Geographies of Banishment: Quiet Defiance and Radical Serenity in Su Shi and Dante Alighieri

Abstract

P R Chandra Reddy

This comparative study examines the intersection of spatial displacement, political exile, and spiritual resilience in the works of Song Dynasty poet Su Shi and Medieval Italian poet Dante. Involuntarily uprooted from their respective political centers, the Song imperial court in Kaifeng and the Republican commune of Florence, both authors transformed the trauma of geographic banishment into sites of profound literary and philosophical transcendence. Through a comparative analysis of Su Shi’s exile prose and poetry alongside Dante’s Convivio and La Divina Commedia, this paper argues both writers developed a posture of ‘quiet defiance’ grounded in ‘radical serenity.’ While Dante remapped his physical estrangement into a cosmic itinerary of moral order and divine justice, Su Shi synthesized Confucian duty, Daoist spontaneity, and Chan Buddhist detachment to cultivate a resilient, untrammeled acceptance of peripheral existence. By mapping these geographies of banishment, the physical expulsion across borders and the existential isolation, this study demonstrates how involuntary displacement can be reclaimed as an interior geography of spiritual liberation. In doing so, it challenges conventional East and West dichotomies regarding agency, exile, and selfhood, revealing that the displaced subject is not merely a passive victim of geopolitical force, but an active architect of inner emancipation.

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