My six-volume study of poet-philosopher Dante Alighieri: Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise.
The Political Peace. Vol.1. Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. 2024 136,622 words
The Political Peace is volume 1 of the six-volume study of the thought of Dante Alighieri, entitled Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise.
This volume covers politics, ethics, poetics, and linguistics in Dante’s non-Comedy writings, the philosophical and political works of Il Convivio and De Monarchia, the work on language, and the poetry.Politics, poetics, and philosophy are integrated to show Dante’s love of myth, wisdom, and wonder was concerned to incite truth-seeking and the desire to know. The volume further shows how this truth-seeking is grounded in a philosophical anthropology concerned with identifying root causes. Ultimately, the knowledge about man is expressed in a concern for human happiness.
The Comedy: Exile and Homecoming. Vol.2. Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. 2024 234,049 words
The Comedy: Exile and Homecoming is volume 2 of a six-volume study of the thought of Dante Alighieri entitled Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise.
The central theme of this volume is the journey from loss and separation in the ‘dark wood’ to homecoming in the Eternal Rose with the golden heart. It’s a simple theme of disconnection, reconnection, unity.
The argument emphasises The Comedy as an exercise in practical reason, with transcendent standards of truth and justice rendered existential and experiential through the series of encounters in the three realms of the poem. The journey to Paradise is developed as a journey to self-knowledge, with Dante bringing us to ourselves.
The Metaphysics of Music: Dante’s Musical Model. Vol 3. Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. 2024 179,748 words
The Metaphysics of Music is volume 3 of Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise, a six-volume study of the thought of Dante Alighieri.
This volume traces the musico-moral structure that runs throughout The Comedy, identifyingthe musical model that establishes foundations and directions. The volume thus shows how the journey through the realms is a musical journey. The Inferno is the realm of anti-music, a realm of disorder and disharmony, chaos and cacophony, characterised by the diabolic parody of the good; Purgatory is the place where music comes back to life, place of healing and restoration; where music is Pharmakon; Paradiso is the place of order and harmony, setting the template for harmony on Earth.
The volume relates the musical cosmology to metaphysics, elaborating on the song and dance of Creation as divine emanation.
Dante’s Transcendent Enlightenment. Vol.4. Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. 2024 237,731 words
Dante’s Transcendent Enlightenment is volume 4 of a six-volume study of the thought of Dante Alighieri, entitled Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. This volume develops Dante’s argument through a philosophical understanding and sociological application of the transcendent idea of ‘rational freedom.’
The volume consists of two parts. The first part establishes the case for transcendent standards and eternal ideas, paying particular attention to God, Free Will, and the Immortal Soul. The second addresses the fate of these ideas within an alienated modernity, making the case for right relationships.
Dante’s Enamoured Mind. Vol.5. Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. 2024 111,687
Dante’s Enamoured Mind is the fifth volume of Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise, a six-volume study of the thought of poet-philosopher Dante Alighieri. The book integrates the full range of Dante’s work, the key themes of his non-Comedy writings being traced throughout the three realms of the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso. Although detailed, the analysis is 'essayistic' rather than systematic and exhaustive, making for a concise and conversational presentation of Dante’s Politics of Love and Justice.
Dante Dialogues. Vol. 6. Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise. 2024 109,438 words
Dante Dialogues is the sixth and final volume of Dante’s Sweet Symphony of Paradise, a comprehensive examination and application of the thought of poet-philosopher Dante Alighieri.
This volume discusses the various ways in which Dante has been regarded since his death, in terms of both public and personal engagements with the poet. The volume therefore has a dialogic, or conversational, quality, dealing with receptions and responses. A good title would have been Infinite Conversations on the Unending Road with the Endless Love. Confronting the charge that Dante is ‘out of date,’ truths are shown not to be mere functions of time and place. The timeless ideals of Dante’s comedy are shown to be both existential and experiential. Dante encompasses all life. Dante has the bedrock of personal human truth.
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