The divine vision of Dante's Paradiso : the metaphysics of representation

Cover
Half-title page
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
List of Figures
Prologue
	Subject and Scope of the Work
	Method of Inquiry and Bifocal Structure
Acknowledgments
Note on Translations and Primary Source Editions
Part I The Literary Vision
	Chapter 1 Writing as Theophany: The Medium as Metaphor for Immediacy
		Language, or the Unlimited Presence of the Medium
		Letter Mysticism (Kabbalah): The Magic in the Means
		Mediation as Signification and as Incarnation
		Corollary on Incarnation and Semiology in Radical Orthodoxy
		The Significance of Dante’s Vision of Scripture in a History-of-Media Perspective
		Popular Culture versus Esoteric Modes of Reception
		General Introduction to the Heaven of Jupiter and Its Contemporary Interpretation
	Chapter 2 The Presence of Speech in Writing: Speaking as Sparking
		Speech versus Writing, or the Dialectic of Art and Unmediated Presence
		Writing as Speech, Chaos as Occulted Order
		Bird Formations and Contingency
		Speaking as Sparking, or a Randomness within the Order of Language
		From Speech to Letter to Image: Metamorphoses of the Spark
		Dispersion of Sparks and the Wholeness of Sense
		Theological Revelation via Punning: Linguistic Contingency at Play
	Chapter 3 The Parts of Speech: Mediation and Contingency
		Contingency as Key to Revelation
		The Central Vision and Its Differential Grammar
		Signifying the Ineffable Other and Its Differential Logic
		Contingency as Manifestation of the Non-manifest and as Revelation of Unrepresentable Transcendence
		The Redemption of Contingency through the Artistic Medium
	Chapter 4 From Speculative Grammar to Visual Spectacle and Beyond
		The Grammatical Vision of Language Culminating in Speculative Grammar
		Intuitive Truth Expressed Allegorically as Imaginative Vision of Infinite Mediation
		Immediate Vision of the Invisible in the Visible
		Writing as the Concrete Presence of an Infinite Absence
		Grammatical Shattering of Wholeness and Presence Restored through the Image
		Transcendent Sense: From Linguistic Epistemology to Love of Justice
	Chapter 5 Sense Made Sensuous and Synaesthesia in the Sight and Sound of Writing
		The Pure Sign Incarnate (Canto XIX)
		Canto XX. Visionary Writing: The Sight and Sound of the Word
		Self
		Bird Images of Lyric Self-Reflexivity
		Metaphor and the Poetic Making of the Linguistic Substance of Paradise
		Geometrical Imagery and Perspective Opening to Infinity in the Heaven of Jupiter
	Chapter 6 Infinite Script: Endless Mediation as Metaphor for Divinity
		Revelation of the Divine in and through Infinite Linguistic Mediation
		From Representation of Mediation to the Unrepresentable and Im-mediate
Part II Philosophical Reflections
	Excursus I Writing and Visionary Immediacy: Mechanics and Mysticism of the Letter
		Poetics of Revelation in Transition from Oral Culture to Written
		Conspectus of the Excursuses and Their Contents
	Excursus II Saussure and the Structuralist Idea of Language as a System of Differences
	Excursus III Temporalization and Transcendence of Time through Language
		Ephemerality as the Cipher of Eternity
		The Christological – Mortal and Material – Sense of History and Language
		The Transcendence of Time through Language: Augustine and His Legacy
		Negative Dialectic of Time and Eternity: From the Commedia to Modern Literature
	Excursus IV Transcendental Reflection: Time Synthesis and the Role of the “I”
		Transcendental Reflection and the Horizon of Modern Thought
		Transcendence of the “io” as Reflection of the Transcendent
		Recentering the Transcendence of the Subject in Modern Philosophy via Dante
	Excursus V Unmanifest Wholeness of Sense: Language as Image of the Imageless
		From Time to Eternity: The Whole of Sense
		Ekphrasis, or Writing in Images: Between Saying and Showing
		Language as Logos – Binding Together as Manifestation of Being
		Legare Parole or Logos as λέγειν – Heidegger and Heraclitus
		Dante’s Theory of Poetry as Tying and Binding Together
	Excursus VI Transcendentality of Language and the Language of the Other
		The Infinity of Language in Its Historicality
		Levinas: Language as “Relation” and as “Religion”
		The Language of the Other
		Ethics as Revelation in Language
		Levinas and the Face of the Other as Revelation and Theophany – Im/mediacy
		Beyond: Dante, Levinas, and the Imperative of Justice
Appendix Paradiso XVIII. 70–136: Italian text and English translation
Index