whole is subject to literal and allegorical sense.
i. The
literal is the work according to the letter.
ii. The
second is the allegorical that refers to man and exercise of his free will.
Works
Cited
Alighieri,
Dante. Il Convivio. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch et al. 2nd ed. New York: W.W.Norton &
Co., 2010. 186-188. Print.
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