한없음의 잉여 : 『신곡』의 보편성의 문학적 기원

The Surplus of Outrage: Literary Origin of Universality of the Divine Comedy

&nbsp;&nbsp;This paper aims to re-examine and re-define the origin of universality of Dante Alighieri&quot;s Divine Comedy through a close reading of the text. The universality of the Comedy is not a self-contained and unilaterally granted fact but something to be maintained retrospectively by the readers&quot; evaluations. The way of the maintenance can be explained with the principle of &quot;other-ing&quot;, Other-ing means that a subject becomes the other and stands on the other&quot;s place through which he or she changes his or her positions incessantly. Through the way of other-ing, the Comedy maintains the conversational relationship with the other. Insofar as the Comedy alters itself and opens up toward the other in this process, it can make its literary value truly universal.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;I analyze this scheme of other-ing with reference to the first and last cantos of the Comedy The first canto (particularly, Inferno 1.10-12) shows how the writer Dante and the pilgrim Dante cross the real world and fictional world repeatedly. The readers, by facing the two worlds simultaneously, expand the literary boundary of the Comedy toward the real world where they locate. Such literary process between the writer and the reader operates by virtue of the successive effect of surpassing. The writer Dante makes his text surpass his intention. He allows readers to surpass authorial and textual intentions, and ultimately allows for the interpretation of the text.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;This process of repetitive surpassing is the power for the Comedy to continue the literary process. I explain this point by a close reading of the last canto (particularly, Paradiso 33.55-57). By focusing on such key elements as &quot;vision&quot;, &quot;speaking&quot;, &quot;memory&quot; and &quot;outrage&quot;. I show that, through exchange and communication among those clements, the Comedy realizes the possibility of literary language that can surpass all kinds of borders. Surpassing maintains &quot;outrage&quot;; this 15 the principle and power of the Comedy to be evaluated universally. In this process, the being of Dante abolishes distance so as to emil himself, which raises the effect of other-ing; and further, he maintains the authenticity of surpassing in the way of deconstructing the relationship of center and periphery so as to including the individual particulars. Now the reader, by participating as a particular being to this process, surpasses the modernized Dante that the West has recognized, and by repeating this process, realizes the universality of the Comedy.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;The outrage of surpassing finds its ultimate significance in the openness of sensibility toward the other. The outrage of surpassing makes the Comedy a present event, which annihilates the difference between time and space, and simultaneously maintains the difference between them, so as to refine the sensibility toward the other. I examine this point by close reading of the difference of the tenses of verbs in the first canto (particularly, Inferno 1.1-9). The delicate and intertwined placement of such tenses as present, future, present perfect (passato prossimo) and preterite (passato remoto) in the first nine lines helps the Comedy to realize literary language on the repeated play of condensation and emission. The Comedy survives in the successive chain of the past experience (writing), the present narration (text) and the future sympathy (reading). This is the way in which the Comedy exists as universal literary text.