On The Heroic Frenzies

This vibrant bilingual edition, annotated by celebrated Bruno scholar Ingrid D. Rowland, features the text in its original Italian alongside an elegant, accurate English translation.

The Renaissance writers adapted the dialogue form to represent the culture they were creating, using it for numerous subjects: philosophy, ethics, politics, religion, the arts, the study of language, and literature. The dialogue was an appropriate form for works which are at once serious, ironical, and critical. Giordano Bruno's Italian dialogues are a case in point. A discussion of the relationship between the human soul and the universal soul, concluding with the negation of the absolute individuality of the former. Bruno, making use of Neoplatonic imagery, treats the attainment of union with the infinite One by the human soul and exhorts man to the conquest of virtue and truth. Giordano Bruno was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings.

Cover -- TABLE OF CONTENTS -- PREFACE -- INTRODUCTION -- I. The London period and De gli eroici furori -- II. The poetry of the Stil novisti -- III. The sonnet sequence of De gli eroici furori -- IV. De gli eroici furori and the emblematic tradition -- THE HEROIC FRENZIES -- Argument of the Nolan -- The Apology of the Nolan -- FIRST PART -- First Dialogue -- Second Dialogue -- Third Dialogue -- Fourth Dialogue -- Fifth Dialogue -- SECOND PART -- First Dialogue -- Second Dialogue -- Third Dialogue -- Fourth Dialogue -- Fifth Dialogue -- BIBLIOGRAPHY

"The myth of Sisyphus symbolizes the archetypal process of becoming without the consolation of absolute achievement. It is both a poignant reflection of the human condition and a prominent framing text for classical, medieval, and renaissance theories of human perfectibility. In this unique reading of the myth through classical philosophies, pagan and Christian religious doctrines, and medieval and renaissance literature, we see Sisyphus, "the most cunning of human beings," attempting to transcend his imperfections empowered by his imagination to renew his faith in the infinite potentialities of human excellence."--BOOK JACKET

Some of the world's most eminent researchers on Bruno offer an exhaustive overview of the state-of-theart research on his work, discussing Bruno's methodological procedures, his epistemic and literary practices, his natural philosophy, or his role as theologian and metaphysic at the cutting-edge of their disciplines. Short texts by Bruno illustrate the reasoning of the contributions. The book also reflects aspects of Bruno's reception in the past and today, inside and outside academia.