Andreas Kablitz's Poetics of Redemption brings together six essays translated by Fiona Elliott from German and Italian that were previously published between 1998 and 2001 in various venues. The essays are thematically linked, and, as collection, the book offers a subtle interpretation of the Divine Comedy that highlights ways in which the poem may be read as expressing a poetics of transcendence that grapples with the mystery of the Incarnation.
Chapter 1, “Lecturae Dantis,” focuses on Inferno 26. The thesis of this essay—that Ulysses's sin is prideful curiosity—is not novel, but it is supported by an interesting excavation of scriptural allusions. Especially noteworthy is Kablitz's discussion of the way in which Dante depicts his pilgrim persona as an analogue of the prophet Elisha insofar as he witnesses Ulysses as something akin to Elijah's doppelgänger.
Chapter 2, “Art in the Afterlife or God as Sculptor,” unpacks a tacit “theology of aisthesis” in discussing the reliefs depicting pride and humility in Purgatorio 10–11. Here Kablitz carefully deals with the tenuous relationship between truth and illusion depicted in these reliefs—pointing out, for instance, that the image of the Annunciation in Purgatorio 10.34–45 simultaneously offers the illusion of the presence of Gabriel while, at the same time, illustrating the underlying theological principle that all sensory objects can be read as images of the Incarnation insofar as they—no less than a physical depiction of the Annunciation—can be read as manifestations of divine creation. Chapter 3, “Videre—Invidere,” further develops this line of argument through an interpretation of Purgatorio 13. Kablitz carefully explores how the canto makes clear that sense perception is, in general, the medium through which we are able to access the spiritual reality that is manifested through the material world.
Chapter 4, “Temporality and Eternity in Dante's Purgatorio” focuses on the ways in which Purgatorio 7–8's depiction of Antepurgatory illustrates the ultimate insufficiency of any temporal order to fully realize the possibility of salvation. Thus, in this reading, even universal temporal monarchy is nothing more than a symbol of a transcendental order that is fully realizable only in an afterlife that transcends history. Chapter 5, “The End of the Sacrum Imperium,” further develops Kablitz's reflections on Dante's theologization of history by drawing a broad comparison between Dante, Augustine, and Petrarch on this theme. Here Kablitz argues for seeing Dante as differing from Petrarch by emphasizing the fundamental continuity of secular history as the ever-unfolding sign of the possibility of salvation (whereas Petrarch emphasizes discontinuities between epochs) and from Augustine insofar as Dante consistently regards temporal history as a valid manifestation of a process of salvation (whereas, for Augustine, secular history is primarily an expression of human fallenness and the need for grace). In the final chapter of the book, “Poetics of Knowledge in the Paradiso,” Kablitz argues that, in the culminating cantos of Paradiso, Dante's verbal images revoke themselves by calling attention to their paradoxical nature, and, in so doing, offer the only possible means of representing the utterly transcendent nature of the spiritual reality to which they refer.
As should be clear from the summaries above, Kablitz reads the Divine Comedy as dominated by and devoted to theological concerns. Readers who approach the work with different commitments or assumptions will still find much to appreciate in Kablitz's careful and detailed exegetical work—especially in the three chapters devoted to Purgatorio. However, it should also be noted that Poetics of Redemption assumes an audience that is already intimately familiar with the Divine Comedy, that is comfortable with academic jargon, and that does not require translations of primary sources from Italian or Latin. Additionally, Kablitz offers scant explicit engagement with contemporary secondary literature. Even though these essays are more than twenty years old, more frequent engagement with other interpretations (both friendly and competing) might have helped make Kablitz's own arguments easier to grasp.
Despite these caveats, Dante studies stands to benefit from wider dissemination of these essays. In particular, those who are interested in the Divine Comedy's metaphysics of the Incarnation, or, especially, how that metaphysics might be presupposed by the poetics that undergirds the Divine Comedy's strategies for representation, will find good grist for their mills in Kablitz's subtle and detailed analyses.
