This bibliography is intended to include the Dante translations published in this country in 1976 and all Dante studies and reviews published in 1976 that are in any sense American. The latter criterion is construed to include foreign reviews of American publications pertaining to Dante. The listing of reviews in general is selective, particularly in the case of studies bearing only peripherally on Dante.
As a rule, items cited from Dissertation Abstracts International
are registered without further abstracting, since the titles tend
to be self-explanatory. Items not recorded in the bibliographies
for previous years are entered as addenda to the present list.
NOTE. The citation of an individual study from a collected volume
representing several authors is given in brief, while the main
entry of the volume is listed with full bibliographical data in
its alphabetical order. Issues of this journal under the former
title of Annual Report of the Dante Society Continue to
be cited in the short form of Report, with volume number.
Dante's Inferno [from Canto XXV from Canto XXVI]." [Translated by] Allen Mandelbaum. In Denver Quarterly, X, No.4 (Winter), 51-56. [1976]
Presented here is a sampling (Inf. XXV, 35-144, and
XXVI, 64-142, of Mr. Mandelbaum's new version of Dante's
poem englished in blank verse and observing the three-line
stanza of the original. (For a critical discussion of this in
a brief review-article by Burton Raffel, see below, under
Studies.)
Abrams, Richard. "Inspiration and Gluttony: The Moral Context of Dante's Poetics of the 'Sweet New Style.'" In MLN, XCI, 30-59 [1976]
Presents an interpretation of the Bonagiunta episode in Purgatorio
XXIV, with its statement of Dante's poetic sincerity, and of the
location of this statement of poetics here on the terrace of gluttons,
contending (1) that the vice of gluttony is identified with Dante's
early lyric style that he abandoned in his first canzone
of the Vita Nuova, Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore, which
has won Bonagiunta's acclaim; (2) that Bonagiunta's inability
to achieve such a style was due to his gluttony, the moral vice
causing his artistic failure; and (3) that, in light of its relation
to gluttony, Dante's resolve to seek happiness in words praising
his lady, marked by the composition of Donne ch'avete,
provides a link of continuity between this moment of inspiration
in the Vita Nuova and Dante's achievement in the Divina
Commedia. Some of the elements considered in their contextual
interrelationships are the "nodo" and its echoes elsewhere
in the poem; the focus on the mouth as both the point of receiving
physical food and the point of expressing the effects of spiritually
or intellectually acquired nourishment; the tree of prohibition
before which the souls seem to waste away externally even as they
gain internal sustenance for achieving salvation while on the
terrace of gluttony in Purgatory; and other narrative developments
in this area of the cantica as well as certain connections
with the Vita Nuova. In sum, the expectation of reward
from the lady characteristic of the old lyric is associated with
gluttonous acquisitiveness; this morally vicious situation prevented
true inner inspiration in the poet-lover; Dante's turning
to the "nova matera" of disinterested praise of his
lady in the Vita Nuova marks his break or cutting of the
"nodo," with the old lyric mode, which thus released
his inspiration for an artistic progression beginning with Donne
ch'avete and leading eventually to the Commedia itself.
Atchity, Kenneth John. "Dante's Purgatorio: The Poem Reveals self." In Italian Literature, Roots and Branches, pp. 85-115. [1976]
Focuses on the dimension of "inward-turning self-reflexiveness"
in the Purgatorio, whereby Dante's "poema sacro"
so comments upon its own nature that artistic introspection becomes
the major theme of this cantica. Examined in some detail
are the role Dante lays for the reader, which is analogous to
that played by Beatrice and Virgil for him, and the compelling
effect the poem has upon the reader by its studied artistic self-reflexiveness.
The reader is made to identify with the Pilgrim in the spiritual
journey from time to eternity by a number of artistic devices
through which the poem declaims its own aesthetic and moral and
thereby actually communicates the beatific vision within itself.
The author analyzes the invocations or addresses to the reader
in their effect of getting the latter involved along with the
Pilgrim in the whole spiritual experience under narration. He
next analyzes the extremely evocative carvings (prompted by the
classical rhetorical device of ecphrasis) which function
as a poetic microcosm, an analogue of the poem itself. Lastly,
the poets Virgil and Statius are examined as prototypical redeemers
or Christ-figures that play a double role, aesthetic and
moral, of instructing Dante-Pilgrim, who as Dante-poet,
however, surpasses them in the end with the completion of his
poem. In sum, the divinely inspired and therefore morally sanctioned
art of the Commedia is like the Trinity of which the poem's
form is an unfathomable avatar and so must be intuited in its
essence. "Yet that intuition, like the pilgrim's faltering
desire, is activated only by words: poetic words that embody moral
spirit. Art is necessary to man in time; and the temporality of
the Purgatorio explains its preoccupation with art. It
sees its own art and asks its optimum reader to understand and
react to it as the second incarnation of the divine love that
moves the universe, its motivating force the same force that moves
the pilgrim and all souls from time to eternity."
Bergin, Thomas G. "Dante in Our Time." In Sewanee Review, LXXXIV, 706-713. [1976]
Review-article on C. S. Singleton's translation with commentary,
of the Divine Comedy (Bollingen Series LXXX; Princeton
University Press, 1970-75). (See Dante Studies LXXXIX,
107-108, XCII, 182, and XCIV, 155-156; extensively reviewed.)
Bidney, Martin. "Ruskin, Dante, and the Enigma of Nature." In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, XVIII (Summer), 290-305. [1976]
Analyzes Ruskin's attempt to re-experience Dante's response
to Nature as it impinges on Ruskin's initial Wordsworthian affinities
and the influence of this medieval-romantic confrontation
on the three stages of Ruskin's development. In Dante's uses of
landscape in the Divine Comedy Ruskin sees a dualist attitude
towards Nature reflected in Edenic landscapes as symbols of spiritual
beauty and goodness of God, contrasting with infernal and purgatorial
symbols of sin and evil. By 1884, "with the eclipse of Ruskin's
Wordsworthian God, a kind of Dantean hell has replaced his all
too-briefly experienced Dante-Wordsworth paradise."
Botticelli, Sandro. The Drawings by Sandro Botticelli for Dante's Divine Comedy. After the originals in the Berlin Museums and the Vatican. [Edited with an introduction by] Kenneth Clark. New York . . . London: Harper and Row, Publishers. 218 p. illus. 36.5 cm. [1976]
The well-known Botticelli drawings (reproduced at three-quarters
of original size), 92 extant in all, only four of which were colored
by the artist, had not been published complete since the first
edition by Lippmann in 1887. A problem attending such a publication
of the complete set of Botticelli's drawings for the Comedy
is that, after they were executed on commission by a member of
the Medici family, they were subsequently dispersed and now repose
in three different locations, the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Dahlem, West Berlin),
and Staatliche Museen Zu Berlin (Bodestrasse, East Berlin). In
an introductory essay (pp. 7-24) the art critic Kenneth Clark
outlines the history of the drawings, comments on them, and concludes
with the view that Botticelli and Dante were of kindred spirit
and therefore "each time we return to Botticelli's drawings
we feel ourselves closer to that vast, elusive work, so complete,
so incomprehensible, and yet so clear." Relevant excerpts
from John Ciardi's translation of the poem are printed on facing
pages, and in parallel columns with the translations are commentaries
on Dante's allegory compiled (from Scartazzini, Grandgent, Toynbee,
and Singleton) and written by George Robinson.
Cassell, Anthony K. "Failure, Pride, and Conversion in Inferno I: A Reinterpretation." In Dante Studies, XCIV, 1-24. [1976]
Moving from positions of Singleton, Freccero, and Hardie, the
author examines the precise nature of the Wayfarer's failed conversion
in the first sixty verses of Inferno I by going beyond
the usual negative aspects of weakness of will and lower soul
to consider the functioning of the intellect and the personal
sin of pride acknowledged by Dante in Purgatorio XIII,
for which revelation the prologue scene prepares. Initially, the
Wayfarer has not yet the guidance of grace (whose advent is marked
by Virgil's appearance) and so is still prone to ascend with the
foot of pride the mount covered with the reflected light of philosophy
rather than the true wisdom of God's grace symbolized by the sun's
direct light. The author points out that the foot metaphor becomes
increasingly charged with meaning as the poem progresses, for
the poet refers in some way to foot, lameness, and pride at the
appearance of all guides party to the descent of grace--Virgil,
Statius, Beatrice, and St. Bernard. Use of the key metaphor of
pride as a foot, pes superbiae (Psalm 35:12) is explored
by the author in the exegetical tradition, for example, in St.
Augustine's Enarratio in Psalmum XXXV and St. Bernard's
De Gradibus. The Wayfarer's unsuccessful ascent in the
prologue scene is thus an allegory of philosophical pride, which
led Dante to a sinful sense of self-sufficiency and kept
him from Christ's charity. Several matters of detail confirming
the role of pride examined here are the colle itself as
clothed with merely reflected light, the darkness of ignorance,
the Wayfarer's wrong kind of fear and his "flight of the
mind," his short-lived pietà, and the
Wayfarer's sinful backsliding as really an essential part of Gods
mysterious providence which leads him eventually to a happy outcome.
Chiaromonte, Nicola. The Worm of Consciousness and Other Essays. Edited by Miriam Chiaromonte. Preface by Mary McCarthy. New York and London: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. xvi, 270 p. 22 cm. [1976]
Contains a Dantean essay on Paradiso XXXIII, 64-66,
"Three Lines from Dante" (pp. 72-79), seen here
as "three of the most beautiful, harmonious, and profound
lines of the Comedy," in which Dante has superbly
recaptured in language and imagery the absolute transience and
mortality of our common reality. With this passage as illustration,
the author further contends that it is a distortion to favor values
of sensibility exclusively over reason and intellect by seeking,
as we moderns are accustomed to do, the "pure poetry"
of a given passage taken quite out of context. The essay is reprinted
translated by Irma Brandeis, from Tempo presente (Feb.
1964) (or reviews, see below.)
Cook, William R., and Ronald B. Herzman. "St. Eustace: A Note on Inferno XXVII." In Dante Studies, XCIV, 137-139. [1976]
Cite the well-known silent martyrdom of St. Eustace and his
family in a bronze bull as providing an ideal against which the
inverted example of Guido da Montefeltro, likened to the noisy
Sicilian bull, can be measured as a suggestive aid to judgment.
Di Girolamo, Costanzo. "Figure, messaggi, e messaggi delle figure (Dante, Rime CIII)." In MLN, XCI, 12-29. [1976]
Analyzes Così nel mio parlar voglio esser aspro,
which marks the extreme and concluding moment of the petrosa
poems. The canzone constitutes a landmark in Dante's lyric
production because of its content and expressive mode, signaling
a break with the ideology of courtly love and the stil novo
style and announcing the diction and style of the Commedia,
particularly the Inferno. Specifically examined are the
diction of this canzone characterized by verbal realism
with a hypertrophy of concrete terms and a harshness of phonic
quality and even of meaning, especially in the conspicuous rhyme
position; the dominating metaphor of struggle or duel whose development
structurally follows a tripartite disposition of the six stanzas
in pairs all linked together by thematically logical enjambement;
and the dense series of terms and images which in the love situation
carry strong sexual connotations of Freudian psychology. The realistic,
sensual content of the canzone, marking a departure from
the courtly and the stilnovistic vein, is expressed not explicitly,
but couched in the harsh style of "realismo verbale"
and metaphor. Thus, far from being a mere technical exercise,
the rime petrose represent Dante's break from the strictures
of traditional literary ideology.
Economou, George D. "The Pastoral Simile of Inferno XXIV and the Unquiet Heart of the Christian Pilgrim." In Speculum, LI, 637-646. [1976]
Analyzes the long pastoral simile introducing Inferno XXIV
in the light of Alan de Lille's De planctu naturae and
Philo's notion of soul-husbandry (the mind as shepherd of
the flock of the soul), in order to determine a more precise and
consistent construction of the simile with relevancy to its various
details both for the immediate narrative moment and for the larger
context of the whole poem. According to the resultant reading,
contrary to Benvenuto da Imola's equating Virgil to the villanello,
it is Dante who is so identified, and Virgil with the sun in the
immediate context. But just as the natural scene changes for the
better with the melting of the hoarfrost at the literal level,
so on a larger level is figured the change of the world situation
with the Incarnation, and therefore the sun of the simile is also
symbol of God. Other details of the simile are clarified, such
as the image of the hoar-frost's writing which is related
to Alan's Goddess Natura continually drawing with her stylus the
unstable images of things in this sub-lunary world; the struggle
between Veritas and Falsitas in an otherwise rational
and benevolent universe, making for the unquiet heart of the Christian
pilgrim, whose reason can be led astray by appearances; and the
medical figure of the 'mpiastro (v. 18) which is also related
to a passage in the De planctu naturae. Taken together,
this reading satisfies the literal narrative moment and the contextual
modalities of the Commedia in its broad salvific concerns.
Foster, Kenelm, O.P. "Paradiso XIX." In Dante Studies, XCIV, 71-90. [1976]
Focuses on the eagle formation, political symbol of empire, which
occupies the Jupiter heaven in this canto and which recalls Virgil,
unnamed, with the question of the salvation of non-Christians.
The three cantos (XVIII-XX) devoted to the Jupiter heaven
are seen as a Continuation of Canto VII explaining how through
the death of the God-man human salvation became possible,
only now the universality of Christian salvation is emphasized
with echoes of universal empire (from the Monarchia) in
Canto XVIII and the conjoining through the eagle symbol, of the
notion of God's justice with that of the unity of mankind, both
of which are related to the Logos, or God the Son. On a Trinitarian
schema in the hierarchial orders of angels, according to Professor
Foster, this middle area of the heavenly intelligences is associated
with God the Sun, and Jupiter specifically transmits angelic influences
reflecting God's living justice as it should obtain in its earthly
counterpart among men. In addressing the Eagle on behalf of justice
(salvation) for pagans, Dante is implicitly appealing to Jesus
Christ, "the sun of justice," to whom "the Father
had given all judgement." Given the unity of humankind and
the coming of Christ for all men, it is very appropriate
that Dante should seek an answer to the question of the salvation
of pagans, especially as he must have had poignantly in mind Virgil
and others condemned to Limbo. The key passage, verses 40-90,
stresses God's infinite transcendence of his creation and also
his absolute goodness, which, combined with other assertions of
his immanence, lead to Dante's essential point that God's ways
are not wholly beyond discerning, that man's discernment of them,
while limited, is nevertheless proportionately real and therefore
can see something of God in creation. Thus, Canto XIX stages
Dante's plea to God to make his justice intelligible. But Foster
points out that, where this question is concerned, by Dante's
time theological tradition was explicit on the innocence of unbelief
attributable to ignorance of the Gospel, although by his question
the poet appears ignorant of the alternative to explicit faith.
[Fucilla, Joseph G., compiler.] "Italian Literature." In 1974 MLA International Bibliography, Vol. II, 62-90. [1976]
Contains a substantial Dante section, Items 3833-4001.
Gibaldi, Joseph, and Richard A. LaFleur. "Vanni Fucci and Laocoon: Servius as Possible Intermediary between Vergil and Dante." In Traditio, XXXII, 386-397. [1976]
Contend that, along with the recognized source in Aeneid
VIII, 185-275, of Dante's Cacus in the Vanni Fucci episode
(Inf. XXIV-XXV), there is a further parallel between Vanni
Fucci himself and Virgil's Laocoon in Aeneid II, 201-227,
as shown by the similarity of suffering each undergoes and the
verbal and rhetorical similarities in presentation. This parallel
may have escaped previous notice because of the apparent unlikeness
of the two figures until one knows of Laocoon's guilt for his
sexual transgression before the Statue of Apollo. This Dante could
have known from Servius' commentary on the Aeneid. Both
Laocoon and Vanni Fucci had committed sacrilegious acts, so their
guilt is similar.
Griswold, Jerry. "Aquinas, Dante, and Ficino on Love: An Explication of the Paradiso, XXVI, 25-39." In Studies in Medieval Culture, VIII-IX, 151-161. [1976]
From the perspective of the common Platonic-Aristotelian
tradition represented by the medieval Aquinas and the Renaissance
Ficino, the author uses Paradiso XXVI, 25-39, as a
touchstone passage for clarifying Dante's place within that tradition.
In the process, he shows that while Singleton may be correct in
emphasizing the primacy of intellect over love if understood in
order of time, he is wrong in giving absolute primacy to the intellect.
For not only the tradition represented by Aquinas and Ficino,
but also Dante himself in Convivio III, canzone
2, agrees in giving ultimate primacy to love, since the human
intellect can never truly know the highest Good, God.
Guzzardo, John Joseph. "Christian Medieval Number Symbolism and Dante." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXVI, 6667A. [1976]
Doctoral dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 1975.
Herzman, Ronald B. (Joint author). "St. Eustace: A
Note on Inferno XXVII." See Cook, William R....
Hollander, Robert. "Dante's Theologus-Poeta." In Dante Studies, XCIV, 91-136. [1976]
Re-examines Dante's poetics through his statements in the
Convivio and in the Epistle Can Grande, and his performance
in the Vita Nuova and Commedia, in the light of
various modern critical positions on the question of whether the
Commedia represents the allegory of poets or of theologians.
Given the late thirteenth-century atmosphere of clerical
hostility towards poetry, the very fact of Dante's entertaining
an option of applying the allegory of theologians to secular literature
is found to be of unique significance. It is also significant
that the poet abandoned the Convivio with its patently
hybrid allegory. The battle between poets and theologians must
have shaped Dante's own formulations in his self-exegetical
writings. Professor Hollander considers that by its insistence
on the historicity of events narrated, their nature in relation
to other events in Scripture, the peculiar function of Beatrice,
and the final vision of her among the blessed, Dante intended
his Vita Nuova to be read in a mode approximating the allegory
of theologians. And having already exercised the option in his
libello, it was but another short step to casting the masterpiece
in the same mode. Echoing the position of Singleton that "the
fiction of the Divine Comedy is that it is not a fiction,"
Hollander insists that Dante feigns that his fiction, like Scripture
itself, is literally true, regardless of the source of his material,
whether history or myth, literature or legend. We are asked to
accept Dante's intention that in his Commedia we
experience his extraordinary presentation as a "perceived
actuality," and this intention is that we read the poem in
the mode of allegory of theologians, even though there may be
some occasional admixture of elements that must be understood
through the conventional allegory of poets, rather than figurally.
Dante's self-declared poetics to Bonagiunta da Lucca (Purg.
XXIV, 52-54) is construed by Hollander to be theological in nature,
considering the words Amore and spira here as iconographically
related to the Holy Spirit. More important than we yet see may
be the role of Virgil as "the main source . . . not only
of so much of the poetic energy of the Commedia, but also
of his brilliant solution of the problem posed for a Christian
poetic by St. Thomas's attack upon poetry." In sum, Dante
wants indeed to be taken, in Sarolli's words, as scriba Dei;
he is "an inspired poet who begins with the truth of what
he tells," a theologus-poeta.
Iliescu, Nicolae. "Il commento di Guido da Pisa." In Dante Studies XCIV, 145-154. [1976]
Review-article on: Guido da Pisa, Expositiones et Glose
super Comediam Dantis, or Commentary on Dante's Inferno, edited
with notes and an introduction by Vincenzo Cioffari (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1974 [see Dante Studies,
XCIII, 223-224, and see below, under Reviews]), elaborating
on the significance of Guido's being the first of the early commentators
to cite in an important way the Latin ancients who would become
the idols of Humanists beginning with Petrarch.
Italian Literature, Roots and Branches: Essays in Honor of Thomas Goddard Bergin. Edited by Giose Rimanelli and Kenneth John Atchity. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. xiv, 455 p. 34 cm. [1976]
The five (of sixteen) essays of Dantean interest, by Atchity,
Paden, Reynolds, Seung, and Wilhelm, are separately listed in
this bibliography.
La Favia, Louis M. "Il primo commento alla Divina Commedia in Spagna." In Hispano-Italic Studies, No. 1, 1-8. [1976]
Contends that the first commentary on the Commedia known
in Spain was that of Benvenuto da Imola, between 1408 and 1417,
a commentary marked by the Humanistic spirit and representing
a decisive turning-point in Dante criticism. For here Dante
is considered for the first time a "Rhetor et Philologus"
rather than, as previously, a Theologus et Propheta," and
so his poem is treated by Benvenuto as primarily a literary work,
as betokened by two passages cited as examples of his literary
interpretation--the poet's protestations of modesty in Inferno
II, 10-12, and the episode before the gate of Dis in Canto
IX. Professor La Favia suggests that this link of Benvenuto's
commentary with Spain, reflected in Dante's influence on Santillana
and Imperial, among others, opens a broad area of investigation
which could lead to startling findings.
LaFleur Richard A. (Joint Author). "Vanni Fucci and
Laocoon...." See Gibaldi, Joseph. . .
Lansing, Richard H. "Submerged Meanings in Dante's Similes (Inf. XXVII)." In Dante Studies, XCIV, 61-69. [1976]
Analyzes two similes in Inferno XXVII, that of the Sicilian
bull and that comparing Boniface VIII and Guido da Montefeltro
to Emperor Constantine and Pope Sylvester, to show how the artistic
function of Dante's similes goes far beyond the rather limiting
definitions, for example, of T. S. Eliot and Irma Brandeis, which
single out their effect of enhanced visualization and their progressively
changing nature. While its analogical meaning obtains in the immediate
context, each simile contains a further "submerged"
significance that becomes clear in the later narrative development
anticipated by the simile itself. For example, in the first simile
Guido, like Perillus who both made and was undone by the Sicilian
bull, is also an artificer undone by his own invention. The second
simile suggests a conceptual link between Boniface's false gift
and Constantine's illegitimate donation, and focuses on the abuse
of authority in each case. Thus, Dante's similes, effecting both
a conceptual and a visual function, generally convey a multiplicity
of correspondences, to the manifold enrichment of our reading
of the Commedia.
Leavey, John. "Derrida and Dante: Differance and the Eagle in the Sphere of Jupiter." In MLN, XCI, 60-68. [1976]
Elaborates on some observations of John Freccero referring to
the concept of difference for the production of meaning, together
with Jacques Derrida's theory of "differance," and applies
them to the poetics of the Paradiso for the production
of meaning. Both Freccero's interpretation and Derrida's theory
lead to the conclusion that Dante's eagle in the Sphere of Jupiter
(Par. XVIII-XX) is a (non)figure or anti-image
of the poem itself, a non-representational text. According
to différance, which involves spacing and
temporalizing, the non-living but only heraldic or
emblematic eagle figure (or anti-image) "is always a
secondarily derived and provisionally reappropriative mediation
of the ever absent non-representational poetic world of the
Paradiso." As such, the eagle is a supplementary
and (non)figure for différance, standing for the
poem itself, and in turn "as a supplementary (non)figure,
the Paradiso completes [the Christian] vision or gnosis
and replaces it."
Masciandaro, Franco. La problematica del tempo nella "Commedia." Ravenna: Longo Editore. 151 p. 21.5 cm. ("L'interpete," 3.) [1976]
Treats the Commedia as a "pellegrinaggio di un uomo
alla ricerca della totalità del tempo," that is, time
understood not only psychologically but also ontologically. In
fact, for Dante, as for Saint Augustine, the process of conversion,
along with his resultant progressive awareness of self and spiritual
destiny, is inseparable from this awareness of time. Key to the
all-important double significance of time, natural and supernatural,
is seen to be the Incarnation. As with Christ's providentially
opening the way between earth and heaven, Dante's poem seeks,
on that same order, to link time and eternity through the Pilgrim's
spatial/temporal itinerary in the mimetic frame of poetic time.
On this thematic basis, the author presents the book as follows:
Introduzione; 1. Tempo cosmico e tempo storico-salvifico;
2. Inferno I-II: il dramma della conversione e il
tempo; 3. Il male come negazione del presente; 4. La fine dell'Inferno
e la coscienza del tempo; 5. Il Purgatorio e la valorizzazione
del tempo; 6. All'eterno dal tempo; Indice dei nomi. Chapter 2
is reprinted, somewhat revised, from Studi danteschi, XLIX
(1972), 1-26 (see Dante Studies, XCIII, 252).
Noakes, Susan Jeanne. "The Reader's Work: Reading and Believing in Dante, Nerval, and Baudelaire." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXVII, 278A. [1976]
Doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1975. (Discusses in detail
Inf. V and XVI-XVII with respect to her thesis.)
Paden, William D., Jr. "Bertran de Born in Italy." In Italian Literature, Roots and Branches, pp. 39-66. [1976]
Outlines the life, both the real and later fabrications, of Bertran
de Born and his career in Italy through the wide diffusion of
the vidas and his poetry, showing that he was not really
the sower of discord of Inferno XXVIII--he was not a war-poet
in Dante's terms but only a celebrator of spectacles of violence--and
he did not cause the specific dispute between Henry II Plantagenet
and his Son Henry (more likely it was Eleanor of Aquitaine). By
1300, Bertran was a legendary figure, and it was on this descendant
of the historical Bertran that Dante based his Bertran in the
Commedia.
Pellegrini, Anthony L. "American Dante Bibliography for 1975." In Dante Studies, XCIV, 155-201. [1976]
With brief analyses.
Raffel, Burton. "Dante in English: The Inferno." In Denver Quarterly, X, No. 4 (Winter), 57-62. [1976]
A review-article which discusses briefly several recent translations
of Dante's poem and, comparing them on the basis of their renderings
of Inferno XXV, 49-57, favors the recent version by
Allen Mandelbaum as most satisfyingly true to Dante's clarity
and poetry. (For a sample of this translation, see above, under
Translations.)
Reynolds, Mary T. "Dante's Francesca and James Joyce's 'Siren In Italian Literature, Roots and Branches, pp. 155-200. [1976]
Reviews allusions and references to Inferno V found in
James Joyce's writings and in reports of his contemporaries and
presents a detailed reading of the Sirens episode in Joyce's Ulysses,
noting the many parallels with respect to the theme of love's
power, structural patterns, and verbal techniques. Special attention
is paid to syntactical rhythms in the Sirens chapter, with their
fugal effects modeled on Dante's use of rhyme and rhythm, and
to similarities in the two writers' use of tone and diction creating
verbal progressions to convey multiple meanings. In addition,
the author examines structural patterns for related plot elements,
particularly as these generate an extended metaphor of literature
in the Francesca episode and music in the Sirens episode. Joyce's
profound dependence on the Divine Comedy with its treatment
of love and particularly his assimilation of Inferno V
are here cogently demonstrated.
Rolfs, Daniel. "Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and the Problem of Suicide." In Romanic Review, LXVII, 200-225. [1976]
Discusses the idea of suicide in the earlier centuries of Italian
literature, specifically in Dante (pp. 201-209), for whom
it was a moral issue, and in Petrarch and Boccaccio, for whom
it was a literary theme. In the Divina Commedia, most notably
in Inferno XIII and in the figure of Cato (Purg.
I) there is evidently a contradictory treatment, for the poet,
as a Christian, categorically condemns suicide, but at the same
time suspends judgment of the pagan suicides who are instead rewarded
or punished according to their motives for self-destruction.
Dante thus anticipates the ambivalence of Petrarch and Boccaccio
and many later Italian writers because of conflicting traditions--Christian
faith and admiration for the ancients. Dante's juxtaposition of
a reference to Cato (Inf. XIV) and the treatment of Christian
suicides (Inf. XIII), where Cato is not mentioned, may
be evidence of the poet's awareness of holding a double perspective
on suicide. The Dantean portion of this article is based on a
paper delivered at the 1973 annual meeting of the Michigan Academy
of Science, Arts, and Letters and published in the Michigan
Academician, VI (1974), 367-375 (see Dante Studies,
XCIV, 194).
Rowland, Michael, and Sonja G. Stary. "Recollections of Dante's Inferno in Malraux's La Voie royale." In Symposium, XXX, 160-169. [1976]
On the suggestion of observations by Violet Howarth (The Human
Adventure), the authors elaborate upon the substantial parallels
and affinities between Andre Malraux's La Voie royale and
Dante's Inferno, particularly with reference to similarities
in physical terrain and atmosphere, circular and downward movement,
infernal/corrupt political milieu, direct allusions to Dante's
Inferno, symmetrical pairings of Malraux's characters Claude
and Perken and Dante and Virgil, and some ironic anti-parallels
such as the reversal of the relative severity and punishment of
lust as a sin. To account for so many literary reminiscences of
the Inferno, the authors suggest a biographical approach,
since there is frequently discernible an added parallel between
elements from Malraux's life and that of Dante/Claude.
Ryan, Lawrence V. Stornei, gru, colombe: The Bird Images in Inferno V." In Dante Studies, XCIV, 24-45. [1976]
Investigates the symbolic meanings attaching to these particular
classes of birds in classical and patristic sources available
to Dante, such as the Physiologus, Isidore of Seville's
Etymologies, certain bestiaries, and even Brunetto Latini's
Tresor, and analyzes the significance of the particular
sequence in which the poet uses the similes of starlings, cranes,
and doves in the Francesca and Paolo canto. The starlings are
found to have been considered clamorous (especially during coitus)
and generally disorderly and filthy birds, while cranes and doves
were treated in more complex manner, the former being considered
intelligent and disciplined birds that went lamenting past sin
and the latter symbolizing primarily moral and spiritual excellence
that bears them heavenward, but in their ambivalent significance,
also symbolizing lechery. In Inferno V, by way of exemplifying
the Pilgrim's gradual progression in the knowledge of sin and
its consequences, the simile of the clamorous starlings, with
their further analogy with pollution, prepares us for the appropriate
meanings of the similes of the otherwise ambivalent cranes and
doves. While the animal intelligence of the cranes might suggest
good political leadership for binding up the human community in
this canto, they are a suggestive analogy of Semiramis who fitting
leads the infernal procession of the lustful as the supreme example
of illicit love and its corrosive effect on society. Closing the
sequence of bird similes, in this context, the doves can only
signify lussuria. However sweet love may be, in its illicit
form it can lead only to ill, dissolving the bonds linking human
beings in community and aborting ultimate fulfillment in the Heavenly
City.
Seung [var. Swing], T. K. "Bonaventure's Figural Exemplarism in Dante." In Italian Literature, Roots and Branches, pp. 117-154. [1976]
Examines what is said (and not said) in the Convivio and
Letter to Can Grande and in the tradition up through Saint Thomas
to arrive at an understanding of allegory and figuralism, particularly
the distinction between the allegory of theologians and that of
poets, and concludes that Dante employs a mixture in the Commedia.
This can be termed figural allegory, where the narrative in its
first meaning, or according to the letter, is a fiction, and in
the second meaning is figural, on the model of St. Bonaventure's
figural exemplarism. Certain aspects of the Auerbach-Singleton-Hollander
critical position are called into question and set in relief as
they depart from what is maintained to be a much more comprehensive
and consistent interpretative schema. The author goes on to re-iterate
and re-inforce the thesis of his earlier work, The Fragile
Leaves of the Sibyl: Dante's Master Plan (1962); see 81st
Report, 29-30), in which the Trinity is seen as the principal
theme of the Commedia, with the three cantiche related,
respectively, to the Son (Virgil coming as a Christ-figure
in the Inferno), to the Holy Spirit (Beatrice representing
figurally the mission of the Second Person preparing for the coming
of the Third Person), the Father (figurally represented by St.
Bernard). Professor Seung insists that his systematic framework
of "figural fictionalism" or "figural poeticism"
for the interpretation of Dante's poem is a necessary schema to
Hollander's secular-oriented figural reading and to Singleton's
sacred-oriented figural reading, for constituting a consistent
interpretation. Many matters of detail are included in this tightly
presented study.
Seung [var. Swing], T. K. Cultural Thematics: The Formation of the Faustian Ethos. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. xviii, 283 p. 24 cm. [1976]
Brings to bear a theory based on Wittgenstein's notion of language
games and Heidegger's cultural or existential thematics (extended
and modified to remedy the latter's ahistoristic limitation) upon
the transformation of the medieval ethos into the modern ethos
between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Drawing on materials
from theology and philosophy as well as primarily literature,
the inquiry is guided by the transition from allegorical sensibility
to literal sensibility, which accompanied a shift from transcendent
theocentricism to immanent anthropocentricism, for analyzing the
cultural transformation of the period. "Cultural thematics,"
as explained by the author, involves the investigation of the
thematic pattern of a given culture, specifically its contrasting
thematic problems and their resolution. Holding to cultural/historical
contextualism as a cardinal principle of hermeneutics, moreover,
the author applies his cultural theory here to a contextual study
specifically of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Thus, Part 1 ("The
Form of Life in Allegorical Sensibility") opens with a chapter
on "The Dantesque Enigma" (pp. 1-49), which is
subdivided into the following sections: Two Types of Allegory,
The Auerbach-Singleton School, Fourfold Allegory, Fourfold
Allegory and Biblical Exegesis, Figuralism Free of Literal Fundamentalism,
and Trinitarian Figuralism in the Commedia; the second
chapter, on "The Dionysian Tout Ensemble," with detailed
subdivisions, delves into the Christian Neoplatonic and exegetical
background, touching also on Petrarch and Dante, and includes
a section on "Dante in the Dionysian Tradition (pp. 94-104).
The second major part of the book, entitled "The Form of
Life in Literal Sensibility," deals in a third chapter with
"The Petrarchan Dilemma" and closes with a final chapter
on "The Boccaccian Tour de Force," both chapters subdivided
into Sections of topical detail. In the process, the author seeks
to correct what he considers the contextual distortions of "Gilsonian
Thomists" and "Auerbachian figuralists," where
medieval theology and allegory are concerned. An explanatory Preface
and "Acknowledgements" by way of orientation, Notes,
Bibliography, and Index complete the work.
Shapiro, Marianne. "Addendum: Christological Language in Inferno XXXIII." In Dante Studies, XCIV, 141-143. [1976]
Reinforces a position taken in her article on "An Old French
Source for Ugolino?" (Dante Studies, XCII [1974],
129-147) by clarifying the Christological echoes (v. 69 with,
e.g., Matt. 27:46 and v. 28 with John 13:13) to show how the poet
thus underscores "the absolute polarity of Christ's sacrifice
and that of Ugolino while reaffirming the basic dyad of betrayal
and sacrifice that underlies the structure of the story."
Stary, Sonja G. (Joint author). "Recollections of Dante's Inferno in Malraux's La Voie royale." See Rowland, Michael....
Trovato, Mario. "Il contrapasso nell'ottava bolgia." In Dante Studies, XCIV, 47-60. [1976]
Contends that, according to the poem's inherent logic, Ulysses
and Diomed symbolize in a first moment the ethical behavior of
the ancients in directing the political and practical affairs
of men before the divinely ordained ascendancy of Rome and before
Ulysses' "folle volo," while in a second moment they
figure the latter's speculative activity following his discovery
of "wisdom" and his attempt to exceed his limited capacity
in violation of a divine prohibition. Dante would therefore not
be representing the noblest achievement of pagan man, but rather
the nefarious effects of wisdom not regulated by a limit but given
to cupidity (Convivio, III, XV). Concludes Professor Trovato:
Ulysses is not only a perpetrator of deceit, but also represents
an essential flaw in both practical action and speculative activity,
that is, through excessive political ambition he, along with Diomed,
perpetrated all manner of deceit, and through uncontrolled desire
for knowledge, he was just neither with God nor with his "compagna
picciola." In the second act of the dramatic representation
of the eighth bolgia, Guido da Montefeltro is seen to symbolize
a similar negative position in contemporary history, presented
in bestial terms or conveying the ill-government of human
affairs by modern rulers. The poet has drawn from history, legend,
and his own imagination such elements as might set in meaningful
relief the behavior of the modern man of power, in both the practical
and the speculative spheres, distorted in his human nature like
his ancient counterpart operating in like circumstances. The narrative
line is of a piece in the two cantos (XXVI-XXVII), in substantially
identical actions, common to which are (1) practical activity
of military-political rulers, based on high-handed ambition
and employing deceit as its means; (2) speculative activity pursued
in old age and abortive because not guided by virtue; and (3)
as a result of such behavior, a tragic failure of the social community
and of the ruler himself who is neither light nor law to others.
Because of the essential symmetry and common elements in the two
episodes of Ulysses and Guido, the "folle volo" must
not be considered as being staged apart and as incorporating autobiographical
elements of the poet, but as an integral and essential part of
a unitary narrative thrust, which leads to the figure of the anti-pope
Boniface, who in his notorious political-religious-military
enterprise synthesizes in himself the worst characteristics of
Ulysses and Guido, outdoing them both and constituting for Dante
the exemplum par excellence of bad spiritual and temporal
government. The ancient Ulysses and Diomed and the modern Guido
and Boniface inverted the order of existential ethnic values,
substituting the flame of injustice for justice in their personal
and social behavior, so that rather than serving as a light to
others, became as flames destructive of the human community. The
very fire with which these men were spiritually kindled, now by
the infernal law of retribution encloses, circumscribes, and confines
them in eternal suffering.
Wilhelm, James J. "Arnaut Daniel's Legacy to Dante and to Pound." In Italian Literature, Roots and Branches, pp. 67-83. [1976]
Examines Arnaut Daniel's diction, imagery, meter, and sound patterns
in relation to Dante and Pound to justify the high esteem in which
they held him as a supreme "maker of words." While Arnaut's
complex, witty, even contrived diction is perhaps the most striking
feature of his poetry, Dante and Pound are shown to have a profound
affinity also with his mixing of all categories of words, in their
connotative as well as denotative value, shunning only excess;
his technique of the vivid, dramatic opening; his wedding of image
rhythm, sound, and sense; his avoidance of the banal in expression
and meter; his attuning of the poetic art to observed nature.
La Divina Commedia. Edited and annotated by C. H. Grandgent; revised by Charles S. Singleton. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972. (See Dante Studies, XCI, 163-164, XCII, 199, XCIII, 245, and XCIV, 196.) Reviewed by:
C.B.B. [Chandler B. Beall], in Comparative Literature,
XXVIII, 164-165.
The Divine Comedy. Translated, with a commentary, by Charles S. Singleton.... Bollingen Series, LXXX. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1970-1975. 3 v. in 6. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIX, 107-108, XCII, 182, and XCIV, 155-156; extensively reviewed.) Reviewed by:
C.B.B. [Chandler B. Beall], in Comparative Literature, XXVIII 164-165.
Thomas G. Bergin, Sewanee Review, LXXXIV, 706-713.
The Divine Comedy. [I.] Inferno and [II.] Purgatorio. Reviewed by:
Christopher Kleinhenz, in Romance Philology, XXIX (Feb.),
376-380.
[II.] Purgatorio. Reviewed by:
Morton W. Bloomfield, in Speculum, LI, 115-116.
Marianne Shapiro, in Romanic Review, LXVII, 81-83.
Dante's Inferno. Translated with notes and commentary by Mark Musa. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1971. (See Dante Studies, XC, 175 and 189, XCI, 180 and 193, XCII, 199, and XCIII, 245, and see below, Addenda, under Reviews.) Reviewed by:
Joan M. Ferrante, in Romance Philology, XXIX (Feb.), 380-384
Vita Nuova. A translation and an essay, by Mark Musa. A new edition. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1973. (See Dante Studies, XCII, 182.) Reviewed by:
Joan M. Ferrante, in Romance Philology, XXIX (Feb.), 380-384.
Chiaromonte, Nicola. The Worm of Consciousness and Other Essays. Edited by Miriam Chiaromonte. Preface by Mary McCarthy. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976. Contains an essay on "Three Lines from Dante" [Par. XXXIII, 64-66], pp. 72-79. (See above, Dante Studies.) Reviewed by:
Alfred Kazin, in New York Times Book Review, 11 July, pp.
25-26.
Cope, Jackson I. The Theater and the Dream: From Metaphor to Form in Renaissance Drama. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. Contains a chapter on "Theater of the Dream: Dante's Commedia, Jonson's Satirist, and Shakespeare's Sage." (See Dante Studies, XCII, 183, XCIII, 245-246, and XCIV, 183.) Reviewed by:
Howard Felperin, in Modern Philology, LXXIV, 94-97.
Demaray, John G. The Invention of Dante's "Commedia." New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 215-221 and 229, and XCIV, 183.) Reviewed by:
M. Anatole Gurewitsch, in Romanic Review, LXVII, 83-84.
Eliot, T. S. Selected Prose . . ., Edited with an introduction by Frank Kermode. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975. Contains the famous essay of 1929 on Dante. (See below Addenda, under Studies.) Reviewed by:
G. S. Fraser, in Sewanee Review, LXXXIV, 476-485.
German and Italian Lyrics of the Middle Ages: An Anthology and a History. Translations and Introductions by Frederick Goldin. Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1973. Contains selected poems by Dante. (See Dante Studies, XCII, 182 and 185.) Reviewed by:
Costanzo Di Girolamo, in Romance Philology, XXX (Nov.), 428-429;
Christopher Kleinhenz, in Italica, LIII, 259-263.
Grandgent, Charles H. Companion to the Divine Comedy. Commentary by C. H. Grandgent as edited by Charles S. Singleton. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975 (See Dante Studies, XCIV, 166-167.) Reviewed by:
Remo J. Trivelli, in Modern Language Journal, LX, 228-229.
Guido da Pisa. Expositiones et Glose super Comediam Dantis, or Commentary on Dante's Inferno. Edited with notes and introduction by Vincenzo Cioffari. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 223-224.) Reviewed by:
Giuseppe Billanovich, in Studi medievali, Serie Terza, Anno XVII, Fasc. 1, 254-262;
Morton W. Bloomfield, in Boston University Journal, XXIV, No.1, 67-71;
Robert C. Melzi, in Forum Italicum, X, 296-300.
Harvard University Library. Italian History and Literature....Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1974. 2 v. (Widener Library Shelflist, Vols. 51 and 52.) Includes about 5000 Dante entries. (See Dante Studies, XCIV, 184 and 189.) Reviewed by:
Olga Ragusa, in Italica, LIII, 95-97.
Jenaro-MacLennan, L. The Trecento Commentaries on the "Divina Commedia" and the Epistle to Cangrande. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 232.) Reviewed by:
Vincenzo Cioffari, in Italica, LIII, 98-101;
J. A. Scott, in Modern Language Review, LXXI, 932-934.
Kermode, Frank. The Classic: Literary Images of Permanence and Change. New York: Viking Press, 1975. Contains ample reference to Dante. (See Dante Studies, XCIV, 171.) Reviewed by:
Francis Fergusson, in Sewanee Review, LXXXIV, 485-490.
Piehler, Paul. The Visionary Landscape: A Study in Medieval Allegory. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1971. Contains a chapter on "Dante," pp. 111-143. (See Dante Studies, XC, 186-187, XCI, 184, and XCIV, 199.) Reviewed by:
Charles Witke, in Romance Philology, XXX (Aug.), 268-271.
Savona, Eugenio. Repertorio tematico del Dolce stil nuovo. Bari: Adriatica Editrice, 1973. 517 p. 19 cm. (Biblioteca di filologia romanza, 23.) Of Dantean interest, although Dante is not included. Reviewed by:
James Thomas Chiampi, in Romance Philology, XXIX (May),
575-576.
Steadman, John M. The Lamb and the Elephant: Ideal Imitation and the Context of Renaissance Allegory. San Marino, California: The Huntington Library, 1974. Contains ample reference to Dante. (See below, Addenda, under Studies.) Reviewed by:
Aldo Scaglione, in MLN, XCI, 773-776.
Thompson, David. Dante's Epic Journeys. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 215-221, 242-243, and 247, and XCIV, 186.) Reviewed by:
M. Anatole Gurewitsch, in Romanic Review, LXVII, 83-84.
Weatherby, Harold L. The Keen Delight: The Christian Poet in the Modern World. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1975. Contains a chapter on Dante, "The Scale of the Comedy," pp. 6-26, and further Dantean references, passim. (See below, Addenda, under Studies.) Reviewed by:
Francis Fergusson, in Sewanee Review, LXXXIV, 485-490.
Wilhelm, James J. Dante and Pound: The Epic of Judgement. Orono, Maine: University of Maine Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 243-244.) Reviewed by:
Jerome Mazzaro, in Criticism, XVIII, 388-393.
Classics, Tibor. Interpretazioni di prosodia dantesca. Roma: Signorelli, 1972. (See Dante Studies, XCII, 202, 210, and 211, XCIII, 247, and XCIV, 186 and 201.) Reviewed by:
Costanzo Di Girolamo, in Romance Philology, XXIX (Feb.),
384-388.
Adolf, Helen. "Mysticism and the Growth of Personality: A Study of Dante's Vita Nuova." In Studies in Honor of Tatiana Fotitch, edited by Josep M. Sola-Solé, Alessandro S. Crisafulli, and Siegfried A. Schulz (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, in association with Consortium Press, 1972), pp. 165-176.
Interested in the relationship between the general psychology
of becoming and the more specific religious psychology of mysticism,
the author examines the role of Dante in the historical secularization
of mysticism from the Middle Ages to the present, focusing her
analysis particularly on the Vita Nuova and Inferno.
She sees Dante's advent, with his poetic genius of expression,
occurring at the fortuitous moment of a shift from the medieval
theocentric approach to an anthropocentric approach. Dante is
seen to have undergone certain mystical moments of experiencing
eternity, considered basic to mysticism and religion. The author
discerns three great waves of mystical experience marking the
growth of Dante's personality to ever higher levels of consciousness:
1283-1292, marked by the appearance and disappearance of
Beatrice; 1304-1308 and 1318-1321, these latter two
periods being "interpreted by Dante as a return and a final
glorification of his ancient flame, or Godbearing image."
Dante, she concludes, is a unique link between the Middle Ages
and our era, because he shared the medieval capacity for large
scale symbolical vision even as he, like modern man, heeded the
movements of his own heart. His measure can be taken by comparing
him with Hildegard von Bingen as archetypal figure and with Petrarch
representing the later period which had lost the gift of supranatural
vision.
Brown, Ashley. "The novel as Christian Comedy." In Reality and Myth: Essays in American Literature in Memory of Richmond Croom Beatty, edited by William E. Walker and Robert L. Welker (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1964), pp. 161-178.
Draws a structural parallel between the novel, The Malefactors
(1956) by Caroline Gordon and Dante's Commedia, particularly
the Purgatorio, much along the schema suggested by Francis
Fergusson in Dante's Drama of the Mind.
Burnham, James. The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom. Chicago: Regnery Company, [1963, c1943]. x, 305 p. 18 cm. (A Gateway Edition, 6079.)
Contains an opening section on "Dante: Politics as Wish,"
pp. 130. Reprint of the 1943 edition (New York: The John Day Company;
also, London: Putnam and Company), with a new preface by the author
(For another reprint [1970] and analysis, see Dante Studies,
XCIII, 248-249.)
Burton, David H. "A President as a Literary Critic." In Four Quarters, XXII, No. 3 (Spring 1974), 17-25.
Includes a discussion of Theodore Roosevelt's essay, "Dante
and the Bowery" (The Outlook, 26 August 1911), which
shows an appreciation of Dante's use of the contemporary scene,
favored by the president-litterateur despite his generally
conventional persuasion, as a sound literary principle for illustrating
the "eternal qualities."
Chiappelli, Fredi. "Un frammento sconosciuto di Jacopo Alighieri in California." In Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, CXLIX (1972), 339-348.
Presents a diplomatic transcription, with a facsimile (detail),
of the beginning of a "brieve raccoglimento" or summary
of the Commedia by Jacopo Alighieri, acquired in 1958 by
the Research Library, University of California at Los Angeles
(Department of Social Collections, No. 100/bx/49). The Dantean
portion of the fragmentary text consists of four columns of one
leaf, recto and verso, summarizing in terza rima the first
twenty cantos of the Inferno. This further betokens the
early diffusion of Dante's poem. (A second leaf contains a life
of Saint Juliana and the beginning of the Gospel of John.)
Cotes, Rosemary A. Dante's Garden, with Legends of the Flowers. Folcroft Pennsylvania: Folcroft Library Editions, 1975. 110 p. illus., Port. 23 cm.
Reprint of the 1899 edition (London: Methuen). Treats of the various
flowers referred to by Dante and the symbolism associated with
them. Includes bibliographical references.
Cotter, James F. "Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, Sonnet 40." In Explicator, XXVII (1969), Item 51.
Finds a remarkable agreement in the love-astrology-rhetoric
correspondence as elaborated by Sidney in this sonnet and by Dante
in Convivio II, iv ff.
Della Terza, Dante. "Istanze tradizionali e prospettive di aggiornamento nella critica dantesca." In Lettere italiane, XXVII (1975), 245-262.
Examines several established positions in Dante criticism and
some prospects for revision thanks perhaps to the efforts of certain
scholars selected for discussion, including two Americans--E.K
Rand, who as early as 1912 offered internal evidence for dating
the Monarchia towards the end of Dante's life, after the
inception of the Paradiso, rather than around 1310, and
C. S. Singleton, who however at times misunderstood in his application
of the allegory of theologians has opened important perspectives
to Dante criticism.
D'Amato, Sister Juliana, O.P. "La corda e Gerione: un'altra interpretazione della famosa corda." In Studies in Honor of Tatiana Fotitch, edited by Joseph M. Sola-Solé, Alessandro S. Crisafulli, and Siegfried A. Schulz (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, in association with Consortium Press, 1972), pp. 191-201.
Submits considerable documentation in evidence that the true meaning
of Dante's "corda" (Inf. XVI, 106) is chastity,
thus clarifying the reference to his having thought to capture
the "lonza, here construed as lust. To explain why Virgil
can summon Geryon with the girdle, the author shows the allegorical
affinity between the "lonza" (lust) and Geryon (fraud)
with further documentation that lust was considered a weakener
of one's defenses--reason and will--against fraudulent actions
of the Devil. The "corda" then, as symbol of chastity,
serves as a means for overcoming the diabolical powers, since
it is a common denominator against both lust and fraud.
Eliot, T. S. Selected Prose.... Edited with an introduction by Frank Kermode. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; Farrar, Straus and Giroux [1975]- 320 p. 21.5 cm.
Contains a substantial portion (pp. 205-230)--on the Inferno
and the Purgatorio and Paradiso specifically--of
Eliot's well-known essay on Dante (1929) and some further
reference to Dante in the introduction. Indexed. (For a review,
see above, main section, under Reviews.)
Fergusson Francis. Dante. New York: Collier Books, Macmillan, 1975. x, 214 p. illus. (Masters of World Literature Series.)
Paperback reprint of the 1966 edition. (See Dante Studies,
LXXXV, 101-102.)
[Fucilla, Joseph G., and Remigio Pane, compilers.] "Italian Literature." In 1969 MLA International Bibliography, Vol. II (1970), 65-92.
Contains a substantial Dante section, Items 2446-2675.
[Fucilla, Joseph G., compiler.] "Italian Literature." In 1970 MLA International Bibliography, Vol. II (1972), 46-74.
Contains a substantial Dante section, Items 2886-3110.
Greer, Michael. "Coleridge and Dante: Kinship in Xanadu." In University of Dayton Review, X (1974), 65-74.
Points out several verbal and structural parallels between "Kubla
Khan" and the Inferno, suggesting a deep unconscious
Dantean influence upon Coleridge's composition of this poem generally
considered a fragment but here deemed a complete and successfully
realized work with the same moral judgment applied by Dante in
the original that Coleridge emulated.
Hollander, Robert. "The Invocations of the Commedia." In Yearbook of Italian Studies, [III] ("Volume for 1973-75"), pp. 235-240.
Points out that the invocations to a higher power for aid in the
Commedia come to the suggestive number "nine"--two
in the Inferno, two in the Purgatorio, and five
in the Paradiso. They are related to what is seen as a
four-stage development in Dante, the correction and perfection
of his will, with Virgil as guide, and the correction and perfection
of his intellect, with Beatrice and St. Bernard, respectively,
as guides. The latter pattern is in turn related to four gradus
of love outlined in St. Bernard's De diligendo Deo. In
any case, Dante's nine invocations fall into a four-part
structure of a paired gradation: muse/donne, sante Muse/sacrosante
Vergini, buono Appollo/diva Pegasea, and isplendor
di Dio/somma luce. The final pairing draws to itself the seventh
invocation, O gloriose stelle, with the effect, appropriately,
of a trinity in the last cantica, all in keeping with Dante's
light physics.
King, Martha. "Ut Musica Poesis: The Effect of Music on Italian Poetics in the Cinquecento." In Italian Quarterly, XVIII, No. 70 (Fall 1974), 49-62.
Cites the De vulgari eloquentia as the first work of an
important Italian poet to deal with the mechanics of poetry, to
which Dante applied the terminology of music as an analogous science
(especially in the case of the noblest lyric form, canzone),
and points out that later music theorists used the same terms
as Dante, as did the poet-critic Tasso in his own theorizing on
the canzone, except that he added the notion of consonanza
and the further expectation that the lyric be sung, thus substantiating
the motto, ut musica poesis, to illustrate the close association
of poetry and music in the Cinquecento.
Marshall, John Henry, ed. The "Razos de trobar" of Raimon Vidal and Associated Texts. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. 183 p. 23 cm. (University of Durham Publications.)
Contains a discussion of Salvatore Santangelo, Dante e i trovatori
provenzali (Catania, 1959) in an appendix.
Masson de Gomez, Valerie. "A New Interpretation of the Final Lines of the Desir a las syete virtudes." In Hispanic Review, XL(1972), 412-427.
Marshalls internal and external evidence to confirm that the Divine
Comedy is the most important source of inspiration for the
fifteenth-century Desir a las syete virtudes by Francisco
Imperial and specifically that the last two lines of the work
refer to St. Bernard's address to the Virgin in Paradiso
XXXIII.
Nemerov, Howard. "The Dream of Dante." In Prose, No. 9 (Fall 1974), 113-133.
A personalized meditation on Dante's achievement in the Divine
Comedy, stressing that the poem is to be read with the mind's,
not the body's, eye; that Dante's universe is one of completeness
and plenitude understood fully by him, as ours by us can never
be; that Dante's deeply typological habit of mind combines with
his vast allusive learning to produce correspondences and resonances
harmonized in a unity that touches the sense of pure poetry.
Pane, Remigio. (Joint compiler). "Italian Literature" [1969 bibliography]. See Fucilla, Joseph G.
. . .
Powicke, F. M. Ways of Medieval Life and Thought: Essays and Addresses. Introduction by A. L. Rowse. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, [1971]. ix, 255 p. 20 cm. (Apollo Editions, A-295.)
Contains a paper on "Dante's Romeo" (pp. 239-248),
originally read in 1944 to the Oxford Dante Society, which surveys
the historical and legendary information surrounding the figure
of Romeo (Par. VI, 127-142) and seeks to sort out
fact from fiction.
Ruggiers, Paul G. "The Italian Influence on Chaucer." In Companion to Chaucer Studies, edited by Beryl Rowland (Toronto-New York-London: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 139-161.
Focuses on Chaucer's "reading and absorption of the writings
of Dante and Boccaccio," and surveys recent opinion on the
subject. The author concludes that while Chaucer possessed great
reverence and admiration for Dante, he found greater poetic inspiration
and stimulus in Boccaccio's works. The survey comes with a bibliography.
Steadman, John M. The Lamb and the Elephant: Ideal Imitation and the Context of Renaissance Allegory. San Marino, California: The Huntington Library, 1974. xlvi, 254 p. 23.5 cm.
Contains ample references to Dante (especially in chapter 4, "The
Garment of Doctrine: Imitation and Allegory," and chapter
5, Image and Idea: Imitation and Allegory") in a historical
and theoretical examination of "the principle of 'ideal'
presentation--the illustration of abstract universals or class
concepts through concrete sensuous particulars--as seen against
the background of changing poetic and rhetorical ideals, varying
relationships to classical models and authorities, and altering
conceptions of the literary genres and of the rules of poetic
imitation." Dante is found to employ personifications very
seldom; rather, he makes use of exemplum and "transumptive"
allegory for illustrating virtues and vices. He portrays the moral
order of the universe symbolically through its physical order.
This topographical representation not only enhances understanding
of the poem's moral purpose, but also provides a measure of mnemonic
assistance. Indexed. (For reviews see above, main section, and
below, under Reviews.)
Stenger, G. L. "Notes on 'Burnt Norton.'" In Notes and Queries, N.S., XIX (1972), 340-341.
To other interpretations of the rose-garden scene opening
"Burnt Norton" the author suggests modifications, including
a further parallel with the manner in which Dante's vision of
the heavenly city comes in Paradiso XXX.
Surette, P. L. "'Having His Own Mind to Stand by Him."' In Hudson Review, XXVII (Winter 1974-75), 491-510.
Includes references to Dante in this discussion of the Cantos
and their development, which Pound had claimed (in 1944) were
modeled on the comic structure of the Commedia, although
even in their now presumed final form they do not accurately fulfill
the claim. From the beginning, the Cantos have exhibited
a tension between Dante's dream vision and the quite different
Homeric sea journey. In the Pisan Cantos, Pound was thwarted
in his attempt to reformulate the poem as a "Dantescan subjective
lyric" and shift from the Homeric model to the Dantescan
with a happy ending.
Tozer, Henry Fanshawe. An English Commentary on Dante's Divina Commedia. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1975. viii, 62 p. 22 cm.
Reprint of the 1901 edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press), designed
as a companion of notes to the Oxford edition of the Commedia
by Edward Moore (1900), including a prefatory note to each cantica
and argument to each canto.
Vincent, Eric Reginald Pearce. Re-reading the Divine Comedy. Folcroft, Pennsylvania: Folcroft Library Editions, 1975. 15 p. 26 cm.
Reprint of the 1946 edition (London: Geoffrey Cumberledge). As
the "Annual Italian lecture . . . read 23 January 1946"
before the British Academy, the paper was originally published
in the Proceedings of the Academy for 1945 (Vol. XXXI),
pp. 223-237. The lecture constitutes an appreciation of Dante's
poem in what it has to offer the general reader of today: "a
comprehensive view of life that sanctifies politics, accepts the
discoveries of science, reconciles both with Virtue and encourages
Faith, Hope, and Charity."
Weatherby, Harold L. The Keen Delight: The Christian Poet in the Modern World. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, [1975]. 167 p. 22 cm.
Contains a chapter on Dante, "The Scale of the Comedy"
(pp. 6-26), and further Dantean references, passim,
in the context of an examination of the difference between medieval
and modern Catholicism as represented respectively, on the one
hand, by St. Thomas Aquinas and Dante and, on the other, by Cardinal
Newman and G. M. Hopkins and T. S. Eliot, who evince "the
modern shift of emphasis from reason to experience." Distinguishing
three wisdoms or knowledges, the metaphysical, theological, and
mystical, the author submits that the medieval, or Thomistic,
mode of knowing God, by embracing all three knowledges incorporates
a broader range of human experience including both reason and
faith, both knowledge and experience, whereas the modern mode
of knowing tends to place its whole emphasis on faith interpreted
as experience. With a comprehensive and intellectually consistent
image of the cosmos and its relation to God, Dante was able in
the Divine Comedy to translate all three knowledges into
convincing and valid Poetic imagery (e.g., the symbolic light
of the sun, which dramatizes the intellectual system that supports
the poem as it leads from the physical world of sense and potential
being to the mystical level of simple being, God. In the modern
mode of knowing God, however, the poet, such as Eliot, limits
himself to a single knowledge, the experiential without reason,
and thus his poetry is characteristically fragmentary.
Wlassics, Tibor. "Il villano, la villanella e il villanello nell'Inferno." In Alla Bottega, X, No. 4 (luglio-agosto 1972), 53-59.
Points out that while certain major figures in the Commedia
are so effectively presented by Dante as to lend their names to
whole cantos, particularly the first cantica, even very
minor figures like the tailor in the similitude of Inferno
XV, 20-21, the "villano" of XXVI, 25-33, the
"villana" of XXXII, 31-36, and especially the "villanello'
of XXIV, 1-15, are with a few brush-strokes created
by the poet as if from real life and with such sympathy and vitality
as to remain unforgettable.
L'edizione "principe" mantovana della "Commedia." A cura di Luigi Pescascio. Mantova: Editoriale Padus, 1972. 263 p. (Incl. facs. of entire text.) Reviewed (briefly) by:
[Lawrence S. Thompson], in Papers of the Bibliographical Society
of America, LXIX (1975), 302.
The Divine Comedy. Translated, with a commentary, by Charles S. Singleton. [I.] Inferno . . . Bollingen Series, LXXX. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1970. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIX, 107-108; extensively reviewed.) Reviewed (briefly) by:
[Anon.], in Virginia Quarterly Review, XLIX (Summer 1973),
p. cxviii.
The Divine Comedy. [II.] Purgatorio . . . 1973. (See Dante Studies, XCII, 182.) Reviewed by:
[Anon.], in Times Literary Supplement, 7 Dec. 1973, p. 1513;
[Anon.], in Virginia Quarterly Review, XLIX (Summer 1973),
p. xcviii.
The Divine Comedy. [III.] Paradiso . . .1975. (See Dante Studies, XCIV, 155-156.) Reviewed by:
Cecil Grayson, in Times Literary Supplement, 29 August
1975, p. 974.
Dante's Inferno. Translated with notes and commentary by Mark Musa. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1971. (See Dante Studies, XC, 175 and 189, XCI, 180 and 193, XCII, 199, and XCIII, 245, and see above, main section, under Reviews.) Reviewed by:
D. G. Rees, in Notes and Queries, XIX (Oct. 1972), 389-390.
Jenaro-MacLennan, L. The Trecento Commentaries on the "Divina Commedia" and the Epistle to Cangrande. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 232.) Reviewed by:
Kenelm Foster, O.P., in Italian Studies, XXX (1975), 100-102.
Quinones, Ricardo J. The Renaissance Discovery of Time. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972. Contains a chapter on Dante, pp. 28-105. (See Dante Studies, XCI, 176-177 and 184, XCII, 201, XCIII, 246 and 259, and XCIV, 184-185 and 200.) Reviewed (briefly) by:
[Anon.], in Virginia Quarterly Review, XLIX (Winter 1973),
p. xxiv.
Richards, I. A. Beyond. New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974. Contains a chapter on the Divine Comedy, pp. 106-158. (See Dante Studies, XCIII 239-240; also, XCII, 194-195.) Reviewed by:
John Carey, in New Statesman, LXXXIX (28 Feb. 1975), pp. 280-281;
John Paul Russo, in Times Literary Supplement, 2 May 1975, p. 480;
Dudley Young, in New York Times Book Review, 26 May 1974, p. 15-16.
Steadman, John M. The Lamb and the Elephant: Ideal Imitation and the Context of Renaissance Allegory. San Marino, California: The Huntington Library, 1974. Contains ample reference to Dante. (See above, Addenda, under Studies; also main section, under Reviews.) Reviewed by:
Jonathan Goldberg, in Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism XXXIV (Fall 1975), 89-90;
A. D. Nuttall, in Review of English Studies, N.S., XXVI
(1975), 463-464.
State University of New York
Binghamton, New York