La bestialità umana in Dante. Modelli e riscritture

Abstract

The essay investigates the presence in Dante of

the ancient metaphor of the man-beast. Focused on Convivio

and Comedia, the analysis reveals a strong occurrence

of this image, derived from Aristotle’s Nicomachean

Ethics, in the places of Dante’s work where ethical and

political themes emerge. After analyzing some places particularly

significant, the contribution ends with a reflection

on Purgatorio XIV: the powerful and numerous images

of bestiality present in this canto offer an adequate

example of the poet’s tendency to read the descent of man

in evil and matter in terms of a regression from the plane

of rationality, civil and properly human, to that of the brute

and formless sensuality.