Structures de l’histoire dans la Comédie. Quelques observations sur le prophétisme de Dante

Abstract

The article offers some remarks on the regime of historicy of the Comedy and its complex properties. Past, present and future are in fact diffracted through several anthropologies corresponding to the damned, the penitent, the blessed and to a living character narrator who is also involved in history. The article analyses in particular the Dantean option of post factum prophecy. This option is not only seen as an auctorial artifice but also as an intellectual device whose function is to project the present into the future and beyond the narrative and to make the Comedy a ‘future producing machine’ which constantly ejects the present into the future. On this basis, the article examines the apprehension of events in a fictional world in which prophecy is the main channel of the communication of knowledge while the access to the contemporary world and its definition are problematic.

Keywords

• Dante Alighieri
• prophecy post factum
• poetry
• regime of historicity
• prophecy
• prophets