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Foundation Sacrifice in Dante's "Commedia" is the first book to take an anthropological approach to the Divine Comedy, applying it to a previously unexplored dimension of Dante's great poem. Ricardo Quinones examines foundation sacrifice—the death of another that has become a parable for existence—as a ......
Cervantes's great novel Don Quixote is a diptych, the first part of which was published in 1605 and the second in 1615. Focusing almost entirely on the novel's second part, Henry W. Sullivan is the first critic to offer a systematic account of Don Quixote's passage from madness to sanity. Sullivan argues that Part II of the novel is a ......
Norman Austin has organized his analysis of classical Greek myths around Lacan's dichotomy between (ineffable) Being and the meanings imposed upon Being by culturally determined signifiers. The primary signifiers in myth (the gods), as projections of contradictory meanings, impel human consciousness in contradictory directions: toward heroic ......
Making sense of the world around us is a process involving both semiotic and material mediation—the use of signs and sign systems (preeminently language) and various kinds of tools (technics). As we use them, we experience them subjectively as extensions of our bodily selves and objectively as instruments for accessing the world with ......
Scaramuzza, Scaramouche: the commedia dell'arte figure made a triumphal entry into German literature in the plays of Caspar Stieler (1632–1707). Transformed into a master of language and languages, Scaramutza—social critic, voluptuary, and mouthpiece for his author—ushers in a new type of comedy that depends more on the happy ......
An interdisciplinary work, comparative in nature, which offers extensive and extremely significant information about the cultural context of each work studied as well as penetrating analyses of the characters and situations from the unique perspectives of the psychology/philosophy developed by C .G. Jung. Dr. Knapp here concentrates on ......
By "the fear of freedom" Greer means the unconscious flight from the heavy burden of individual choice an open society lays upon its members. The miraculous represents a heavenly power brought down to earth and tied to the life of the community. Understanding how miracles were perceived in the late antiquity requires us to put aside the ......
The plot of the late-medieval Spanish work Celestina (1499) centers on the ill-fated love of Calisto and Melibea and the fascinating character of their intermediary, Celestina. In this ground-breaking rereading of the play, James F. Burke offers a new interpretation of the characters' actions by analyzing medieval theories of ......
Some poems can change our lives; they lead us to look at the world through new eyes. In this book, inspired by Martin Heidegger—who found in poetry the most fundamental insights into the human condition—John Lysaker develops a concept of ur-poetry to explore philosophically how poetic language creates fresh meaning in our world and ......
