Three Fundamental Principles of Image of Heavenly Rose in “Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri

Abstract

The theme of the image fundamental principles of the heavenly rose (rosa candida) in Dante Alighieri’s poem “The Divine Comedy” is considered. The relevance of the study lies in the unquenchable acute interest of literary critics in issues related to the poem itself, Dante’s work, as well as to the study of the symbolism of the rose as a literary, visual and cultural phenomenon. It is shown that in Dante’s poem this theme is revealed through the image of a rose in the last part of the comedy “Paradise”. The author of the article traces the history of the formation of a rose image in ancient and medieval literature, architecture, icon painting, as well as the species distribution of the rose plant in medieval Europe. The signs of Dante’s inheritance of those semantic features of the rose that had developed in the texts by the 14th century are revealed. It has been established that Dante could well compare the heavenly rose with an architectural detail — a rose window decorated with stained-glass windows depicting God, Jesus and the Virgin, as well as with a view of Rosa Alba — a white rose, one of the oldest among those brought to Europe. In conclusion, the author of the article points out all the impulses for the birth of the heavenly rose and the characteristic features of these borrowings in Dante’s text.

Keywords

• dante alighieri
• heavenly rose
• rosa candida
• rose window
• gothic
• rosa mystic
• middle ages
• early renaissance