Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovak republic

The three-year interdisciplinary project looked into the issue of a relation or influence of Arabic philosophy and culture on the conditions in Western Europe, especially in Italy, and examined how it was reflected in the European culture, when Frederick II. has given to work out the translations of Aristotle's works. Thanks to Averroes' or Avicenna's philosophical texts, philosophical ideas have come to Europe, such as the opportunity to achieve the mystical experience described as a vision of God, as apotheosis, equalization with God yet during the life. Many (Averroes's, but for example also Thomas Aquinas') thesis were sentenced as heretic in 1270 and 1277, i.e. not conforming to Christian doctrine. In order to avoid Inquisition, the ideologically attractive ideas began to spread in allegoric, or otherwise “befogged” form also in literature, as the literature in general allow(ed) perfect cover of philosophical concepts by literary images.

From a methodological point of view, the project was focused on selected medieval texts that were analysed and interpreted via a philological and hermeneutic method in order to explain the works within the period context with regard to the knowledge of the work that the author could really know (based on the terminology and factual conformity), in order to convey the interpretation of the work as far as the author has actually thought. Already a significant German literary critic E. R. Curtius admitted that the author of a literary work, which is simultaneously engaged in philosophical knowledge, cannot write at the same time literary texts in other way than in accordance with his intellectual identity. Therefore, the primary goal was to document the intellectual development of the author (Cavalcanti, Giunizzelli, Alighieri, Boccaccia, Petrarcu etc.) and subsequently interpret unclear places of the text so that the interpretation does not trivialise, but elucidate things in relation to the intellectual opinions of the author.

The project is thematically interesting because of its connection to the Slovak environment, as it is proved by numerous intermediary studies, e.g. about the issue of theosis that has been preserved in the Eastern Christianity, although, as reported by Škoviera in article Zbožštenie – cieľ nášho života [Apotheosis – goal of our life], Slovak translations do not use explicitly this term and resort to more moderate synonyms as "recovery", "conversion" and the like, respectively the studies dedicated to the presence of the philosophical concepts in Slovak works such as the Obraz krásnej panej perem malovaný [Image of a beautiful lady painted by pen] by Selecký, in Život Gorazda [Gorazd's life], or in Proglas.

The project follows for previous research realised in 2016 - 2017 within the project KEGA Hermeneutika klasickej talianskej literatúry [Hermeneutics of classic Italian literature].

The project was supported by the Cultural and Educational Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic under number 050UKF-4/2018.