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2 results

  • Chapter 3 - Dante’s Theological Purgatory

  • from Part II - Reframing Dante’s Christian Ethics
  • George Corbett, University of St Andrews, Scotland
  • Book:
    Dante's Christian Ethics
    Published online:
    28 February 2020
    Print publication:
    12 March 2020, pp 67-85

  • Summary

    This chapter provides a corrective to a dominant ‘political’ reading of Purgatory, according to which Purgatory represents an ethical journey guided by ‘justice and the teachings of philosophy’ towards the beatitudo huius vitae. It presents a way to read the poem as informed by Dante’s dualistic theory (a critical exigency demanded by recent philosophical evidence) without being drawn into a forced reading of Purgatory in overly political terms.

Dante's Christian Ethics
  • Purgatory and Its Moral Contexts
  • George Corbett
  • Published online:
    28 February 2020
    Print publication:
    12 March 2020
  • This book is a major re-appraisal of the Commedia as originally envisaged by Dante: as a work of ethics. Privileging the ethical, Corbett increases our appreciation of Dante's eschatological innovations and literary genius. Drawing upon a wider range of moral contexts than in previous studies, this book presents an overarching account of the complex ordering and political programme of Dante's afterlife. Balancing close readings with a lucid overview of Dante's Commedia as an ethical and political manifesto, Corbett cogently approaches the poem through its moral structure. The book provides detailed interpretations of three particularly significant vices - pride, sloth, and avarice - and the three terraces of Purgatory devoted to them. While scholars register Dante's explicit confession of pride, the volume uncovers Dante's implicit confession of sloth and prodigality (the opposing subvice of avarice) through Statius, his moral cypher.