V.S. Solovyov’s Sophia and Dante’s Beatrice

Abstract

In this study, the author claims that symbolist poets, such as A. Blok, who saw echoes of Dante's Beatrice in the image of Sofia by Vladimir Solovyov, were not mistaken. Parallels are drawn in the development of the theme of love in the works of symbolists and V. Solovyov. It is noted that the symbolist understanding of Sofia did not take into account the influence of Romanticism on the image of Sofia V. Solovyov, dominating in Russian culture and aesthetics of the late XIX century. Using historical, literary and philosophical methods, the author analyzes the reception of the image of Dante's Beatrice and Blokov's Beautiful Lady in the works of V. Solovyov. It is proved that the theme of love for a Beautiful Lady among the troubadours, transformed into a means of expressing love for God in the Divine Comedy, is also characteristic of Solovyov's theurgic approach to the transformative nature of beauty and love. Recognizing the historical distance between Dante and Solovyov, using literary and philosophical analysis, the use of themes of Christian Platonism is argued to solve two significant unresolved problems in understanding the image of Sophia: firstly, the gnostic dualism of the image of Sophia in Solovyov; secondly, the question of the divine status of Sophia. It is concluded that the reception of Platonism in Solovyov's work and his mystical understanding of the image of Sophia remained predominantly monistic, in accordance with traditional Neoplatonic mysticism.