Synopsis
One of the most ambitious essays in the interpretation of Dante our time has seen...his interpretation of the role of Beatrice is a subtle and individual one. Charles Williams was one of the finest-not to mention one of the most unusual-theologians of the twentieth century. His mysticism is palpable-the unseen world interpenetrates ours at every point, and spiritual exchange occurs all the time, unseen and largely unlooked for. His novels are legend, and as a member of the Inklings, he contributed to the mythopoetic revival in contemporary culture.
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From the Back Cover
Dante is unequalled among poets for his extraordinary intensity of thought and experience, but this very power can make his work seem difficult to approach. Charles Williams's The Figure of Beatrice is outstanding in Dante scholarship and criticism for its sympathetic enthusiasm and clarity: without simplifying the achievement, Williams gives a highly personal yet approachable introduction to Dante's work. The first part of the book traces the way in which the central image of Beatrice, representing transcendent beauty in feminine form, animates Dante's earlier works; the second part richly expounds The Divine Comedy, meditating on its significance in Dantesque terms. Williams foreshadows the valuable modern emphasis on Dante as philosopher-poet, and he touches on many later concerns in Dante criticism, including ambiguities of language, the inherent self-contradiction of all powerful discourse, problems of authority and necessity, and the place of the feminine. The Figure of Beatrice is also a moving and poetic work in its own right.
About the Author
Author and scholar Charles Williams (1886-1945) joined, in 1908, the staff of the Oxford University Press, the publishing house in which he worked for the rest of his life. Throughout these years, poetry, novels, plays, biographies, history, literary criticism, and theology poured from his pen. At the beginning of the Second World War the publishing house was evacuated to Oxford where, in addition to his own writing and his editorial work for the Press, he taught in the University.
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