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Description

This book studies several of Mark Helprinrsquo;s novels in terms of their relation to Dantersquo;s Divine Comedy. The authors demonstrate that A Soldier of the Great War; In Sunlight and in Shadow; and Winterrsquo;s Tale substantially correspond to; respectively; Dantersquo;s Inferno; Purgatorio; and Paradiso. The author himself has acknowledged his debt to Dante and references to the Comedy appear throughout his works. It is not that Helprinrsquo;s novels track their Dantean antecedents slavishly; or even follow the structure of the Canticles explicitly. Rather; the central arguments of Dantersquo;s three works are taken up by Helprin in his novels. In adopting Dantersquo;s essentially Platonic doctrine of mediation; Helprinrsquo;s characters are fully instantiated human beings who also mediate and reveal the divine. In his engagement with Dante; Helprin affirms the core philosophical; theological and psychological arguments of the Comedy; and then modifies those arguments in a distinctly modern way. Specifically; Helprin focuses on human freedom as the necessary precondition for justice to exist; both for individuals and for societies. In the final chapter of the book; the authors turn to Helprinrsquo;s Freddy and Fredericka. In this novel; Helprin both assumes Dantersquo;s argument; and then radically alters it; by pointing to the possibility of a just regime on earth; rather than one that exists merely in heaven. While accepting much of Dantersquo;s metaphysical argument; Helprin shows the virtues of liberal democracy as that form of political regime that is most able to unite human eros with eternal principles. In the end; Helprinrsquo;s novels are remarkable for the way in which they advocate for ancient virtues; while insisting upon the distinctly modern liberal account of human freedom as the necessary foundation for human flourishing.