Did Dante rip off from a muslim book

when writing the Divine Comedy

read this dailysabah.com/feature/2014/02/27/divine-art-or-plagiarism

its the brown version of KANGZ

Hehe Muslims are simply inferior to the white man

That talking about the Liber Scalae Machometi? Yeah, we're taught about that in highschool while reading the comedy. To be fair, saying it's a rip-off completely misinterprets the intertextuality typical of religious/mystical texts: everything is a flux of sacred ideas and images borrowed from any source (namely, Greek and Roman writing were read as prefigurative of Christianity, which lend them an aura of holiness making them suitable for reutilization) and rearranged as the author (or maybe God, if you think about them as divine conduits) pleases. I think it's a wonderful methodology, as an aesthetic and a literary "ontology".

Now, the last line of the article (hurr durr you take from Islam then insult it, even though they put in a more jadedly ironic way) is the kind of bullshit you say retrospectively when you don't like an old book, so it should be disregarded.

Wasn't the idea among the people in Europe at that time that Muhammad was merely a schismatic Christian? To call it islamophobic seems unfair if it wasn't completely understood what Islam was.

WE WUZ

Haven't got a clear idea of the religious panorama of Dante's time, but that seems a bit far-fetched. Interesting, though. Any source? I'd like to know more.

Did you know that all of European culture is stolen? This is why POC seem so worthless when you look at history

is this true....that european culture was stolen from POC?

Boy I do like when actual discussion is killed off by dank memes, isn't it the most Veeky Forums thing ever?

So what are you doing to improve this discussion? I ask you sincerely.

This is me I'm trying to expand the discussion and open it to other ideas/directions to explore, this thread may have some potential. I don't want to see it squandered.

This isn't interesting though, all it proves is that two Abrahamic religions are similar in theology. We already knew that. The similarities in the two compared texts are tenuous and circumstantial. It would be like the Quran stole from the Bible because the Bible came first. It's inherently boring

Well no, I think you may be missing a bit of what I intended to convey. It's not a question of stealing, it's more about how you interact with other texts, borrowing from them, while staying true to your ideology - and also, how these themes run through the history of literature/philosophy somehow independently (even though, as far as I know, both the Comedy and the Liber Scalae were predated by a Lucianus's text?), like Frazer did with the Golden Bough.

How could Dante use pagan/islamic sources and inspirations while still managing to think (and write) of himself as a Catholic? It's the kind of reasoning you need to use when dealing, for example, with the sincretism of most philosophers; I found that doing so allows for a more complete and well rounded understanding of a thinker/writer's thought and aesthetic (not that the two of them aren't linked, obviously).

It was a note Peter Armour that claimed it was a view in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately he doesn't have a citation for that, but the lines that include Muhammad are in the ninth pouch of the eighth circle.

"See now how maimed Mohammed is! And he
who walks and weeps before me is Ali,
whose face is opened wide chin to forelock.
And all the others here whom you can see
were, when alive, the sowers of dissention
and scandal, and for this they are now split"

Ah, thank you. I remember that part, it was as minimalistic as it was brutal, for Dante's standard. A pity there's no claim, but I'll look into it. It didn't occur to me that these two faiths may have once, at the beginning, seen each other as conversely heretical rather than "something else entirely".

That isn't the claim in the article. It says that Dante plagiarizes from Muslim works, not that it was intertextual or that they were influential. The claim is different. The original claim is dumb. Intertextuality is different fron influences in what significant way? That writers write about other writers in their own work? That they feed off them and expand or reinterpret their work? But again this is uninteresting, that writers have influences. It reminds me of people(not you) who cry plagiarism in music. Musicians have influences. In the same way writers and authors have influences.

Philosophers tend to have "influences", but the better term would be adversaries. Philosophers love to break down and attack previous philosophy in order to find flaws enough to generate a new one. Thesis, Antithesis and so on.

No, that's a ridiculous accusation made by an idiotic pseudo intellectual hipster to get brownie points for pandering to minorities. However, Dante certainly took a lot of inspiration from ancient Greece and Rome, particularly from Homer

I get your point - I don't agree with the article (which I've mostly skimmed, to my fault) either, as I wrote.

I'd argue that intertextuality is different in the same way there's a difference between interweaving someone else's ideas in your writing and outright quoting them. Intertextuality, at least for me, is much more similar to the latter and it's "something of its own" (the "catena", or the stringing together of commentaries on a text, was born out of medieval custom, and it's very much unique in its scope and reason to exist). As a writer (which, I know, opens me up for a whole other slew of criticism) I'm inherently interested in different ways to approach the creation of texts and literature, and I considered Dante's writing in light of this. As you said, it probably doesn't make the object of my attention absolutely interesting.

I somewhat agree with your perspective on philosophy, even if I wouldn't necessarily use those terms to define its dialectics.

>Were religious themes ripped off of other religious themes?

Yes.

Quoting something would make it intertextual, but if we quoted something and didn't source it then ironically enough we'd end up back at plagiarism. That isn't good.

I have a different theory on intertextuality that I've been thinking about while reading through your responses and coming up with my own. I'll try it out and see if the wings fail.

Intertextuality refers to how texts, works, books, whatever, references one another and are influenced by one another. So between say two books, book A references book B, and book A has large passages similar to book B or has a character named after a character from book B. This would be intertextuality. Or is it? It's what is though as intertextuality but I referred to it as influences instead. I still think that influence or influences is the better descriptor.

So what is intertextuality then? Well when book B got referenced by book A, as in a character got named, then intertextuality states that book B changed when book A decided to reference it. Notably, this could happen years after book B was written.

Take "A portrait of an artist as a young man". Daedalus is an obvious reference to the Greek myth. So intertextuality states that the myth of Daedalus, usually thought as just the myth, is both the myth and all of the references and relations to the myth. So when Joyce decided on the character name, he changed the intertextuality of the myth of Daedalus.

So maybe I'm wrong as well. "Intertextuality is the total sum of references to a work/text". Seems like it needs work

it is true that Christians confused Islam for just another Christian heresy, but that was in the first centuries of Islam.
By the time of Dante, they knew well what Islam was.

Saint John Damascene who lived more or less around 650-750, when Islam was a new thing, thought Mohammed was a Heretic.

Your theory is interesting and you need to work on it - I'd like to see it developed. Reversing causality/temporal flow when looking at literature is always engaging.

I agree on the "meat" of what you're saying, which is (if I understand correctly) "intertextuality is the act-of-looking-at a text in the past" while being informed by all the texts which referenced it? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Reminds me of Nietzsche a bit, how he says "change every "has been" in a "I wanted it to be so"" (have no idea how it's actually translated into english sorry). Thoughts about that?

Also, something to mull over: you say that not sourcing something makes it plagiarism - but does it? Let's say we, as writers, are wondrous constructs made up of eterogenous bits; they are excerpts of our readings, of our thoughts, of movie, music and conversations. Once we experience something, it unequivocably belongs to us as much as it does to everyone who experienced it on their terms. It's part of our being. How does writing it as we remember/have read it makes it less a part of us than it would a rephrasing? We are always putting ourselves in the text (some kind of ritualistic suicide, if you will) anyway. I'd like to know your opinion.

You caught me, I was being insincere. Plagiarism is something that is overblown, and money is the reason why. I like your argument that even if you quote it directly it is no less part of your soul. I agree.

That is the meat, and we should contrast it with "context" which to our discussion should refer to "historical context". When texts or books are put into historical context, the culture and morality and philosophy and language and thought of the time are taken into account to "fully understand" the book. Intertext, or we may be defining a "historical intertext", would refer to what we were talking about.

The main issue of intertextuality as we have defined it so far is the infinite combinatorial-like explosion. References are cheap and plentiful and can circle back around on books, if taken as a totality of all possibility of reference.

When it comes to Nietzche, he purposefully obfuscated his thought for various reasons, one of my favorite being to mimic Heraclitus. Which book is that quote from? It could very well be what he was talking about, or it could be that he was artfully encouraging lack of remorse and regret. Its always hard to tell with him, which is what makes him great.

the Koran is a dumbed down ripoff of the Bible so it's a moot point

My argument about the inconsistency of plagiarism comes from my interpretation of Spinoza's Ethics, which I recommend you to read if you haven't done so already - I think you'll like it.

As for Nietzsche, the quote is from Thus Spake Zarathustra, second book, chapter 42: Redemption. In English it reads

>All "It was" is a fragment, a riddle, a fearful chance- until the creating Will saith thereto: "But thus would I have it."

Which I think it's illuminating, when applied to our conversation (sorry for the delay by the way, got to track it down from the Italian translation).

As for the "meat", I appreciate your division between context and intertext; I've never thought about it in that way, it feels like a fruitful dichotomy. Keep working on it!

>The main issue of intertextuality as we have defined it so far is the infinite combinatorial-like explosion

I don't think it's inherently bad, honestly; as you say, it could cheapen the value of a reference (given this infinite totality), but it also frees us, as creating entities (which is my personal definition of human being [still working on it, please don't nuke it]), to work our wonders, our cathedrals built on nothing, in the most absolute way possible. Would you care to clarify how you feel this is an issue? I may be blinded by my given fondness for the Idealistic "bad infinitiviness" (again, translating on the fly).

I've only ever read Spinoza for a class, but based on your recommendation it deserves a full reading. I only know him secondhand but I've become addicted to firsthand "sources" which means really I'm tired of analysis. Thanks for the recommendation.

I like that Nietche quote (I'm a sucker for Nietzche quotes), it is illuminating in that it speaks to the nature of time, a concept that is a main topic of metaphysics, and breaks the causal chain which like you said, is interesting. I feel as if our discussion is a subset of his more general expression of the same thoughts.

The issue appears to me an issue based on our initial goal. The infinite nature of the definition or exploration of intertextuality is counter to "limiting" intertextuality by saying that certain references or themes or characters or dialogues are or aren't intertextual. This "limitation" (another one of my try-out theories, based on human limit and error) leads to things generally called interesting. It is interesting counter to the uninteresting which we should hope to avoid. And if the definition or substance or being of intertextuality is infinite and can apply to anything or a "too large set" then it is inherently uninteresting. I would compare this to the modern art world where the definition of what art is has completely lost all meaning and value. This makes whether something is or isn't art uninteresting. We should try to avoid this happening to intertextuality.

How much Presocratic Ancient Greek philosophy do you know? Anaxagoras said that his "prima causi" or primal cause was the "boundless" or the "unlimited" (it can be translated in different ways). The inifinite is something that shouldn't be taken lightly, because it holds interest, but there are different grades of infinity.

This might be way past our discussion and off course, but in Axiomatic Set Theory there is the idea that the set of all real numbers has a "larger infinite cardinality" than the set of all the positive integers (1,2,3,4,5...). Cardinality means the number of elements in a set. The proof of this is famous and very interesting, and I find infinity to be fascinating in its many forms. Cantor proved this if you want to look it up.

So all I would end saying is that be cautious with infinity, it might go farther than you think.

WE WUZ POETS

Now I get why you're so, let's say, titubant, when it comes to the appreciation of the infinite. While I do agree on the fact that you're describing the "praxis" of how we approach the infinite (by finding it unendingly boring), I still want to argue in favor of infinite as an invariably positive force - the productive infinity of Spinoza or, as you brought them in the discussion, the still infinity of Parmenides. There is no opposite of that which is, by definition (look up Severino's explanation of the elenchos by Parmenidean logic, you'll enjoy it; might be even room for a few academic chuckles), Positive and Existing; that's how I feel about literature and art. Obviously I'm biased, but I'd like to think that, in a single text/work, one may, by digging deeply enough, find the whole history of the medium declined in its own twisted genealogy.

I'll admit this is an exquistely "patrician" point of view, or that of someone who might find all of this - a theory of aesthetics for intellectuals in the wordt possible sense, if you will, but I find it working out fairly well for me. Critiques are welcome.

Quick questions, are you referring to the Anaximenes's apeiron? Anaxagoras talked about Intellect/nous as his first cause, I seem to remember. Might be wrong, didn't look him up recently. And mind reccing some Cantor?

I had tried to discuss without looking at a book but my own folly forced my action. Excuse my wrongness, I meant Anaximander, not Anaxagoras. The Anax's blur after too much time. Also Georg Cantor is a mathematician without much philosophy, his theories are useful for insights into infinity ever since I came across them. It requires some basic set theory (don't take basic as the normal basic, I find it incredibly complicated and difficult) and describes a proof that while the set of positive integers and rational number are "countably infinite", the real numbers and the complex numbers are not.

I'll check out Severino, but his rejection of the Heideggerian duality of being and nonbeing reminds me of Parmenides. I see that it also reminds you of Parmenides. The poem at the beginning of Parmenides book is classic and underutilized.

How do you explain the existence of other people? I don't answer this question in any satisfactorily way, and I would like to hear your thoughts.

When it comes to literature the entire history of literature is complex. Books contain the history of all books, thats a good thought, pretty and true. However we have the entirety of history in ourselves, do we not? I find it hard to stay on topic. I do not think that infinity is unpositive, however positive might be too far. In a metaphor, sometimes I wish to speak a different language. To operate only within the infinite seems limited and against complexity.

What is the difference in your view between the One and the Infinite?

WE WAZ DANTE N SHEIT

As I'm on my phone, I'll have to be more concise.

You raise some interesting points. Yes, I do think about Parmenides - Severino tried to lead a movement of neo-parmenideans (which is still holding out in my university, Venice), actually, and his best known essay is literally titled "Return to Parmenides". I hope it's available in English, I'm afraid Italian philosophy tends to be insular. I hope to change that.

You say that we have the entirety of history within ourselves, and I completely agree: it's Leibniz's monads declined with Spinoza. We're all nodes of perspective, but we're essential, "eternal" (in the sense that we forever exist, even in the smallest amount, in the way other people interact with the world) and complete. We find what we like in our blind spots, in other people.

And I'm ready to argue that people are like any other object in the world, an occasion for sense and meaning to explode in a myriad direction - to say, I don't care about their existence insofar as they, or thoughtforms I define as "they", let me explore infinite further, as do all other beings.

Basically, I think we exist on a completwly empty plane of immanence, where (a peculiarly human thing, mayhaps) we have been builing narratives for thousands of years: the narrative of the external world, of God, of virtual reality - and all these we experience in the same way, absorbing and reutilizing them in that same plane, "interfering", if you want, with their existence, which reminds me of your concept of intertextuality.

Sorry if I haven't answered you,may have rambled a bit.

He was essentially only just one of the great heresiarchs according to Hilaire Belloc. He makes an interesting argument.

>question mark in headline
the answer is no

Everything Shakespeare wrote was a ripoff as well. When will the dead white men being great writers end? All originality comes from Africa.

why do you think they call him the false prophet.

literally the same god according to both sides.

Idk I took a class freshman year with a Paki professor called "History of the Global Economy" and the whole course was about how the Chinese were building bigger and better boats than white people and that everything the Greeks did was done by Arabs first. Then one day he had everyone stand up and listen to the Israeli anthem to "prove that he respects that flag despite everything it stands for." You should have seen his face the morning the NYT broke the story that Bush received reports predicting 9/11 and ignored them.