Communal and Economic Implications of Blood in Dante. (2nd July 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Leone, Anne C.
• Is Part Of: Italian studies. Volume 71:Number 3(2016:Nov.)
• Page Start: 265
• Page End: 286
• Publication Date: 2016-07-02
• Subjects: blood -- Dante -- community -- economy -- caritas -- Incarnation; Italian literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Italy -- Intellectual life -- Periodicals; Italy -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 945
• DOI: 10.1080/00751634.2016.1189247
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0075-1634

Abstract

Abstract : This article investigates two of the varied and diverse implications of blood in Dante's works ( Fiore, Rime, Vita nova, Convivio, Commedia, Monarchia, Epistole, and Egloghe ) where the term and its derivations appear: the 'communal' and the 'economic'. By 'communal', I mean that Dante emphasizes the generative, formative, nourishing and charitable implications of blood: as the parts of a body are joined together through the blood they share, members of various communities — the city, the Church, the Roman Empire, the family, humankind — are joined together through blood. By 'economic', I understand that Dante compares blood to money and highlights its ability to balance members of a group or elements of a body, enabling him to use the substance to delimit a series of poetic and ethical economies: of vice and virtue, waste and value, sensation and cognition, sin and punishment, original sin and Christ's sacrifice on the cross.