ABSTRACT
As Dante's typically ritual circumlocutions intimate, the Trinitarian structure of the Deity is intrinsically self-reflective. This condition of self-reflexivity of the divinity reflected in the light of Creation is repeatedly alluded to in the imagery of reflection and mirroring-and even of reading-in God that pervades the whole cantica. Creation is a radiating of the resplendence of the idea of the people Sire. In order to relate to God as, in essence, wholly unknowable and inaccessible, the authors have no alternative but to relate self-reflexively to themselves. However, in the economy of salvation, the Creation exists, according to ancient theological arguments, for the sake of the Incarnation. The self-reflexivity in question is not only the Trinitarian structure of divinity: it models also the structure of the human psyche and of language in its lyrical essence. The self-reflection of the Father in the Son is reflected outward toward all by the Son as Word in the act of Creation.
