La funzione metapoetica del mito di Giasone nella Commedia di Dante

Abstract

In this article I analyse and interpret three passages from Dante’s Paradise containing more or less explicit allusions to the myth of the Argonauts, which Dante knew from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. All three are intertextual and occur at key points in the Canticle of Light, performing a meta-poetic function. They pertain to the essence and objectives of Dante’s poetry and its pioneering character, both in terms of subject-matter and means of expression, particularly for the depiction of the visions of Paradise. Dante makes use of the metaphor of sailing the seas, which had been a topos of literary creativity since ancient times, and compares his own poetic exploit (The Divine Comedy) with the quest for the Golden Fleece conducted by Jason. Yet at the same time Dante distances his own work from the feat accomplished by the captain of the Argonauts.