ABSTRACT
The notion of lyric self-reflexivity even more radically transforms the concept of the sign. Not just empty of extra-linguistic content, the lyric sign is a form of plenitude and a fecund reality in itself. The sign in Paradise becomes an “idea that gives birth by loving” (“idea / che partorisce amando”). This phrase occurs in the context of a declaration of the self-reflexive nature of the Creation, mortal and immortal, made in the mirror image of its Creator: Ciò che non more e ciò che può morire non è se non splendor di quella idea che partorisce, amando, il nostro Sire; ché quella viva luce che sì mea dal suo lucente, che non si disuna da lui né da l’amor ch’a lor s’intrea, per sua bontate il suo raggiare aduna, quasi specchiato, in nove sussistenze, etternalmente rimanendosi una. (XIII.52–60) (That which never dies and that which can die is nothing but the resplendence of that idea to which, by loving, our Sire gives birth; for that live light that so derives from its emitting source, that does not separate from it nor from the love that in them inthrees itself, through its goodness gathers in one its radiance, as if mirrored, in nine substances, eternally remaining one itself.
