A fruitful consideration of the interplay of hermeneutic theory and rhetorical practice in communicationJohn Arthos discovers and promotes an organic reciprocity between rhetoric as a humanist practice and hermeneutics as a theoretical comportment. Although these two traditions have a long and rewarding collaboration, it is only now that we begin to realize their potential for radically remaking the way we think and speak as social animals. Arthos marries the perfo...

Originally published in 1963, this is a study of the greatness of Dante, Michelangelo and Milton, and of the differences in the power and effect of their work. This book shows how differing philosophical commitments help explain differences in the character of their greatness. The ancient treatise On the Sublime provides the starting point for these studies and in an introductory essay the author examines Longinus’ obligations to Platonic and Stoic philosophy. In the essays which relate th...

Originally published in 1956, this scholarly study of Spenser’s poetry shows how the conceptions of his earlier work in complaints, visions and pastorals were of continuing importance to the development of The Faerie Queene. Following on from Bishop Hurd’s Letters on Chivalry and Romance, John Arthos discusses the congeniality of romance and allegory. The form and substance of Spenser’s lyrical and meditative poetry were combined with his interest in romances to govern the progress of the ...

This edited work is spurred by the 30-year anniversary of the groundbreaking work by Paul Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia (1986)—and the 40-year anniversary of the original lectures (1975). Ricoeur took these concepts that continue to be enormously important in social and political analysis and connected them in a uniquely intricate dance. The ensuing interplay of these concepts provides a framework for a more deft and subtle evaluation than is common. Little has been done to enga...

Originally published in 1949, this title was written in order to help establish a better understanding of the ‘stock diction’ of eighteenth-century English poetry, and, in particular, of the diction commonly used in the description of nature. The language characteristic of so much of the poetry of this period had been severely criticized for a long time. But in the twenty or thirty years prior to publication some effort had been made to review the subject and the problem. However, several ...

There has been a renaissance of interest in the work and thought of Paul Ricoeur, one of the great hermeneutic scholars of the twentieth century. It is time to assess the future landscape for hermeneutics as a scholarly field and an educational curriculum after the momentous impact of Paul Ricoeur, who extended and deepened its trans-disciplinary reach, and pushed its profile substantially beyond its German legacy. There exists a misunderstanding that his thought is simply an extension or ...

An invaluable source of pleasure to those English readers who wish to read this great medieval classic with true understanding, Sinclair's three-volume prose translation of Dante's Divine Comedy provides both the original Italian text and the Sinclair translation, arranged on facing pages, and commentaries, appearing after each canto, which serve as brilliant examples of genuine literary criticism. This volume contains the complete translation of Dante's Paradiso.

The 'Canzoniere', a sequence of sonnets and other verse forms, were written over a period of about 40 years. They describe Petrarch's intense love for Laura, whom he first met in Avignon in 1327, and her effect on him after she died in 1348. The collection is an examination of the poet's growing spiritual crisis, and also explores important contemporary issues such as the role of the papacy and religion.

In "Fifteen Sonnets of Petrarch," the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca masterfully encapsulates the themes of unrequited love and the idealization of beauty, characteristic of his Renaissance context. Written in the sonnet form that he popularized, these lyrical compositions exhibit a delicate interplay of emotions, where the speaker articulates profound yearning and existential contemplation. Petrarca's concise and vivid imagery, combined with his innovative use of rhythm and rhyme, establ...

Michelangelo, who considered himself as primarily sculptor, afterwards painter, disclaimed the character of poet by profession. He was nevertheless prolific in verse; the pieces which survive, in number more than two hundred, probably represent only a small part of his activity in this direction. These compositions are not to be considered merely as the amusement of leisure, the byplay of fancy; they represent continued meditation, frequent reworking, careful balancing of words; he worked ...

This file includes the original (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Inferno) in Italian, plus an English translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. According to Wikipedia: "Durante degli Alighieri ( c.1265 - 1321), commonly known as Dante Alighieri, was a Florentine poet of the Middle Ages. His central work, the Divina Commedia (originally called "Commedia" and later called "Divina" (divine) by Boccaccio hence "Divina Commedia"), is often considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian...

Describing Dante's descent into Hell midway through his life with Virgil as a guide, Inferno depicts a cruel underworld in which desperate figures are condemned to eternal damnation for committing one or more of seven deadly sins. As he descends through nine concentric circles of increasingly agonising torture, Dante encounters doomed souls including the pagan Aeneas, the liar Odysseus, the suicide Cleopatra, and his own political enemies, damned for their deceit. Led by leering demons, th...