The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante

by Charles Williams

Overview

Dante's extraordinary intensity of thought and experience may well be unequaled among poets, but this very power can all too often make his work seem formidable to many readers. Charles Williams's Figure of Beatrice stands out amid the vast field of Dante scholarship for its uniquely sympathetic enthusiasm and clarity, which brilliantly unlock this master poet's vast reach for general readers and specialists alike. Williams begins by tracing the way in which the central image of Beatrice, representing transcendent beauty in feminine form, animates Dante's earlier works. He then plunges into and expounds on The Divine Comedy, meditating on its significance primarily through the affirmation of theological images. Foreshadowing the modern emphasis on Dante as philosopher-poet, Williams also touches on many later concerns of Dante criticism, including ambiguities of language, the inherent self-contradiction of all truly penetrating discourse, and in particular the archetypal role of the feminine. First published in 1943, The Figure of Beatrice, which is as much a moving and poetic work in its own right as it is a stirring testament to the Sommo Poeta, remains a must read for all lovers of Dante.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621387664
Publisher:	Angelico Press
Publication date:	09/17/2021
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	429,705
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Author and scholar Charles Williams (18861945) joined, in 1908, the staff of the Oxford University Press, the publishing house in which he worked for the rest of his life. Throughout these years, poetry, novels, plays, biographies, history, literary criticism, and theology poured from his pen. At the beginning of the Second World War the publishing house was evacuated to Oxford where, in addition to his own writing and his editorial work for the Press, he taught in the University.

Table of Contents

I Introduction 7

II Beatrice 17

III The Death of Beatrice 31

IV The Convivio 52

V The Noble Life 69

VI The De Monarchia and the Exile 86

VII The Making of the Commedia 100

VIII The Inferno 107

IX The Purgatorio 145

X The Re-Assertion of Beatrice 175

XI The Paradiso 190

XII The Recollection of the Way 224

Index 233