Dante, Eros, and Kabbalah
Did Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy, as a young man in Florence sleep with Beatrice Portinari before and after her marriage? Did the poet travel after her death through Hell to find her again? The clues to this academic detective story, writes Mark Jay Mirsky, lie not only in Dante's earlier poetry, The New Life, or in The Divine Comedy but in the Zohar of Moses de Leon, a Jewish text written some years before and based on Neoplatonic ideas similar to those that inspired Dante.\...
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Novelist and short story writer Mirsky (English, City College of New York) offers a radical reading of Dante by identifying the influence of Proven<,c>al poets, medieval theologians, Dante's personal life, and the sources of his classical education. He finds in the Commedia riddles of dreams, poetry, philosophy, and the poet's concealed autobiography. Excerpts are in Italian and English. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
AcknowledgmentsAuthor's Note1Dante in America12Heavenly Intercourse233Seduced by Beatrice?294Bewildered595Ocean776Dante and King David977Nude in Paradise1098A Mother's Milk1219Holy Number14110Messiah on Earth16511Dante in Exile18912Rimbomba199References221Index227
