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Jews and Muslims in Dante’s Vision

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2008

Jesper Hede
Jesper Hede*
Affiliation:
Department of Comparative Literature, Aarhus University, Langelandsgade 139, Aarhus C, DK-8000, Denmark
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Dante’s attitude towards Jews and Muslims in the Divine Comedy has been a controversial issue in literary studies of the medieval period. This article outlines the most central questions in this regard and argues that the treatment of the issue has often been misleading due to exaggeration and overstatement. Dante has been seen, respectively, as a summarizer of medieval culture and mentalities, as a medieval intellectual who was more open for non-Christian influences than his fellow Christians, and as a highly prejudiced conservative. In considering the constituents of Dante’s worldview, the article that follows argues that Dante should rather be seen as a medieval Christian whose cultural horizon was limited, whose political theory of world government was narrowly focused on a specific problem within European Christendom, and whose vision of redemption, although complex and original in various respects, could not but embrace all human beings as either righteous or corrupted Christians.

Type
Focus: al-Andalus – the Three Cultures
Information
European Review , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , February 2008 , pp. 101 - 114
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 2008

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References

Notes and References

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