Dante (c. 1265-1321) and the Musical Aesthetics of the Divine Comedy
Gustavo Cambraia FRANCO
Original title: Dante (c. 1265-1321) e a Estética Musical da Divina Comédia
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
Keywords: Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy, Medieval Aesthetics, Music, Poliphony.
The present article aims to analyze the figurative-musical aesthetics elaborated by the poet Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy, through the use of musical concepts, contemporary to the author, of monodia gregoriana and choral polyphony. The aim is to demonstrate how Dantian musical theory is applied in the Commedia using an imagetic and instrumental musical repertoire and a specific set of lexical and poetic expressions, whose function is to express, in a comprehensible way to the reader and interpreter, the sonorous dissonance, disharmony and the antimusical cacophony of Hell, the nature of the sacred, monodic Gregorian chant of Purgatory, and the symphonic and polyphonic musical nature of Paradise.
The Knowledge that Beautifies the Soul. Philosophy according to Diotima of Mantinea, Herrad of Hohenbourg and Christine de Pizan
Georgina RABASSÓ
Original title: El saber que embellece el alma. La filosofía según Diotima de Mantinea, Herrada de Hohenbourg y Christine de Pizan
Published in The Medieval Aesthetics
Keywords: Beauty, Liberal Arts, Medieval Aesthetics, Medieval Philosophy, Wisdom, Women Philosophers.
Diotima of Mantinea’s arguments in Plato’s Symposium (5th century BC) and the writings of Herrad of Hohenbourg (c. 1125-c. 1195) and Christine de Pizan (1364-1430) show the deep influence the study of philosophy had on them, in varying ways. Analysis of texts (and certain images) in which these writers speak of their relationships with the discipline of philosophy evidences the importance they give to their intellectual work, knowledge and critical analysis, not only for themselves but also as a distinctive component of female beauty as narrated by women themselves. This ideological contribution was key to the genesis of concepts such as “merit”, “nobility” and “excellence”, terms through which the women thinkers of the querelle des femmes (14th-18th centuries) took on the auctoritates of the male gender, who had stipulated that the overriding, exclusive beauty of women was corporeal and, occasionally, spiritual.
The aesthetic anamnesis of Umberto Eco
Ricardo da COSTA
Original title: A anamnese estética de Umberto Eco
Published in Art, Criticism and Mysticism
Keywords: Anamnesis, Medieval Aesthetics, Middle Ages, Umberto Eco.
The purpose of this paper is to present and analyze the aesthetic ideas of Umberto Eco (1932- ) in his book Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages (1987), particularly the aesthetic sensibilities and interests of medieval themes in the metaphysics of light (claritas), symbolism and allegory, and the aesthetic vision of the universe. For this we will use the Anamnesis Eric Voegelin's concept, exposed in their work – ANAMNESIS - From Theory of History and Politics (2002) – in which the author applies his philosophy of consciousness to your retrospective existential dimension, added to the aesthetic's considerations by the philosopher Roger Scruton (1944- ).
