Chapter 1 - Writing as Theophany: The Medium as Metaphor for Immediacy

Summary

Dante’s divine vision is, in principle, impossible. The transcendent divinity, strictly speaking, is not to be seen. Only the mediation of Scripture enables humans to have some inkling of the divine. Yet Dante’s presentation of Scripture in the Heaven of Jupiter insists on the immediacy of its appearing before him as a vivid, animated spectacle of sound and light, son et lumière, a sort of fireworks in the firmament. The immediacy of writing as a visible medium is highlighted to such an extent and with such intensity that writing no longer serves simply as a medium but shows up, instead, as a concrete realization of divine presence. The immediacy of writing as a medium becomes a metaphor for divine immediacy. This exaltation of the letter invites comparison with the visions of the Jewish Kabbalah. It is further analyzed in light of Christian theologies of revelation by the incarnate Word and in Scripture, with attention to the materiality of the written medium of the letter. This vision is further focused theoretically through the lenses of media studies and of multi-media spectacles in popular and visual culture.