Book contents
- Believing in Dante
- Believing in Dante
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Bibliographical Note
- Introduction
- 1 “So Great a Lover”: Facts and Narratives in the Love Stories of the Lustful
- 2 “Bad Light”: Factionalism and the Facts in the Cemetery of the Heretics
- 3 “Never Broke Faith”: Losing Credibility in the Wood of the Suicides
- 4 “Where Your Soul Is Pointed”: Facts and Values in Ulysses’ Quest and the Examination on Love
- 5 “Against Her Will”: Diversity of Desire in the Heaven of the Moon
- 6 “How Much from the Point”: Saving Appearances at the Edge of the Universe
- Conclusion
- Index
6 - “How Much from the Point”: Saving Appearances at the Edge of the Universe
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2022
- Believing in Dante
- Believing in Dante
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Bibliographical Note
- Introduction
- 1 “So Great a Lover”: Facts and Narratives in the Love Stories of the Lustful
- 2 “Bad Light”: Factionalism and the Facts in the Cemetery of the Heretics
- 3 “Never Broke Faith”: Losing Credibility in the Wood of the Suicides
- 4 “Where Your Soul Is Pointed”: Facts and Values in Ulysses’ Quest and the Examination on Love
- 5 “Against Her Will”: Diversity of Desire in the Heaven of the Moon
- 6 “How Much from the Point”: Saving Appearances at the Edge of the Universe
- Conclusion
- Index
Summary
The primum mobile is the largest body of the universe, giving impetus to the whole complex system of natural causes. Limit of the physical world, it serves as a vantage point on the metaphysical structure that undergirds it. The planets are moved by angels that appear to whirl at different speeds in nine concentric fiery wheels variously distant from the common focus of their orbits. The angels are uninterruptedly intent on what they know and love, to the degree that they know and love it. The opening astronomical simile serves to describe a single moment of perfect balance in an ambiguous twilight before the universe took sides and split into light and dark, good and evil. It is a moment of expectation, in which what comes next depends on whether one settles for what appears in the here and now or believes that it promises something more yet to come.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Believing in DanteTruth in Fiction, pp. 208 - 243Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022