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John Dunn
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John Dunn original writing
Dante Alighieri
Act of defiance
Did not Dante’s decision to press beyond the garden in Canto XXVII of Purgatory show that it was not just a point of arrival, but the necessary precondition for moral life? He was drawn on to continue his journey by the prospect of meeting Beatrice. In tempting him beyond the garden Beatrice assumed the role of Eve.
Was not Milton’s Eve aware of vain labours in a garden ever more luxuriant and forever on the verge of wilderness? The argument with Eve in Book IX of Paradise Lost exposed Adam to the truth of what Eve had known all along. Their strained contentment in the Garden was no way to live - docile, passive and slaves to nature. In Book XII, Adam proclaims that the good resulting from the Fall that Eve induced is ‘more wonderful’ than the goodness in creation. He exclaims:
Oh goodness infinite, goodness immense!
That all this good of evil shall produce,
And evil turn to good; more wonderful
Than that which by creation first brought forth
Light out of darkness!
Sin and transgression became a positive act of defiance that resonates with the felix culpa, the happy fall, of Augustine’s writings: ‘for God judged it better to bring good out of evil, than not to permit any evil to exist’. In other words, Eve is essential to forward development.
From Child of Encounter
© John Dunn.
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From the archive:
Precursors
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Influenced by Giovanni Gentile
The work of Giovanni Gentile continues to feed into the development of my own writing, and, no doubt, will do so too into my next published book.
John Dunn
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Just a thought:
There is only one guilt for man in the eyes of the controllers of world ‘news’, ‘entertainment’ and ‘culture’ media - that of being oneself. Cowed by the lampooning, satire and comedy of contemporary media, most individuals do not have the courage to grasp crown and mitre. John Dunn (Renaissance: Counter-Renaissance)
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The Oxford to Cambridge Arch 5
Further additions to the project, starting with the Bedford to Cambridge leg of Ogilby's 1675 Oxford to Cambridge route.
John Dunn
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