Dante Prize Winners
Since 1887, the Dante Society of America has had a tradition of recognizing outstanding essays on a subject related to the life or works of Dante Alighieri by undergraduate students enrolled in American college and universities. For further information and submission guidelines, please consult our Prizes page.
2024 Celeste Connell (Bard College), “Lucan’s Exiles: Solitude and Moral Vision in the Commedia
2023 Holly Nelson (Johns Hopkins University), “Absolving Matelda: Engaging with Ecofeminism in Dante’s Purgatorio”
2022 Alex TzeHan Foo (Columbia University), “‘Come cera da suggello’: On the Metaphor of the Wax and the Seal in Dante’s Commedia”
2021 Benjamin Connor (Brown University), “Divine Economy: Usury and the Infinite in Dante”
2020 Matthew Canonico (University of Notre Dame), “The Divine punto: From the Mirror Experiment to the Primo Mobile”
2019 Lee Morrison (Florida State University), “‘In pro del mondo che mal vive’: Dante and the Crusade for Peace”
2018 Asura Louise Osborne (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), “Time and Movement in Dante’s Comedy”
2017 Charles Firestone East (Princeton University), “Slipping through the Cracks: A Study of the Elusive Literal Reading of Dante’s contrapasso for the Lustful”
2016 Dale Lobo (University of Notre Dame), “Reaching for the Pomo: Seeking the Fulfillment of Desire Within”
2015 (shared) Alex Cuadrado (Princeton University), “Fraud Defrauded: Allusion and Analogy in Inferno”
2015 (shared) Melinda Wilson (University of California, Los Angeles), “From Shipwreck to Salvation: Family, Division and Self-Sacrifice in the Commedia”
2014 Christian Coppa (University of Notre Dame), “From the ‘selva oscura’ to the ‘divina foresta’: Sylvan Symbols in Inferno and Purgatorio”
2013 Kelly Leow (University of California, Los Angeles), “‘Come l’uom s’etterna’: Poetry, Pride and Textile in the Divine Comedy”
2012 William Porter (The State University of New York, Geneseo), “The Clockwork of Dante’s Cosmos: Some Uses of Time in Paradiso”
2011 Joshua Fox (University of Chicago), “The Winds of the Earthly Paradise: The Importance of Growth without Seed on Earth”
2010 William Porter (The State University of New York, Geneseo), “‘L’arco de lo essilio’: The Nexus of History, Pilgrimage, and Prophecy in the Heaven of Mars”
2009 David Ungvary (Duke University), “Ulysses and Diomedes: A Model of Unity and Duality in Inferno XXVI”
2008 Aisha Woodward (Bowdoin College), “‘A piè del ponticello’: Schism and Suspension in Inferno XXIX”
2007 Sherif Girgis (Princeton University), “The Anti-Sacrament of Inferno Canto XIII”
2007 (honorable mention) Kelsey Abbruzzese (Bowdoin College), “The Stately Tree: Longfellow and Dante at Bowdoin College”
2006 (shared) Lisa Caruana (The State University of New York, Geneseo), “The Dynamic Motion of Paradise”
2006 (shared) John Davies (Harvard University), “Purgatorio petroso: The Rime in the Purgatorio”
2005 Michael Nicholson (University of California, Berkeley), “Reading Dante’s Stars: An Examination of Dante’s Poetics in the Divine Comedy”
2004 Benjamin F. Johnson (Brigham Young University), “Rekindling Dante’s carboni spenti: Vindicating Virgil to Preserve an Empire”
2003 Kyle Anderson (Brigham Young University), “Dante, Love, and Virgil’s Bees”
2002 Marisa Escolar (Columbia University), “Finding ‘I’ In The Place Where All Things Are: Borges’ Use of Dante’s Epic Themes in El Aleph”
2001 Paul Hackwell (Princeton University), “Dante’s ‘non falsi errori’: A True Allusion to Augustine?”
2000 Toby Levers (University of California, Berkeley), “The Image of Authorship in the Vita Nuova’s Final Chapter”
1999 Stephen E. Sachs (Harvard University), “The Well-Nurtured Soul: Freedom, Dependence, the Pilgrim and His Guides”
1998 Matthew Pearl (Harvard University), “Dante in Transit: Emerson’s Lost Role as Dantean”
1997 William C. Hacker (Brown Universtiy), “Beyond a Common Language: Dante, Abraham, and Textual Faith”
1996 (shared) Anna Foy (Princeton University), “Antagonism, Transformation, and the Serpent in Inferno IX and Purgatorio VIII”
1996 (shared) Anna Marrs (Northwestern University), “Reading the ‘visibile parlar’ in Dante’s Commedia”
1995 Gillian Webster (Princeton University), “Divine Authority in Dante’s Comedy”
1994 [not awarded]
1993 Sean P. Keilen (Williams College), “Dante’s Ovid: Toward a Poetics of Play for the Commedia”
1992 (shared) David Burnett (Princeton University), “Divine Reflections: Notes toward an Understanding of Mirrors and Light in the Divina Commedia”
1992 (shared) William C. Stull (Princeton University), “Dante, Dido, and Lust in the Divine Comedy”
1991 Ashley Imus (New York University), “Dante’s Derridean Nightmare: contrapasso in Inferno XXV”
1990 [not awarded]
1989 Paul R. Wright (Northwestern University), “Linguistic Mediation, Adamic Idiom, and the Babel Legend in Dante’s De Vulgari Eloquentia and Paradiso XXVI”
1988 Nicholas Rennie (Princeton University), “The Leaves of a New Language”
1987 [not awarded]
1986 [not awarded]
1985 (shared) John Paul Wauck (Harvard University), “Vision of Love: Dante’s Associated Sensibility in the Sphere of the Sun”
1985 (shared) Virginia Jewiss (University of Pennsylvania), “Papal Petrology: The Punishment of the Simonists in Inferno XIX”
1984 John Kleiner (University of Massachussets, Amherst), “Celestial Paradise”
1983 (shared) Charles Willburn (Stanford University), “Palinodes in Purgatorio”
1983 (shared) Elizabeth Stratmore (Princeton University), “Old Song, New Song, and Dante’s Conversion of Poetics”
1982 Andrea Wilson (Stanford University), “Dante’s Earthly Paradise: An Antipastoral”
1981 [not awarded]
1980 (shared) Martha Toll (Yale University), “A Study of Music in Dante’s Divine Comedy”
1980 (shared) Peter Borton (Yale University), “Bestiality, Sin, and Poethood: The Taming of Geryon in Inferno XVIII”
1979 (shared) Elizabeth A. Raymond (Princeton University), “Jason and the Argo Theme in Dante’s Commedia”
1979 (shared) Sharona Ben-Tov (Princeton University), “Lecturacula Dantis, or Some Notes on the Souls in Jupiter”
1978 [not awarded]
1977 [not awarded]
1976 Felice Visceglia (Princeton University), “The Divina Commedia as Prothalamion”
1975 Steven J. Rowan (University of Connecticut), “The Problem of Redemptive Identity in the Canto of the Three Florentines”
1974 [not awarded]
1973 Susan Nugent (Princeton University), “Visions of Love in La Vita Nuova”
1972 Donna Mancusi-Ungaro (Vassar College ), “Osservazioni sulla Monarchia di Dante”
1971 [not awarded]
1970 John D. Levenson (Harvard University), “The Grundworte of Pier delle Vigne”
1970 (honorable mention) Francis C. Klein (Harvard University), “Dante’s First Encounter with Fraud”
1969 [not awarded]
1968 J. Ranallo (University of Victoria, British Columbia), “Dante’s Inferno and the Early Poetry of T.S. Eliot”
1967 Wilbur F. Pierce (State University of New York, Buffalo), “The Dramatic Relationship between Dante and Virgil”
1966 Elizabeth Gesmer (Wellesley College), “The Role of Dante’s Dreams in Purgatorio”
1965 Joan Schwarz (Bard College), “The Concept of Figura in the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri”
1964 (shared) Caroline Hibbard (Wellesley College), “Poets and Poetry in Dante’s Purgatorio”
1964 (shared) Claudia Anne Swartz (Washington University, St. Louis), “Il varco folle di Ulisse”
1963 (shared) Joan Lubin (Grinnell College), “Dante as Poet of the Double War”
1963 (shared) Margaret Ann Krauss (University of Colorado), “Dante, Humanist”
1962 [not awarded]
1961 Diana Gisolfi (Radcliffe College), “Manfred’s Salvation: Document, Doctrine, Drama”
1960 Chalres J. Doria (Western Reserve University), “The Third Circle of Venus in the Paradiso of Pound and Dante”
1960 (second prize - shared) Frank De Furia (Harvard University), “Guido da Montefeltro”
1960 (second prize - shared) Jane Perry (Bryn Mawr College), “T.S. Eliot and Dante: A Study of Their Relationship”
1959 Rachel Jacoff (Cornell University), “A Raid on the Inarticulate”
1958 Morton D. Paley (Brown Universtiy), “Dante’s Triumphal Pageant”
1958 (honorable mention) John Krnacik Jr. (Duquesne University), “Fortitude as Virtue against ‘lento amore’: A Study of the Purgatorio”
1958 (honorable mention) Theodore Holmes (Iowa State University), “The Light of Dante’s Paradise”
1957 (shared) John Darzins (Yale University), “Infernal Time”
1957 (shared) Sally Wiseley (Yale University), “Time in Dante’s Inferno”
1957 (honorable mention) Blossom M. Douthat (Yale University), “The Theme of Commitment in the Inferno”
1956 (shared) Elizabeth L. Helgenberg (Bryn Mawr College), “Paradise Lost and the Divina Commedia: Related Aspects of Religion”
1956 (shared) John V. Saly (Columbia University), “A Note on Giants and Angels in the Divine Comedy”
1956 (honorable mention) Mark Musa (Rutgers University), “Translation of the Vita nuova”
1955 [not awarded]
1954 [no record of award]
1953 Dorothy Hughes Gillerman , “Trecento Illustrators of the Divine Comedy”
1952 [no record of award]
1951 [no record of award]
1950 Siegle Fleisher, “Dante’s De Vulgari Eloquentia”
1949 (shared) Howard H. Schless, “Melville and Dante: A Structural Comparison”
1949 (shared) Raymond J. Dorius, “The English Reader and Dante’s Visibile parlare”
1948 [no record of award]
1947 Ellen Harriman, “Angels in Dante”
1946 [no record of award]
1945 (shared) Mary C. Williams, “Fear in the Divine Comedy”
1945 (shared) Rosina Bateson, “Paolo and Francesca”
1944 [no record of award]
1943 [no record of award]
1942 (shared) Florence M. Newman, “The Francesca da Rimini Episode in English Literature”
1942 (shared) Frances Lynd, “Imagery in the First Two Cantiche of the Divine Comedy”
1942 (shared) Joanna H. Loewe , “The Divine Comedy in Art”
1942 (shared) Sarah C. Alexander, “Dante in Relation to Landscape Poetry”
1941 L. Marsden Durham, “Dante and T.S. Eliot”
1940 [no record of award]
1939 Mimi Wilczynski, “A Thread of Shadow in Dante’s Purgatory”
1938 J. Chelsey Mathews, “Dante and Major American Writers 1800- 1867”
1938 (second prize) Paul Siegel, “Dante on Monarchy”
1937 [no record of award]
1936 [no record of award]
1935 Caryl P. Haskins, “The Religious Background of the Divine Comedy”
1934 William Edward Harrison, “Dante’s Mantle”
1933 (shared) Agnes Marion, “Michelangelo’s Debt to Dante”
1933 (shared) Jeannette G. Byington, “Milton’s Debt to Dante”
1932 (shared) David L. Marks , “Dante and Rousseau”
1932 (shared) Jeannette G. Byington , “The Relation of Dante’s Theological Doctrines to the Present Teachings of the Church of Rome”
1931 Gina R. Merola, “Influences in the Dolce Stil Nuovo”
1930 Arthur M. Bullowa, “The Divine Comedy during the Renaissance”
1929 (shared) Ambrogio Donini, “Appunti per una storia del pensiero di Dante in rapporto al movimento Gioachimita”
1929 (shared) Paul H. Harris, “The Influence of Guido Cavalcanti on Dante”
1928 Anthony De Florio, “Il concetto dantesco delta giustizia divina”
1927 [no record of award]
1926 Marc Denkinger, “Aspects Modernes de Dante”
1925 (shared) Marthe Bloch, “The Rhythm of Dante’s Sonnets in the Vita Nuova”
1925 (shared) May Belle Penn, “A Comparative Study of the Similes of the Divine Comedy and the Aeneid”
1924 Fredericka Blankner, “The Influence of the Vita Nuova on Lorenzo de’ Medici’s Comento sopra alcuni de’ suoi sonetti”
1923 [no record of award]
1922 Merritt Y. Hughes, “The Study of Dante in the Last Fifty Years”
1921 S. Shubow, “Dante in Politics”
1920 Walter Llewellyn Bullock, “Modern Traits in Dante”
1919 [no record of award]
1918 [no record of award]
1917 [no record of award]
1916 [no record of award]
1915 Amos Philip McMahon, “On Dante’s De Monarchia. A Study of Imperialism in Mediaeval and in Modern Times”
1914 Richard Ager Newhall, “Italian Ghibellinism as reflected in Dante”
1913 George Hussey Gifford, “Expressions of Gratitude in Dante”
1912 Roger Theodore Lafferty, “The Philosophy of Dante”
1911 [no record of award]
1910 [no record of award]
1909 Ralph Hayward Keniston, “The Dante Tradition in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries”
1908 [no record of award]
1907 Alexander Guy Holborn Spiers, “Characteristics of the Vita nuova”
1906 Chandler Rathfon Post, “The Beginnings of the Influence of Dante in Castilian and Catalan Literature”
1905 [no record of award]
1904 [no record of award]
1903 Fritz Hagens, “A Critical Comment of the De Vulgari Eloquentia”
1902 (awarded as Latham Prize) Alain Campbell White, “A Translation of the Quaestio de aqua et terra, and a Discussion of its Authenticity”
1902 (second prize) Alfonso de Salvio, “The Verse Endings in the Divina Commedia in which Dante has made ‘li vocaboli dire nelle sue rime altro che quello ch’erano appo gli altri dicitori usati di esprimere’”
1901 Henry Latimer Seaver, “A Translation of the Three Canzoni of the Convito”
1900 Arthur Newton Peaslee, “A Metrical Rhyming Translation of the Three Canzoni of the Convito ”
1899 [no record of award]
1898 [no record of award]
1897 Annette Fiske, “Dante’s Obligations to Old French and Provençal Lyric Poetry”
1896 [no record of award]
1895 Jeremiah Denis Matthias Ford, “Dante’s Influence upon Spanish Literature during the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries”
1894 Kenneth McKenzie, “The Rise of the Dolce Stil Nuovo”
1893 [no record of award]
1892 [no record of award]
1891 [no record of award]
1890 (posthumously awarded as Latham Prize) Charles Sterret Latham, “A Translation into English of Dante’s Letters, with Explanatory and Historical Comments”
1889 [no record of award]
1888 George Rice Carpenter, “The Interpretation and Reconciliation of the Different Accounts of his Experiences after the Death of Beatrice, given by Dante in the Vita nuova and the Convivio ”
1887 Heinrich Conrad Bierwirth, “Dante’s Obligations to the Schoolmen, especially Thomas Aquinas”