ABSTRACT
Path-breaking work in Dante studies exemplifies some revolutionary methodological approaches to literary criticism that can answer to the crisis of the humanities and the disarray of the university as they are experienced in our present historical predicament. Recuperating a sense of theology as a matter of interpersonal encounter can be applied to the study of literature in such a way as opens to an authentic dimension of existence that redeems much of the alienation brought about by inevitable specialization and professionalization. The life-transforming and truth-revealing vocation of the humanities proves to be still vibrantly alive if we can adjust and adopt these perspectives deriving from theology as something more than a science of objects. Instead, theology involves an experience of relations of all with all reaching out beyond our knowing. Dante’s poetry can serve as an eminent vehicle for cultivating such relational knowing and unknowing. By centering on human encounters in the other world that reveal the fathomless mystery of our being Dante’s poetry attains to theological revelation.
