Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-fvjsw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T12:06:36.211Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dialogue and Doctrine in Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

T. Anthony Perry
T. Anthony Perry*
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut, Storrs
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

ON ITS LITERARY LEVEL Leone Ebreo's Dialoghi d'amore (Rome, 1535) is presented as a long courtship between an ardent lover, Filone, and his reluctant mistress, Sofia. At one point the clever lady summarizes their respective attitudes by the casual observation that, while she is more interested in the theory of love, Filone is more bent on the practice thereof.1 This wry comment is a capsule of the entire work, for it explains not only the constant narrative shift between amorous language and philosophical approfondissement, but also the basic paradox that pervades the entire Dialoghi, that of theoria versus action, which appears as the tension between Filone's amorous involvement and Sofia's aloofness but especially as the opposition between the via contemplativa and the via activa!1 In this paper we shall suggest that Leone Ebreo's work may be defined as a dialogue between two philosophies of life or “kinds of people,” the contemplative man and the active man, and that these two human types are represented by the two interlocutors, Filone and Sofia. This view will require revision of the usual critical approaches to the Dialoghi. For one thing, if we take Leone's title seriously and consider the work as a true dialogue, as a confrontation of two substantially divergent points of view, then it is difficult to describe it as essentially a monologue in which only one of the characters—Filone—expresses the author's ideas. Moreover, in addition to the purely philosophical argument, we shall have to pay close attention both to the psychological nature of the characters and to the precise levels of their allegorization. In short, we shall no longer be able to neglect the work's literary nature.3 vient thin

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 88 , Issue 5 , October 1973, pp. 1173 - 1179
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

1 Dialoghi cTamore, p. 200, in the standard critical edition by Santino Caramella (Bari: Laterza, 1929), used throughout this paper.

2 Cervantes' beautiful shepherdess Marcela (Quijote, Pt. i, Ch. xiv) exemplifies such a close connection between amorous detachment and a more philosophical and general disregard for all earthly things whatever. Her refusal to show mercy to her suitors is justified, in Platonic language, as a desire to “contemplar la hermosura del cielo, pasos con que camina el alma a su morada primera.”

3 Scant attention has been paid to the literary dimension of the Dialoghi. See, e.g., Caramella, pp. 427–28, and H. Pflaum, Die Idee der Liebe: Leone Ebreo (Tubingen: Mohr, 1926), p. 96.

4 See Jacques Schlanger, “Le Maître et le disciple du Fons Vitae,” Revue des Etudes Juives, 127 (1968), 393.

5 See Pflaum, pp. 124–27.

6 The opposing Augustinian view, according to which love is both epistemologically and ontologically prior to knowledge, is brilliantly treated by Max Scheler, Liebe und Erkenntnis (Bern: Francke, 1955), pp. 5–28.

7 Later, Filone reviews the conclusions of the first Dialogue and, while again agreeing with Sofia that “l'amor, come piu eccellente vocabulo, si applica primamente a persone che sono e a cose eccellenti perfettive, ovvero possedute,” he again somewhat paradoxically adds that “in sustanzia” the meaning of the terms love and desire is identical (p. 213). Sofia recognizes the perspective of such a view: “concedo che appresso i mortali ogni amore è desiderio e ogni desiderio è amore.”

8 This is the opinion of J. Klausner, “Don Judah Abrabanel and His Love-Philosophy,” Tarbiz (Jerusalem), 3 (1932), 89 (in Hebrew).

9 J. Schlanger, pp. 393–97, reaches similar conclusions regarding the function of dialogue in Ibn Gabirol's Fons Vitae.

10 E.g., Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Historia de las ideas estéticas en Espaha, ii (1884; rpt. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1962), 13: “Philon y su amada Sophia, personajes enteramente abstractos, que simbolizan, como sus nombres lo indican, el amor ? apetito, y la ciencia ? sabiduria.”

11 Caramella's assertion that Sofia's beauty is only spiritual (p. 428) is not supported by the text. At least, Filone's judgments are naturally to the contrary (pp. 52, 172, 174).

12 On the use of the term Chokhmah (the traditional rendering of Gr. sophia) in Jewish philosophy in the sense of philosophical rather than revealed knowledge, see G. Sermoneta, Un glossario filosofico ebraio-italico del xiii secolo (Roma: Edizioni dell'Ateneo, 1969), pp. 354–55, and p.349, ii.

13 A better understanding of this kind of temperament has been made possible by recent changes in critical attitudes. See, e.g., Peter Dronke's Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric, i (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), which stresses the similarities and continuity between earthly and divine love, in contrast to the theological terminology of a sinful “this world” versus a higher world characteristic of previous studies.

14 The most popular section of the Mishnah, the collection of ethical maxims known as “Chapters of the Fathers” (Pirkei Avoth), abounds in such sayings as the following: “The chief thing is not study but action” (Ch. i, par. xvii); “all Torah without work ends in failure and leads to sin” (Ch. ii, par. ii); “do not sever yourself from other people” (Ch. ii, par. v); “if there is no Torah there is no worldly occupation, and if there is no worldly occupation there is no Torah” (Ch. iii, par. xxi). While not in the habit of citing his Judaic sources, Leone Ebreo nevertheless relies on the Pirkei Avoth (Ch. iv, par. i) in two instances: “Who is strong ? He who conquers his passions. . . . Who is rich ? He who is satisfied with his portion.” Leone Ebreo : “dicono che ? vero forte è quello che se medesimo vince” (p. 17); “e li savi dicono che ? vero ricco è quello che si contenta di quel che possiede” (p. 14).

15 Deut. vi.4–5 is part of the Shema', which Jews recite twice daily. The passage “Et con esso Dio vi coppularete” may be the rendering of Hosea ii.22: “And you shall know the Lord” which Jews recite daily upon laying on the phylacteries.