American Dante Bibliography for 1992

Christopher Kleinhenz 

This bibliography is intended to include all the Dante translations published in this country in 1992 and all Dante studies and reviews published in 1992 that are in any sense American. The latter criterion is construed to include foreign reviews of American publications pertaining to Dante. For their invaluable assistance in the preparation of this bibliography and its annotations my special thanks go to the following graduate students—past and present—at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: Edward Hagman, Pauline Scott, Elizabeth Serrin, Tonia Bernardi Triggiano, Scott Troyan, Adrienne Ward and Dolly Weber, and to Mary Refling of New York University. 

 

Translations

Dante’s Lyric Poems. Translated into English Verse by Joseph Tusiani. Introduction and Notes by Giuseppe C. Di Scipio. Brooklyn, N.Y. Legas, 1992. xxiii, 242 p. (Italian Poetry in Translation, Volume 1)

A new translation of the complete lyric corpus, including the Latin eclogues with Giovanni del Virgilio. Contents: Index of First Lines; Introduction; Vita Nuova; Convivio; Canzoniere; Il Canzoniere: Poesie d’Amore; Eclogues; Notes.

Vita Nuova. Translated with an Introduction by Mark Musa. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. xxvii, 94 p.

The Introduction (vii-xxi) essentially reproduces that contained in the 1957/1962 edition (see 76th Report, 40), and the translation (3-84) represents with some modifications that found in the 1957/1962 and the 1973 versions (see Dante Studies, XCII, 182). The present volume also contains the following sections: Note on the Translation (xxii-xxiii); Select Bibliography (xxiv-xxv); A Chronology of Dante Alighieri (xxvi-xxvii); Explanatory Notes (85-94).

Cavalcanti, Guido. The Complete Poems. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Marc A. Cirigliano. New York: Italica Press, 1992. xlviii, 156 p.

In addition to numerous references to Dante, the volume contains translations of two of Dante’s sonnets: “Guido, i’ vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io” and “A ciascun’ alma presa e gentil core.”

 

Studies

Ahern, John. “The New Life of the Book: The Implied Reader of the Vita Nuova.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 1-16.

Drawing on some material presented in his earlier article, “The Reader on the Piazza” (see Dante Studies, CIX, 165), Ahern discusses “the roles given the reader ... in the thirty-one poems and in the prose which frames them” [i.e., the “reader implied by the prose frame”]. The “poems ... successively address their publics as friend and correspondent, ‘women with understanding of love,’ and pilgrim. ... These three successive fictionalizations can be seen as constituting a single movement from a conception of literary communication in which actual speech, the spoken word and its genres ... play a determining role, serving as explicit or implicit models, to a conception of literary communication in which writing itself, in its actual historical and material circumstances, provides its own paradigm. ... The prose frame of the Vita Nuova affords a fourth instance in this movement, and completes it.” The “Reader in the Frame” is one who, “given publication conditions in this period, ... either hired others to make copies or made the copy himself or herself. Thus the reader, like the narrator, is a copyist, but whereas the narrator copies and glosses his own words ..., the reader copies only the resultant text neither adding to nor subtracting from it.” In reference to Dante’s innovative position in the tradition Ahern notes that his “experimental text constructs a new character, the agressively critical reader, female or male, who exists in some temporal and spatial dimension other than that of the author.”

Allan, Mowbray. “Two Dantes: Christian versus Humanist?” In Modern Language Notes, CVII, No. 1 (January, 1992), 18-35.

Continuing an earlier debate on the possibility of Virgil’s salvation in the Comedy, Allan challenges the positions taken by Kenelm Foster, Teodolinda Barolini and Robert Hollander and discusses “the problem of Virgil” in the context of Dante’s pre-humanist engagement in an open-ended dialectic of doubt and illumination.

Barolini, Teodolinda. The Undivine “Comedy”: Detheologizing Dante. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, 1992. xi, 356 p.

“Accepting Dante’s prophetic truth claims on their own terms, Barolini proposes a ‘detheologized’ reading as a global new approach to the Divine Comedy. Not aimed at excising theological concerns from Dante, this approach instead attempts to break out of the hermeneutic guidelines that Dante structured into his poem and that have resulted in theologized readings whose outcomes have been overdetermined by the poet. By detheologizing, the reader can emerge from this poet’s hall of mirrors and discover the narrative techniques that enabled Dante to forge a true fiction. Foregrounding the formal exigencies that Dante masked as ideology, Barolini moves from the problems of beginning to those of closure, focusing always on the narrative journey. Her investigation—which treats such topics as the visionary and the poet, the One and the many, narrative and time—reveals some of the transgressive paths trodden by a master of mimesis, some of the ways in which Dante’s poetic adventuring is indeed, according to his own lights, Ulyssean.” (This abstract follows that provided on the dustjacket.) Contents: Preface; Editions and Acknowledgments; 1. Detheologizing Dante: Realism, Reception, and the Resources of Narrative; 2. Infernal Incipits: The Poetics of the New; 3. Ulysses, Geryon, and the Aeronautics of Narrative Transition; 4. Narrative and Style in Lower Hell; 5. Purgatory as Paradigm: Traveling the New and Never-Before-Traveled Path of This Life/Poem; 6. Re-presenting What God Presented: The Arachnean Art of the Terrace of Pride; 7. Nonfalse Errors and the True Dreams of the Evangelist; 8. Problems in Paradise: The Mimesis of Time and the Paradox of più e meno; 9. The Heaven of the Sun as a Meditation on Narrative; 10. The Sacred Poem Is Forced to Jump: Closure and the Poetics of Enjambment; Appendix: Transition: How Cantos Begin and End; Notes; Index. Some of the chapters appeared earlier in different form (see Dante Studies, CVI, 125-126; CVII, 123; CVIII, 117; and CIX, 169-170, 211).

Barricelli, Jean-Pierre. Dante’s Vision and the Artist: Four Modern Illustrators of the Commedia.” New York: Peter Lang, 1992. xiv, 154 p. (New Connections. Studies in Interdisciplinarity, Vol. 4)

“The book explores the interconnections of Dante’s Divine Comedy and four modern painters: Nattini, Rauschenberg, Dalí, and Phillipps. It argues for Dante’s painterly vision, and in this context establishes the medieval poet as a pre-Renaissance presence, pointing to his Classical, naturalistic manner of seeing, among other things, the human figure. His optic ... is so forceful that it has imposed its anatomical realism on most illustrators from the Renaissance [epitomized by Michelangelo] down to the present. The premise holds through the poetic realism of Nattini, the socio-political expressionism of Rauschenberg, the psychological surrealism and devout religiosity of Dalí, and the pictorial figurative and non-figurative art of Phillipps.” Contents: List of Illustrations (vii-viii); Foreword: Dante and Book Illustration (by Eric T. Haskell, ix-x); Preface (xi-xiv); Introductory Observations. Prologue: Dante’s Painterly Vision (3-16); Survey: A Prodigious Lineage (17-46); Four Modern Illustrators. Chapter I: The Poetic Realism of Nattini (49-63); Chapter II: Rauschenberg’s Infernal Commentary (65-79); Chapter III: Dalí Between Reality and Surreality (81-93); Chapter IV: The Search for Essence in Phillipps (95-104); Concluding Observations. Epilogue: The Legacy Continues (107-114); Appendices and Notes. Appendix A: Dante’s Conceptual Adumbrations of the Renaissance (117-124); Appendix B: Twentieth-Century Book Illustrators of Dante (compiled by Eric T. Haskell, 125-128); Appendix C: Contemporary Sculpture: An International Example (129); Notes (131-141); Index. General Index (145-150); Index of Commedia Characters (151-152); Index of Commedia Cantos (153-154).

Benfell, V. Stanley, III. “Nimrod, the Ascent to Heaven, and Dante’s ovra inconsummabile.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 77-93.

Nimrod appears once in each of the Comedy’s three canticles, each appearance coinciding with a conscious evocation of questions concerning language and its ability to represent reality. Through these passages, Dante suggests that Nimrod and his tower serve as exemplary figures in malo for the poet and his poem, inversely mirroring the poet’s own project to narrate his ascent of the heavens. The poet initially attempts to overcome the “linguistic fall” brought about by Nimrod, but ultimately, with Adam’s discourse on language in Paradiso XXVI, Dante recognizes that human language must fall short of a divine communication, and that he must abandon his desire to move beyond human language, to “trapassare il segno,” in order to attain to the beatific vision. [VSB]

Biow, Douglas. “Pier della Vigna, Dido, and the Discourse of Virgilian Tragedy in the Commedia.” In Stanford Italian Review, XI, Nos. 1-2 (1992), 155-170.

Discusses the nature and presence of tragedy in the Comedy with particular attention to the figures of Dido and Pier della Vigna. “The wayfarer’s ‘pietà’ in the woods of the suicides recalls Aeneas’s pity when he beholds Dido in the Lugentes campi and is struck by her unjust doom. From this perspective, the wayfarer’s response to Pier della Vigna’s tragedy, being the proper response elicited from a classical tragedy, is precisely the wrong reaction a Christian is supposed to have. ... There can be no divine injustice in a Christian world. ... For a tragedy to exist in a Christian universe, God would have had to have acted unjustly—and that is an assumption no Christian should ever entertain. Pier della Vigna’s success in evoking pity form the wayfarer is a sign of the wayfarer’s failure to read Pier della Vigna’s tragedy correctly. At the same time, to the extent that Dido’s tragedy subtends Pier della Vigna’s narrative, Pier della Vigna’s success represents the success of Virgilian tragedy, though Virgil’s tragedy can only ironically work in the Inferno, a world physically and morally turned upside down.”

Bisson, Lillian M. “Brunetto Latini as a Failed Mentor.” In Medievalia et Humanistica, XVIII (1992), 1-15.

Explores the paradox posed by Dante’s placement of Brunetto Latini, his beloved mentor, in Hell. Bisson discusses the views of various critics (Pézard, Kay, Armour, Nevin, Costa) on Brunetto’s sin and examines sodomy in terms of the medieval relationship between rhetorical arts and morals. The article concludes with an insightful reading which sees Brunetto’s concern with his own earthly fame (and subsequent neglect of his disciple Dante’s far-reaching potential) as a form of “intellectual” sodomy, i.e., anti-procreative mental activity.

Booker, M. Keith. “From the Sublime to the Ridiculous: Dante’s Beatrice and Joyce’s Bella Cohen.” In James Joyce Quarterly, XXIX, No. 2 (Winter, 1992), 357-368.

Booker elaborates two parallels between Ulysses and the Comedy which can be found in Joyce’s Circe episode: the Virgilian figure Virag, an apparition of Bloom’s grandfather, and the whoremistress Bella Cohen, a parody of Beatrice. With regard to the latter, Booker challenges Sandra Gilbert’s reading of Bella Cohen as a dominatrix who demonstrates “a spirit of misogyny and male anxiety in Joyce’s text.” He argues that Gilbert has failed to appreciate “the extent to which pure literary self-conscious contributes to the texture of the ‘Circe’ episode” and suggests that “Bella Cohen is intended largely as a parodic revision of Dante’s ethereal Beatrice and that one of the targets of this parody is the sort of idealized view of women fostered by Dante’s project.”

Botterill, Steven. “Dante in North America: 1990-1991.” In Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 3-25.

Provides a critical overview of studies on Dante over the two-year period 1990-1991 in North America.

Botterill, Steven. “Not of This World: Spiritual and Temporal Powers in Dante and Bernard of Clairvaux.” In Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 8-21.

The author reviews the major opinions concerning Bernard of Clairvaux’s possible influence on Dante on the question of Church-State relations. He emphasizes especially their use of the “two swords” gospel text. He concludes that if Dante did in fact read Bernard on this text, “he found in him more or less exactly what he wanted to find.” At most, Bernard’s authority may have added a bit to the enthusiasm with which Dante goes on to re-interpret this biblical image.

Brown, George H.Scriptura Rescripta: The (Ab)use of the Bible by Medieval Writers.” In The Idea of Medieval Literature: New Essays on Chaucer and Medieval Culture in Honor of Donald R. Howard, edited by James M. Dean and Christian K. Zacher (Newark and London and Toronto: University of Delaware Press and Associated University Presses, 1992), pp. 285-300.

Within the more general context of the various uses made of the Bible by medieval authors (“imitation, satire, parody”), Brown makes some pertinent references to Dante’s practice of citing the biblical text.

Campbell, Stephen, and Robert Hollander. “The Dartmouth Dante Project.” In Linguistica computazionale, VI. Computational Lexicology and Lexicography. Special Issue Dedicated to Bernard Quemada (Pisa: Giardini, 1992), pp. 163-179.

Provides a general overview of the history and design of the project with specific practical information on how to use the database for searches.

Cecchini, Enzo. “Testo e interpretazione di passi dell’epistola a Cangrande.” In Res Publica Litterarum, XV (1992), 115-129.

In the double light of recent criticism on the Letter to Can Grande (Kelly, Paolazzi, et al.) and of his own research on the textual tradition of the Epistle, Cecchini examines several of the more difficult passages in the attempt to arrive at a satisfactory text. He is not so much interested in the question of authorship as he is in resolving the problems inherent in the text, for he is preparing a new critical edition of the Epistle.

Cervigni, Dino S. “Il triplice io nel Purgatorio VII: parola, silenzio e ascolto nella Commedia.” In L’Alighieri, XXXIII, No. 1 (gennaio-giugno, 1992), 3-29.

Examines the discourse in Purgatorio VI-VIII of Dante, Sordello and Virgil as a prelude to the study of the larger issue of narrative strategy and (self)naming in the Comedy with particular attention to the “retorica della parola, del silenzio e dell’ascolto in atto attraverso le tre cantiche della Commedia.”

Chiampi, James T. “Dante’s Paradiso from Number to Mysterium.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 255-278.

Argues that the final image, that of the geometer attempting to square the circle, is not an isolated image, but the conclusion of an Augustinian, neo-Platonic exercitatio animi carried out in the Paradiso. It concludes a movement that begins by demonstrating the superiority of intellect over the senses and depreciating the material world, and then humiliates reason before the mysteria of the faith. This begins with the punto that defeated Francesca in the Lancelot and proceeds to the circulation of the angels about God, who attempt to resemble Him as much as they can (Par. XXVIII). That Punto is true home, yet it is decidedly unheimlich to man. Plato’s Guardians studied geometry to gain a glimpse of a higher, unchanging world, but geometry knows nothing of a personal God, ideal personhood, or of joy-perfect, self-sufficient existence. Nor does geometry know anything of the assumed body of Christ, Christ punto in the Point; askesis is defamiliarization. Dante’s astronomy likewise: we pass from the belletristic descriptions of the Purgatorio to austerely geometricals ones. Such understanding aids return to man/woman’s natural, rightful place. [JTC]

Cioffi, Caron Ann. “Fame, Prayer, and Politics: Virgil’s Palinurus in Purgatorio V and VI.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 179-200.

Argues that Purgatorio V and VI play an important role in Dante’s critique and ultimate displacement of Virgil and the Aeneid. Specifically, the article explores the ways in which the figure of Palinurus, Aeneas’ chief helmsman, is explicitly recalled in the pilgrim’s encounters with Jacopo del Cassero, Buonconte da Montefeltro, and La Pia. Focusing on themes inherent in Palinurus’s story—scapegoating, barbarism, divine will and its relation to prayer, and the consolation of fame—Cioffi demonstrates that Dante shares Virgil’s tragic awareness of the association of politics with violence and foundation sacrifice. Beyond this point of comparison, however, the Florentine poet asserts the anti-Virgilian views that prayer can alter one’s destiny, that God is merciful, and that fame is a mere simulacrum of immortality. [CAC]

Cooksey, Thomas L. “The Central Man of the World: The Victorian Myth of Dante.” In Studies in Medievalism, IV (1992), 187-201.

This article surveys Victorian attitudes towards Dante and the Divine Comedy in the criticism of major British authors such as G. B. Shaw, Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, and W. B. Yeats. According to Cooksey, the Victorians transformed Dante into a “symbol of wholeness.” While the image of him as “either the sublime poet of suffering or the sentimental poet of unrequited love” represents a “popular devaluation of Dante,” it nevertheless indicates the extent of their fascination with the Florentine poet and how Victorian writers “appropriated what served their own ideological and aesthetic needs, making Dante an integral player in a myth of unity and wholeness, the image of grim hope in a problematic world.”

Di Scipio, Giuseppe C. “Dante’s ‘Epistle V’ and St. Paul.” In Voices in Translation: The Authority of “Olde Bookes” in Medieval Literature. Essays in Honor of Helaine Newstead, edited by Deborah M. Sinnreich-Levi and Gale Sigal (New York: AMS Press, 1992), pp. 13-33.

After establishing the historical context of Dante’s political letters, Di Scipio studies the extent to which the Fifth Epistle (“To the Italian Cardinals”) reflects Pauline theology, language and images, including numerous examples of direct citation and paraphrase of the Pauline text.

Di Scipio, Giuseppe C. “Lectura Dantis: Purgatorio XXI.” In Canadian Journal of Italian Studies, XV, No. 45 (1992), 81-93.

In Purgatory one finds a spirit of brotherhood and friendship which, together with the theme of poetry, characterizes Canto XXI and the meeting with Statius. This encounter reintroduces the grand theme of the salvation of the virtuous pagans, and in particular the function of a pagan poet who unconsciously caused the conversion of another. The appearance of Statius as partial guide and “movitore” is of notable importance for the Comedy as a whole, for he is a symbol of reason perfected by Christian knowledge, poetry and science illuminated by faith.

Durling, Robert M. “The Audience(s) of the De vulgari eloquentia and the Petrose.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 25-35.

This informal talk considers Dante’s ambivalence toward his audience(s), especially in the De vulgari eloquentia, with brief glances at Vita nuova, Convivio, and Comedy. The rime petrose are viewed as paradigmatic: the conflicted relation of the lover to the lady is the poetic theme corresponding to the poet’s conflicted relation to the larger audience of his writings. A main focus is Dante’s ambivalence in the De Vulgari Eloquentia toward the two principal groups he considers: the literati and the volgari. [RMD]

Economou, George D. “Saying Spirit in Terms of Matter: The Epic Embrace in Medieval Poetic Imagination.” In Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 72-79.

In the Purgatorio the three embraces represent not only the spiritual progress of the individual souls but also a progression of the imagination from lower to higher matters, there is a shift in vision which affects the spirit-matter depiction of the progress of the soul. The pilgrim-poet’s manipulations of an epic motif show that the truth of a process that moves from this world through the next can be confirmed by the nature of the visions that convey it. There is a meaningful reciprocity between the progress of the poet’s journey and the progress of the imagination required to record that journey.

Emmerson, Richard K., and Ronald B. Herzman. “The Commedia: Apocalypse, Church, and Dante’s Conversion.” In The Apocalyptic Imagination in Medieval Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), pp. 104-144, 203-213.

An earlier version of this chapter appeared in Traditio as “Antichrist, Simon Magus, and Dante’s Inferno XIX” (see Dante Studies, XCIX, 180).

Ferrante, Joan M. “The Bible as Thesaurus for Secular Literature.” In The Bible in the Middle Ages: Its Influence on Literature and Art, edited by Bernard S. Levy (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992), pp. 23-49.

In this wide-ranging study, Ferrante focuses on the “a-religious, irreligious, or anti-religious (at least anti-clerical) use of the Bible in secular literature.” Includes a number of discussions of Dante’s use of the biblical text for a variety of purposes.

Ferrante, Joan M. Dante’s Beatrice: Priest of an Androgynous God. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992. 40 p. (CEMERS Occasional Publications Series, 2)

Discusses ways in which Dante took liberties with and/or directly opposed patristic tradition in the Divine Comedy by casting Beatrice, a woman, in the roles of priest, theologian and Christ. She also shows how the poem leads to the presentation of a clearly androgynous God. Examining all the terms throughout the work used to describe God and the souls, Ferrante notes Dante’s deliberate focus on the feminine nature of divine creation, and offers ample evidence for her claim that the poet grows more “politically correct” as he nears heaven.

Franke, William Paul. “Dante’s Divinatory Hermeneutic: Towards a Poetics of Religious Revelation.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LII, No. 9 (March, 1992), 3272-A. Doctoral Dissertation, Stanford University, 1991. 293 p.

Freinkel, Lisa. “Inferno and the Poetics of Usura.” In Modern Language Notes, CVII, No. 1 (January, 1992), 1-17.

Gives a Derridean reading of instances of linguistic perversion, a type of usury, in the Inferno. Basing her argument on an analogy between money and language, Freinkel discusses themes of redemption, compensation, production, exchange, and the articulation of value in Dante’s poetics. Citing Shoaf’s definition of counterfeiting as a type of metaphor that erases “the mark of difference,” she notes that this is precisely the risk which language always runs for us. “Hence,” she concludes, “no matter how much Dante would like simply to expel the counterfeit from the ground of meaning, he is constantly drawn back to it. He needs Hell, and he needs fraud, for labor will only be readable in that, as that, which threatens the whole value system that labor institutes and assures.”

Greene, Roland. “From Dante to the Post-Concrete: An Interview with Augusto de Campos.” In Harvard Library Bulletin, III, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 19-35.

Refers to the “materiality” of the text using last line of Inferno V as an example.

Grlic, Olga. “Vernacular and Latin Readings of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the Middle Ages.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LIII, No. 5 (November, 1992), 1509-A. Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1991. 215 p.

Contains a chapter in which Dante is discussed. “The analysis of Dante’s use of the myths of Marsyas, Phaëthon, and Hippolytus concentrates on his self-conscious representation of religious conversion through metamorphic imagery.”

Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests: The Shadow of Civilization. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992. xiii, 288 p.

Contains a section on “Dante’s Line of Error” (81-87) In this small portion of his wide-ranging study of forests, Harrison examines the meaning of the selva oscura of the Prologue Scene and of Dante’s being lost in it, and makes pertinent comparisons with the selva antica atop the Mountain of Purgatory.

Havely, Nicholas. “‘Standing Like a Friar’: The Franciscanism of Inferno XIX.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 95-106.

The article begins by reviewing the Franciscan contexts for the representation of the figure of Nicholas III in Inferno XIX, in the light of recent scholarship, and then identifies a number of further Franciscan allusions in the text of the canto, including some that reflect upon the role of the Dante personaggio. It also discusses the place of Inferno XIX within the development of the Comedy’s Franciscanism, giving particular attention to the process whereby Dante recovers the apostolic sense of the word frate, which occurs here for the first time in the poem. [NH]

Hawkins, Anne Hunsaker. “Charting Dante: The Inferno and Medical Education.” In Literature and Medicine, XI, No. 2 (Fall, 1992), 200-215.

Suggests that Dante’s Inferno would be a good addition to medicine-and-literature courses offered to medical students, because “the Inferno...exemplifies...the case-study method—learning about a particular nomothetic category by exposure to and analysis of the actual human beings who embody that abstraction.” Hawkins proposes “an analogical study of the Inferno—a reading that considers the text analogous in certain ways to the world of medicine. Thus Dante’s journey through Hell can be seen as analogous to the medical student’s journey through medical school, or even to the physician’s maturation and development in his or her profession; sin can be seen as analogous to medical treatment. An analogical reading such as this is one that assumes an overall likeness between two constructs, or systems, and then proceeds to explore the meaning of those likenesses as they unfold in the developing textual narrative.” Describes in some detail how such a reading of the text would proceed, canto by canto, episode by episode.

Hawkins, Peter S. “Dante’s Lesson of Silence: Paradiso 21.” In Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 42-51.

This article takes a very close look at the pilgrim’s encounter with Peter Damian in Paradiso XXI, Hawkins contrasts Dante’s silence in approaching Peter with the overwhelming outcry of the blessed in the canto’s closing lines, as evidence of the pilgrim’s “maturation of vision” and graduation into a more contemplative state.

Hawkins, Peter S. “Self-Authenticating Artifact: Poetry and Theology in Paradiso 25.” In Christianity and Literature, XLI, No. 4 (Summer, 1992), 387-394.

Within the more general consideration of how Dante constructs his own authority and claims to truth the author discusses the apotheosis of author and poem in the course of his “theological examination” (Par. XXIV-XXVII). “Because Dante works to establish his authority as a theologian in the same cantos where he asserts himself to be the author of a sacred poem, he forces us to consider him in the wavering light of a double vocation: as theologus-poeta. ... [I]t is precisely the nervous and unstable quiver between these identities that accounts for the peculiar excitement of his `tëodia.’ In the heaven of the fixed stars Dante stages himself as a scribe of canonical tradition at the same time as he raises the possibility that his Paradiso may outshine earlier heralding, that he may be the new star in heaven.”

Herzman, Ronald B. “Dante and the Apocalypse.” In The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages. Edited by Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn (Ithaca, New York, and London: Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 398-413.

Wide-ranging, thorough-going, and well-documented investigation of the relationship between the Comedy and the Apocalypse and particularly on the enormous shaping influence that the latter work had on the former. After describing the many ways in which John and the Apocalypse serve as a model for Dante and the Comedy, Herzman concludes with a question—”Do I finally want to suggest, then, that the Apocalpyse was directly and consciously understood by Dante as a model for the Commedia?”—to which he replies: “However speculative such an assertion must remain, what is not speculative is that Dante saw himself writing in imitation of the Bible. By reminding ourselves that the Apocalypse is not only a recapitulation of Church history but also a recapitulation of the Bible itself, we allow ourselves to see the Apocalypse as a key text in our attempts to understand the Commedia on ever-deeper levels.”

Herzman, Ronald B. (Joint Author). See Emmerson, Richard K., “The Commedia....”

Hollander, Robert. “Dante and Cino Da Pistoia.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 201-231.

The study is divided into three parts: introductory remarks concerning the relations between Dante and Cino; an argument that Cino, even if he is not mentioned by Dante in the Comedy, is a significant presence in a number of passages in Dante’s poem, most notably in Dante’s references to Guido Cavalcanti in Inferno X; a far more hypothetical argument, which holds that Cino was intended to have had a highly significant role in the Paradiso, possibly in what we know as the “Cacciaguida cantos,” but was finally excluded because of the disagreement over political matters that separated the two poets after the death of Henry VII in 1313. [RH]

Hollander, Robert. Dante and Paul’s “Five Words with Understanding”. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1992. 55 p. (CEMERS Occasional Publications Series, 1.)

Taking as his point of departure Paul’s words in First Corinthians (14:18-19)—“I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than ye all. Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue”—Hollander poses the question: “Is it possible that Dante is mimicking Paul’s indirect adjuration of the Corinthians when he has Nimrod speak five words without understanding?” In his affirmative response to this query Hollander reviews the vast critical literature on Nimrod’s words in Inferno XXXI and then proceeds to examine the various interpretations of another example of deformed speech—Plutus’s five words at the beginning of Inf. VII—which would also intentionally mirror the passage in First Corinthians. He then considers three other similarly defined “five-word” programs in the poem to determine whether or not they bear some relationship with Paul’s “five words”: Purg. II, 46 (“In exitu Isräel de Aegypto”); Par. XV, 28 (“O sanguis meus, O superinfusa”); and Par. XVIII, 91-93 (“DILIGITE IUSTITIAM ... QUI IUDICATIS TERRAM). In conclusion, Holland believes “that there are connections among these passages that tell us something important about Dante’s treatment of language as a subject in the poem, that they do have an affinity in the nature of the subjects which they treat, the languages of confusion and of grace.” An appendix provides a listing of the “First Words of Speakers in Dante’s Commedia.”

Hollander, Robert. “Paradiso XXX.” In Studi Danteschi, LX (1992), 1-33.

A thorough “reading” of the thirtieth canto divided into the following sections: “The Beauty of Beatrice,” “Learning to See Face to Face,” “The Invocation of God,” “The Rose and ‘lumen gloriae’,” and “Beatrice’s Last Words.”

Hollander, Robert. “Ugolino e San Luca (Inferno XXXIII, 37-74).” In Studi di filologia e letteratura italiana. In onore di Maria Picchio Simonelli. Edited by Pietro Frassica (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 1992), pp. 147-157.

A substantially revised version of the previously published essay, “Inferno XXXIII, 37-74: Ugolino’s Importunity” (see Dante Studies, CIII, 153).

Hollander, Robert. (Joint Author). See Campbell, Stephen, “The Dartmouth Dante Project....”

Humphreys, Ewing Sloan, III. “The Descent to Hell: A Deconstructionist Study.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LII, No. 10 (April, 1992), 3598-A. Doctoral Dissertation, Washington University, 1991. 237 p.

Treats the Divine Comedy, the Odyssey, the Aeneid, Paradise Lost, and Ulysses.

Iannucci, Amilcare A. “Saturn in Dante.” In Saturn from Antiquity to the Renaissance, edited by Massimo Ciavolella and Amilcare A. Iannucci, University of Toronto Italian Series, 8 (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1992), pp. 51-67.

Noting that Dante distinguishes between Saturn the mythical god and Saturn the planetary ruler, Iannucci investigates the presence and meanings of both in Dante’s works. “In Dante’s Paradiso, much of Saturn’s malignant character is mitigated by the fact that the planet is ‘in exile’ in the sign of Leo, i.e., in the sign opposite Saturn’s usual domicile. When this happens, as Jacopo della Lana...explains, the planet’s nature is altered quite dramatically: ‘Leo is hot and dry, Saturn is cold and dry. Now mix these two constitutions, and you produce an excellent dry.’ This fortunate celestial coincidence permits Dante to retrieve the Neoplatonic tradition of Saturn as overseer of the contemplative life. Thus, his seventh sphere hosts those religious souls endowed with a meditative and mystical temperament. Dante’s extraordinary portrayal of the planet-god had an enormous impact on Florentine Neoplatonism (mainly through Landino) and helped to establish the notion of Saturn as a star of sublime contemplation.” Iannucci also investigates the connections among Kronos-Saturn, Chronos (Time), Kairos (Opportunity), and Fortune, as well as the iconography associated with them as a commentary on the passages in Inferno XV (vv. 95-96) and Paradiso XVII (vv. 22-24, 55-60, 106-108) in which the theme of Dante’s exile is present.

Illiano, Antonio. “Per un’introduzione al prepurgatorio (Pg. I-III 66).” In Italianistica, XXI, Nos. 2-3 (maggio-dicembre, 1992), 319-329.

A systematic examination of five moments from Purgatorio I-III that together form a coherent prepurgatorial cycle: encounter with Cato (I, 28-109), preparatory rites (I, 109-136), dawn and the arrival of the “angelo nocchiero” (II, 1-51), the “turba selvaggia” and Casella’s song (II, 52-133), Virgil’s anguish and recovery as the travelers proceed to the mountain (III, 1-66). Argues that the shore at the base of Purgatory serves as a “transitional zone” that prepares the newly arrived souls for expiation. Foregrounding the psychological nuances of the action and dialogue, the author pays particular attention to the figure of Cato. Suggests that this “veglio”—Dante’s Christian re-creation of the historical Cato—passed from the pagan to the Christian sphere in Limbo, where he was “baptized” from the direct vision of Christ. [GPR]

Iversen, Eric. “A ‘Double’ of the Pilgrim: Filippo Argenti.” In Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 80-90.

The “double” is a metaphor for the fragmented self, the shadow side of the personality with which each individual must come to terms. The author suggests that in Inferno VIII Filippo Argenti functions as Dante’s double: “Filippo strikes a profoundly resonant psychological chord deep in the Pilgrim’s psyche, yet remains finally apart, an ‘unrealized’ future that the Pilgrim must confront and learn from during his infernal education on the nature of sin.”

James, Sharon Lynn. “Dolcezza di figlio, pietà del vecchio padre: Parents and Children in the Iliad, the Aeneid, and the Divine Comedy.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LII, No. 8 (February, 1992), 2915-A. Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1991. 264 p.

Johnson-Haddad, Miranda. “Gelosia: Ariosto Reads Dante.” In Stanford Italian Review, XI, Nos. 1-2 (1992), 187-201.

Argues that in the Orlando furioso Ariosto models certain episodes on “the overall structure of Dante’s Commedia. In these episodes, a character makes a journey that roughly parallels Dante’s own progress, out of a dark wood and up a steep mountain, eventually reaching some sort of Paradise.” Examines in particular the episode of “Rinaldo’s liberation from the monster Gelosia by the knight Lo Sdegno in canto 42, an episode that closely parallels Dante’s initial purgation in the Earthly Paradise in canto 28 of the Purgatorio.”

Johnson-Haddad, Miranda. “‘Like the moon it renews itself’: The Female Body as Text in Dante, Ariosto, and Tasso.” In Stanford Italian Review, XI, Nos. 1-2 (1992), 203-215.

Starts from the premise that “Dante’s Beatrice is more than Muse, more than simply the inspiration for the poet’s text, or the subject of it; in a particular sense, she has become the text itself.” Argues that Ariosto radically revises Dante’s “association of woman with text” and that he “achieves this revision both in his invocations to his lady love, traditionally assumed to be Alessandra Benucci, and more subtly in the figure of Angelica. From the opening lines of the Furioso, in which Ariosto invokes Alessandra Benucci as his muse, he subverts Dante’s notion of Beatrice as both spiritual and literary guide.”

Kay, Richard. “The Intended Readers of Dante’s Monarchia.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 37-44.

Although we can safely say that the intended readership of the Monarchia knew Latin, the group was not otherwise homogeneous. Instead, Dante appeals to readers with many diverse interests and levels of attainment. Any medieval undergraduate could appreciate the use of logic and rhetoric in the treatise, but its philosophic arguments often presuppose postbaccalaureate studies, while Book II seems to be addressed primarily to non-academic proto-humanists. [RK]

Kay, Richard. “Parallel Cantos in Dante’s Commedia.” In Res Publica Litterarum, XV (1992), 109-113.

Argues for a more thorough consideration of the parallelism in the cantos of the Comedy, whereby links of various sorts—verbal, astrological, etc.—”on occasion perform a useful function for the reader as a hermeneutic device.” Considering the first canto to be introductory to the poem as a whole, Kay would align the overall parallel structure to begin with Inferno II which would thus correspond to Purgatorio I and Paradiso I, for these three cantos contain the “preliminaries of the Pilgrim’s departure on a new stage of his journey.” Among the other cantos discussed for various kinds of parallels are Inferno V (and Purg. and Par. IV); Inf. VII (VI); XIII (XII); XVI (XV); XVII (XVI); XXII (XXI); XXIII (XXII); XXVI (XXV); and XXX (XXIX).

Kirkham, Victoria. “The Parallel Lives of Dante and Virgil.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 233-253.

The Trattello in laude di Dante (ca. 1352), often read unflatteringly through the fifteenth-century filter of Leonardo Bruni’s Vita di Dante, is viewed vis-à-vis its literary antecedents, first the ancient Vita Virgiliana by Suetonius-Donatus. Boccaccio shaped his eulogy in parallel with Virgil’s life—e. g., each man’s pregnant mother dreamed of a laurel tree, each poet composed a trilogy. Cicero’s oration Pro Archias accounts for the central defense of poetry in the Trattatello, as well as its defense of a Florentine citizen. The strategy of Boccaccio, who becomes “the new Cicero,” is to classicize his subject and consecrate him the role that Dante himself appropriated as the “new Virgil” of Italian vernacular letters. [VK]

Kleinhenz, Christopher. “American Dante Bibliography for 1991.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 279-326.

With brief analyses.

Kleinhenz, Christopher. “Cino da Pistoia and the Italian Lyric Tradition.” In L’imaginaire courtois et son double, edited by Giovanna Angeli and Luciano Formisano (Napoli: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1992), pp. 147-163. (Pubblicazioni dell’Università degli Studi di Salerno. Sezione Atti, Convegni, Miscellanee, 35)

Contains some references to Dante.

Lansing, Richard. “Dante’s Intended Audience in the Convivio.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 17-24.

Argues that Dante sought in the Convivio to educate and provide moral instruction to a broad and specifically secular Italian audience, by providing them access to a large body of knowledge. Dante addresses the noble in heart, who may or may not be noble by birth, as those best in a position to bring about a renewal of authority within the imperial office. Stressing the political objectives of the Convivio, which celebrates the love of philosophy as the foundation of the imperial authority, Lansing argues that Dante sought to instill in the mind of his audience an awareness of a “national cultural autonomy and political destiny on the part of Italy as the home base of the Empire.” Political unity and autonomy could only be achieved through an educated ruling class supporting the Empire as “the instrument of justice and preserver of the peace.” [RL]

Lewis, Linda M. The Promethean Politics of Milton, Blake, and Shelley. Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press, 1992. xii, 223 p.

Lewis devotes a chapter (“Titanism and Dantesque Revolt,” 35-54) to Dante’s treatment of the Titans and giants in his works (Comedy, De Monarchia, Convivio, Epistles) and how his presentation fits into the long literary and interpretative tradition. Examines Dante’s often radical political views and the question of whether his dissent could be called “rebellion.” Other references to Dante in the volume discuss the way in which his presentation of the Titans and giants is received by Milton (Paradise Lost), Blake (The Four Zoas), and Shelley (Prometheus Unbound).

Leland, Blake. “`Siete voi qui, ser Brunetto?’ Dante’s Inferno 15 as a Modernist Topic Place.” In ELH, LIX, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), 965-986.

Given Dante’s influence on such modern authors as T. S. Eliot, James Joyce and Ezra Pound, reminiscences of Inferno XV—which is concerned with art, artistry and influence—should be expected in their respective works. If part of Brunetto’s sin of sodomy lies in his belief that one can unnaturally make oneself immortal through art, then Dante appears to condemn the division between the artist and the art he produces. T. S. Eliot refers to Inferno XV in his essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” where he argues that artistic immortality depends upon a split subjectivity, a separation between the man who suffers and the artist who creates. This belief challenges the message of Canto XV, and Eliot’s citation of it “reveals, however subtly and indirectly, a contradiction of the central thesis of his essay, and exposes Inferno XV as a site of writerly anxiety.” In The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce uses Dante to symbolize both the Church and Empire. However, Joyce “emasculates” Dante by creating Dante Riordan, Stephen’s old aunt, thereby rejecting institutional authority as both castrated and castrating. Joyce also uses Inferno XV as a subtext in Chapter 9 of Ulysses wherein he proposes the aesthetic theory which holds that the artist introjects the roles of father, mother and son within himself. Therefore, a fertile relationship of creativity subsumes the sterile oedipal one. In his writings, Ezra Pound makes only passing reference to Inferno XV, and appears to misread it. Leland illustrates the unique, at times eccentric, readings by these major modern authors. [FA]

Lind, L. R. “Vergil, Pound, and Eliot.” In Classical and Modern Literature, XIII, No. 1 (Fall, 1992), 7-14.

Contains some pertinent references to Dante, especially to Inferno X, 63.

Lintz, Rita. “The Body as Text.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LII, No. 9 (March, 1992), 3274-A. Doctoral Dissertation, City University of New York, 1991. 187 p.

Treats the Divine Comedy, Melville’s Moby-Dick, and Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Looney, Dennis. “Believing in the Poet: Inferno XIII.” In Allegorica, XIII (1992), 39-52.

The aesthetic integrity of this canto is based on the theme of belief and, in particular, on how belief is associated with reading. The failure of the pilgrim to accept the Aeneid’s claim to historical truth results in his inability to assess his surroundings correctly. This raises the issue of the Christian approach to reality which repudiates doubting Thomases, for Christianity depends upon the supposition that blind faith is enough to substantiate the existence of Heavenly phenomena. The investigation of the pilgrim’s lack of faith becomes an occasion for the poet to explore the issue of literary credibility.

Lorch, Maristella De Panizza.Paradiso XXIII: To Read the Human Condition.” In Countercurrents: On the Primacy of Texts in Literary Criticism, edited and with an Introduction by Raymond Adolph Prier (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 236-259.

Attempts “to show that [canto] XXIII reflects a moment in Dante’s pilgrimage when his relationship to Beatrice and the constantly-silent, but all-encompassing presence of Mary becomes humanly functional. Each woman in her own way aids the pilgrim to en-vision a second life, a true vita nuova in which the body and soul are unified through an aesthetic experience.”

Luciano, Bernadette. “Dante in Milan: A Note on Porta’s Inferno.” In Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 80-89.

Carlo Porta’s parodic translations of various cantos of the Inferno transform Dante’s “divine comedy” into a human comedy set in early nineteenth-century Milan. These translations sometimes maintain the accepted semantic value and, at other times, give the original new life by recreation through the use of puns and similes. Porta’s Milanese dialect then proves to be a vehicle which allows a certain “opening” and “closing” of the original text.

Luciano, Bernadette. “A Milanese Hell: Porta’s Parodistic “Translations” from the Inferno.” In Italica, 69, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), 45-60.

Carlo Porta’s “Translations” of the Inferno not only demonstrate his technical ability to compose in his native Milanese dialect but also disclose his ability to adhere to or move away from the original text at will, often by way of parodistic interpretation of the Tuscan poet. The form of the octave substitutes each pair of tercets, and the final couplet is the place where Porta’s comic inventiveness resides. Although incomplete, these translations served to give form to characters that Porta developed later in his original works; moreover, they remain a poignant portrayal of his nineteenth-century Milan.

Lund-Mead, Carolynn. “Notes on Androgyny and the Commedia.” In Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 70-79.

The author discusses briefly Virgil, Beatrice and Bernard as examples of sexual fluidity and gender blurring. Dante has removed the reproach attached to the term androgyny by creating Beatrice as a representative of gender wholeness. Thus, he has created a new category of life-giving integration, that of gynandry.

Mandelbaum, Allen. “Vision and Visibilia.” In Countercurrents: On the Primacy of Texts in Literary Criticism, edited and with an Introduction by Raymond Adolph Prier (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 260-274.

An English version of the author’s essay, “Visione e Visibilia,” that appeared in the proceedings of the 1985 AISLLI conference, Letteratura italiana e arti figurative (see Dante Studies, CVII, 149).

Manlove, Colin. Christian Fantasy: From 1200 to the Present. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992. 356 p.

Examines works dealing with journeys to heaven or hell and other Christian supernatural experiences. Contains a chapter on “Dante: The Commedia” (21-41) that provides a general introduction to the poem.

Marks, Herbert. “Hollowed Names: Vox and Vanitas in the Purgatorio.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 135-178.

Beginning with the paradoxical boast of poetic preeminence in the sermon against vainglory in Purgatorio XI, the essay charts the relations between the mutability of fame and the mutability of language as they emerge in Dante’s extensive “anonymity program” and in the corrections and expansions of the “humble boast” elsewhere in the poem. It explores the contradictions involved in any dramatization of humility in a first-person narrative and shows how these are expressed in the ironic view of literary history (“la gloria de la lingua”) and in the subtle metamorphoses of key words and rhymes. Throughout, the modern problem of authorial mastery is taken to be an explicit concern of the poem itself, which thus continues to reflect at ever higher levels of abstraction the paradoxical circularity of the Oderisi episode. [HM]

Martinez, Ronald L. “Before the Teseida: Statius and Dante in Boccaccio’s Epic.” In Studi sul Boccaccio, XX (1991-92), 205-219.

Argues “that Dante’s conception of poetic succession and initiation as found in Purgatorio and Paradiso informs Boccaccio’s representation of the poet of the Teseida, and that for Boccaccio this representation is organized around the figure of Statius, both as author of the Thebaid, the poem of which the Teseida is a kind of continuation, and as a character in the Purgatorio who stands at the focus of Dante’s thinking regarding the poetic tradition itself.”

Mazzaro, Jerome. “The Vernal Paradox: Dante’s Matelda.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 107-120.

Before Dante’s “donna soletta” is identified by Beatrice as Matelda, she is wrapped in imagery and allusions that link her to Biblical, classical, and contemporary depictions of Wisdom, Ver, Proserpina, and Primavera. Citing the discrepancy in the calendar and the vernal equinox on which the important date of Easter is determined, this essay hazards the saint’s day (14 March) of Saint Matilda the Empress (c. 895-968) as a possible reason for the figure’s being called Matelda. Throughout much of the thirteenth century, the vernal equinox would have fallen on that date. The essay also reviews some of the earlier work done on the subject and touches on reasons why Dante may have delayed the pilgrim’s knowledge of the figure’s name and the impression that he achieves by his having done so. [JM]

Moleta, Vincent. “‘Voi le vedete Amor pinto nel viso’ (V. N., XIX, 12): The Roots of Dante’s Metaphor.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 57-75.

Behind the metaphor “pinto nel viso” lies the idea of the painted image of madonna, coined first, it would seem, by Giacomo da Lentini. The paper argues that the Sicilian idea of the vicarious presence through the painted image can be traced to the Greek doctrine and practice of the painted sacred image. In the primitive Sicilian phase of the image the lover is the painter, bearing a “figura” of madonna in his heart or gazing at his portrait of her. By the 1270s this image had become a commonplace metaphor in mainland verse, but now the “figura” of madonna is painted in the lover’s heart/mind by Love. Dante takes up this evolved form of the image in two canzoni excluded from the Vita Nuova, “La dispietata mente” and “E’ m’incresce di me,” notably modifying the context. His mutation of the received image is most complete in v. 55 of the canzone “Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore”: “voi le vedete Amor pinto nel viso,” for the painted image is now that of Love, and the panel which bears the image is madonna’s face, with the result that her face discloses the face of Love, in a secular prefiguration of the beatific vision. [VM]

Mookerjee, Ajeet Kumar. “Reading Dante through Milton: Response to the Epic Process.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LIII, No. 2 (August, 1992), 506-A. Doctoral Dissertation, State University of New York at Albany, 1991. 433 p.

Morris, Amy S. “Dante and Peirce: Iconicity and Unlikeness in the ‘Leaves’ Simile.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LIII, No. 1 (July, 1992), 144-A. Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1991. 376 p.

Treats Inferno III.

Nelson, Jonathan. “Dante Portraits in Sixteenth Century Florence.” In Gazette des Beaux-Arts (September, 1992), 59-77.

Nelson situates some of the most prominent Dante portraits of the sixteenth century (including Vasari’s 1544 “Portrait of Six Tuscan Poets” and Bartolomeo Bettini’s commission of Bronzino to do a series of portraits of the Tuscan love poets), in regard to the “questione della lingua.” Using M. M. Donato’s argument that many “uomini famosi” cycles which contain poet portraits should be understood in the context of contemporary literary and patriotic concerns, Nelson interprets the paintings’ emphasis on Dante as a poet of the vernacular, and the exclusive representation of Tuscan figures in these cycles, as indicative of the rise of nationalist fervor that resulted from the serious threat to Florentine liberty represented by the siege of Florence and the subsequent return of the Medici.

Nelson, Lowry, Jr. Poetic Configurations: Essays in Literary History and Criticism. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992. xviii, 310 p.

Contains numerous references to Dante, especially in the following essays: “Toward a Definition of Mystical Poetry” (53-71), “Cavalcanti’s Centrality in Early Vernacular Poetry” (93-114), “Close Reading of Lyric Poetry” (115-125), “Vico and Gozzi as Innovators in Poetic Criticism” (163-175), and “Leopardi First and Last” (215-242).

Parker, Deborah. “Commentary as Social Act: Trifone Gabriele’s Critique of Landino.” In Renaissance Quarterly, XLV, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 225-247.

Parker examines the similarities and differences between the commentaries on Dante’s Comedy by the Florentine Cristoforo Landino and the Venetian Trifone Gabriele. The latter’s unpublished “annotations” present in numerous instances a critique of the former’s 1481 commentary. The analysis demonstrates the social, cultural and historical factors at work in the shaping of the tradition of critical commentary on Dante’s poem.

Payton, Rodney J. A Modern Reader’s Guide to Dante’s “Inferno.” New York: Peter Lang, 1992. xii, 264 p. (American University Studies, Series II: Romance Languages and Literature, vol. 191.)

Contents: Preface (xi-xii); 1. Introduction (1-10); 2. Canto I. The Dark Wood: Failure and the Guide (11-19); 3. Canto II. The Journey Begins: The Plan of History (21-33); 4. Canto III. The River Crossing: God’s Justice and Aristotelian “Place” (35-39); 5. Canto IV. Limbo: The Strife of the Pity and Dante’s Bibliography (41-45); 6. Canto V. Francesca: The Sin of Love and Pilgrim’s Failure (47-56); 7. Canto VI-IX. Form in “Inferno” (57-69); 8. Canto X. Farinata: Virgil’s Quarrel with Dante (71-78); 9. Canto XI. Virgil’s Lecture on Hell: A Review of Landmarks (79-90); 10. Canto XII. The Minotaur: Dante’s Elaborate Relationships (91-96); 11. Canto XIII. Pier della Vigne: The Sin of Despair (97-105); 12. Canto XIV. Capaneus: Blasphemy and the Fall of Man (107-115); 13. Canto XV. Brunetto Latini: Sins Against Nature (117-128); 14. Cantos XVI-XVII. Geryon: Dante’s Claim to Truthfulness (129-138); 15. Cantos XVIII-XIX. Fraud: Virgil’s Limitations and the Corruption of the Church (139-149); 16. Canto XX. Fortunetelling: The Pilgrim’s Triumph (151-163); 17. Cantos XXI-XXII. The Grafters: Humor in Hell (165-172); 18. Cantos XXIII-XXV. Hypocrisy and Theft: St. Thomas and the Interrelations of Sins (173-192); 19. Canto XXVI. Ulysses: Overreaching Presumption (193-203); 20. Canto XXVII. Guido da Montefeltro: Prideful Presumption (205-209); 21. Canto XXVIII. The Sowers of Discord: Scandal and Schism (211-217); 22. Cantos XXIX-XXX. Alchemy: The Pilgrim’s Shameful Pleasure (219-226); 23. Cantos XXXI-XXXII. The Giants (227-235); 24. Canto XXXIII. Ugolino: Pity’s Final Assault (237-245); 25. Canto XXXIV. The Defeat of Satan (247-253); Selected Bibliography (255-264).

Quilligan, Maureen. “The Name of the Author: Self-Representation in Christine de Pizan’s Livre de la cité des dames.” In Exemplaria, IV, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), 201-228.

Discusses Dante’s only act of self-naming in the Comedy, in Purgatorio XXX, as a model for Christine de Pizan’s own initial self-reference in Livre de la cité des dames. Quilligan argues that Christine’s narrative act of self-naming appropriates such aspects of Dante’s text as the prominence of the number three (she is named by Justice, the third figure of authority introduced in the Cité), and the representation of feminine authority, while at the same time utilizing Dante’s canonical status to bolster her own position as auctor.

Raffa, Guy P. “Dante’s Mathematical Imagination: The Poetics of Numerical and Geometric Design.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LII, No. 8 (February, 1992), 2919-A. Doctoral Dissertation, Indiana University, 1991. 226 p.

Raffa, Guy P. “Enigmatic 56’s: Cicero’s Scipio and Dante’s Cacciaguida.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 121-134.

Examines Dante’s use of Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis in the Cacciaguida episode. Argues that thematic similarities—mid-life journey/vision, civic duty, ancestor’s harsh prophecy—are signaled by numerical riddles with the same answer: 56. In the Somnium Scipio the Elder prophesies the tragic death of his illustrious grandson at age 56. In the Paradiso Dante creates an elaborate circumlocution to establish Cacciaguida’s birth-year as 1091; this date implies that the pilgrim’s great-great-grandfather died in the Second Crusade at age 56. References to the numbers 5 and 6 in Cantos XIV-XVIII as well as the 550-verse description of Dante’s stay in the fifth sphere further suggest the presence of Cicero’s prophetic number in Dante’s text. Macrobius’ commentary on the Somnium may have encouraged Dante to establish this numerological link with Cicero’s work. [GPR]

Raffa, Guy P. “From Two’s to Three’s in Inferno II.” In Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 91-108.

Raffa reads this canto as a movement from a binary pattern, which is a reflection of the pilgrim’s confusion and darkness, to a “Trinitarian” pattern, which is a sign of his new-found hope and decisiveness. This ternary pattern begins (significantly) with Beatrice’s three-fold statement of self-disclosure in the canto’s central tercet.

Raffa, Guy P. “Love’s Duplicity in the Vita Nuova.” In Italian Culture, X (1992), 15-26.

After discussing earlier trinitarian (Singleton, Guzzardo) and dualistic (Musa) readings of the Vita Nuova, Raffa argues instead that “the dramatic tension of the [work] lies precisely in its resistance to a univocal Trinitarian or Dualistic interpretation. What we find instead is a dialectic between binary and ternary meaning, a numerological tension indicative of Dante’s struggle, at this stage of his literary career, to express adequately the theological lesson of his ‘new life.’ Concomitant with this numerological dialectic in the Vita Nuova is the debate between the poet-lover’s heart and soul. This conflict, moreover, embodies a microcosmic representation of the more general tension in the text between Heaven and Earth, between caritas and eros.” Raffa examines in particular the sonnet (“Era venuta ne la mente mia”) and the canzone (“Quantunque volte, lasso!, mi rimembra”), both of which have bipartite forms that “serve to underscore the unresolved conflict between Beatrice’s divine signification and Love’s secular domain. ... This tension between human and divine understanding, or between desire and reason, underlies the overall narrative movement and structure of the Vita Nuova. ... [Dante] creates a dialectic between Dualism and Trinitarianism which mirrors the poet-lover’s oscillations and uncertainties in his journey to Beatrice.”

Reale, Nancy M. “‘Bitwixen Game and Ernest’: Troilus and Criseyde as a Post-Boccaccian Response to the Commedia.” In Philological Quarterly, LXXI, No. 2 (Spring, 1992), 155-171.

Medieval poets writing in the wake of Dante’s Comedy about love were seriously challenged to write about love in anything but its most limited (romantic) secular sense. In Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato, Chaucer apparently founds a means by which he might mediate between Troilus and Criseyde and Dante’s Comedy. For Chaucer, Boccaccio provided not only the matière, but also a way of thinking about secular love in a post-Dantean world.

Reesman, Jeanne Campbell. “‘That Savage Path’: Nightwood and The Divine Comedy.” In Renascence, XLIV, No. 2 (Winter, 1992), 137-158.

One of the possible sources for Djuna Barnes’s novel Nightwood (1936) is the Comedy, especially in the novel’s final chapter. Argues that the two central figures, Nora and Robin, have an a destructive relationship which at a key moment in the novel is contrasted with Dante’s relationship to Beatrice. Barnes portrays human passion as a “selfish, auto-erotic quest” which Nora must transcend by renouncing her need to dominate and control Robin. The novel also owes debts to the Inferno in its setting and structure.

Rice, Thomas Jackson. “Dante...Browning. Gabriel...Joyce: Allusion and Structure in The Dead.” In James Joyce Quarterly, XXX, No. 1 (Fall, 1992), 29-40.

According to Rice, this short story, included in The Dubliners. shows traces of Joyce’s admiration for Dante, especially in the snowy setting of last scene of the tale where Gabriel’s frozen “condition of living-death” reminds the reader of Hell’s ninth circle, where Dante encounters sinners against hospitality who have been frozen in a lake of ice. His after dinner speech which commends “the Irish virtue of hospitality while taking a most inhospitable vengeance on a guest, Miss Ivors,” merits Gabriel’s “Ptolomean punishment of death-in-life.”

Richards, Earl Jeffrey. “Christine de Pizan, the Conventions of Courtly Diction, and Italian Humanism.” In Reinterpreting Christine de Pizan, edited by Earl Jeffrey Richards with Joan Williamson, Nadia Margolis, and Christine Reno (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), pp. 250-271.

Contains scattered references to Dante.

Salm, Peter. “The Reflected Text: Kafka’s Modern Inferno.” In Countercurrents: On the Primacy of Texts in Literary Criticism, edited and with an Introduction by Raymond Adolph Prier (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 206-217.

Discusses the ways in which “Kafka’s narratives do not lean on Dante’s poem, but are a direct literary expression of a self-lacerating creative mind which...is nourished by a persistent Dantean presence.”

Schildgen, Brenda Deen. “Temporal Dispensations: Dante’s tëodia, and John’s alto preconio in Canto 26, Paradiso.” In Stanford Italian Review, XI, Nos. 1-2 (1992), 171-185.

Examines Paradiso XXVI to demonstrate how “Dante reworks parts of Genesis and the Johannine corpus, Augustine, and Thomas in his own brand of literary biblical exegesis in which he dramatically presents the author or the participant in sacred narratives, or himself, to elaborate on the texts. The conversations with John and Adam, enriched by the theological commentaries of Augustine and Thomas, are poetic renderings of Genesis 2 and 3, John 15, and Apocalypse 2:7. This poetic exegesis is an example of how Dante places his poem in the Latin scriptural and theological tradition, but at the same time hints at the potential transitoriness of both his poem and even the religious texts which undergird it.”

Scrivano, Riccardo. “Stazio personaggio, poeta e cristiano.” In Quaderni d’italianistica, XIII, No. 2 (Autunno, 1992), 175-197.

Attempting to distance himself from those critics who try to read Dante’s Statius as a historical figure and search for documentation of the poet’s reception in the Middle Ages, Scrivano examines the Latin poet as a literary construction within the economy of the Divine Comedy. He suggests that the character of Statius plays certain roles within the work, acting as a fourth guide to the pilgrim, mediating between Virgil (representing human philosophy) and Beatrice (representing theology), and notes that Dante’s son, Pietro, interpreted Statius as moral philosophy. The figure of Statius, being both Roman and Christian, serves to graft Christian history onto Roman/Pagan history; and therefore, he also functions as a bridge between the epic poets found in Inferno IV and those found in Purgatory and Paradise. By examining the cantos in which Statius plays a role, Scrivano argues that the poet symbolizes the way to redemption; he allegorically represents humanity’s movement from a state of sin to a state of grace encompassing as well the individual’s path from sin to salvation. [FA]

Semple, Benjamin M. “Discourse of the Spirit: Dream and Vision in Medieval Literature.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LII, No. 7 (January, 1992), 2547-A. Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1991. 252 p.

Contains a section on the Veglio di Creta.

Shoaf, R. A. “Dante’s Comedy, the Codex, and the Margin of Error.” In The Uses of Manuscripts in Literary Studies: Essays in Memory of Judson Boyce Allen, edited by Charlotte Cook Morse, Penelope Reed Doob, and Marjorie Curry Woods (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992), pp. 1-17.

Discusses the “vertical” and “horizontal” relations set up in Dante’s text by its binding as a codex, such as the “mirror terzine” (Purg. and Par. XXX, 79-81). The essay focuses in particular on Ugolino and the recurrence of “impetrai / impetrato / s’impetra” in Inf. XXXIII, Purg. XXXIII, and Par. XXXII. The third occurrence is seen as an “interruption” in the sequence: to sense this variance is itself to be “unpetrified,” like the protagonist. A “margin of error” or indeterminacy is implicit in a codex, since it can be read in any direction; to wander and accommodate variance is to find in the “margins of error the way to the truth.” [CM]

Shapiro, Marianne. “Homo Artifex: A Rereading of Purgatorio XI.” In Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 59-69.

In this canto Dante raises a problem that touches on the most basic compositional principles of the Comedy itself: artistic creativity versus humility. In her reading, the author emphasizes Dante’s answer to the question of how to overcome the accusation of pride while at the same time maintaining the uniqueness of human achievement.

Spillenger, Paul W. “Dante’s mnêmosunê: Memory and Poetry in the Divine Comedy.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LIII, No. 3 (September, 1992), 805-A. Doctoral Dissertation, Columbia University, 1992. 317 p.

Stefanini, Ruggero. “Piccarda e la luna: Paradiso III.” In Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 26-41.

The figures of Piccarda, Pia, and Francesca would seem to be three editions of the same woman (infernal, penitential, redeemed), a type of woman who could easily rise to the realm of the blessed or descend to the realm of the damned, depending on circumstances. However, even for those who achieve redemption there is a marked hierarchy in Heaven. The placement of souls in the various spheres is based mainly on personal merit, but good will is not enough to excuse completely offenses committed against the redeemed soul. The result is a situation analogous to the two other realms of the Afterworld wherein the souls of the Sphere of the Moon are relegated to the equivalent of a heavenly limbo. The marked specialization of this group of souls, together with their defining descriptions, expressed and reinforced in purely negative terms, contributes to this limbo-like atmosphere where only certain classes or categories of people can be found.

Stillinger, Thomas C. The Song of Troilus: Lyric Authority in the Medieval Book. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992. ix, 287 p. (Middle Ages Series)

Studies the intertextual and formal strategies employed by certain medieval writers in search of new ways to make a book. Each text—Dante’s Vita Nuova, Boccaccio’s Filostrato, and Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde—individually describes itself as a “little book.” Yet, considered as a group, they lend credence to the concept that in the Middle Ages books arise from books. Moreover, taken in chronological order, these texts form a sequence wherein each becomes an essential alienum (i.e., a thing belonging to someone else) to its successor. Thus, Chaucer freely translates Boccaccio, while Boccaccio inventively rewrites Dante. In this manner, modern readers gain more complete understanding of the manner in which medieval writers liberally borrowed from their predecessors so as to create an entirely new text. Furthermore, we begin to realize that for a medieval author, writing was an activity which obtains its inventiveness from the author’s ability to revise and reconfigure in accordance with his or her own world view, not only the ideas, plot matter, figures and tropes of previous texts, but also the constitution of the alienum that he or she confronts. Contents: Acknowledgments; A Note On Texts and Translations; Introduction. “Of Making Many Books...”; 1. Sacra Pagina; 2. Dante’s Divisions: Structures of Authority in the Vita Nuova; 3. Dante’s Divisions: The History of Division; 4. The Form of Filostrato; 5. The Form of Troilus: Boccaccio, Chaucer, and the Picture of History; 6. Sailing to Charybdis: The Second Canticus Troili and the Contexts of Chaucer’s Troilus; Afterword. Looking Back; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Szymanska-Serkowska, Hanna M. “Federigo Tozzi medioevale.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LII, No. 7 (January, 1992), 2574-A. Doctoral Dissertation, Rutgers University, 1991. 193 p.

Contains references to Dante as an inspiration to Tozzi.

Tambling, Jeremy. “Dante and Benjamin: Melancholy and Allegory.” In Exemplaria, IV, No. 2 (Fall, 1992), 341-363.

According to Walter Benjamin, the allegorical mode witnesses the reduction of the world to a fragment, where the appropriation of that fragment yields the corresponding disappearance of the stated meanings. Despite critical and scholarly claims to the contrary, Dante would fall into this category; his allegorical representation of the world appears to be fragmentary, one which would disclose his sense of melancholy regarding the world around him.

Taylor, Karla. “Chaucer’s Reticent Merchant.” In The Idea of Medieval Literature: New Essays on Chaucer and Medieval Culture in Honor of Donald R. Howard, edited by James M. Dean and Christian K. Zacher (Newark and London and Toronto: University of Delaware Press and Associated University Presses, 1992), pp. 189-205.

Explores the shaping influence of reticence in Chaucer’s “Merchant’s Tale” and begins with a discussion of the Ugolino episode in Inferno XXXIII. “The figure of reticence depends on the reader’s cooperation. Reticence is not saying it all in order to say more, not less, since meaning takes shape as if from within the reader. This is why Ugolino’s reticence in Inferno 33 is so devastating. His story of imprisonment and death moves by patterned oppositions of grief and hunger, speaking and eating, so that when he ends by saying cryptically ‘Poscia, più che ‘l dolor, poté ‘l digiuno’ ... then sinks his teeth again into the nape of the Bishop Ruggieri, his hated companion, it must mean that Ugolino, unable to speak to his children when they were alive, ate them when they were dead. The story is meaningless without this conclusion, but the text does not say it. Instead, it requires us to imagine the ending, and thus to recognize the ‘bestial segno’ ... of cannibalism as an imaginative potential within ourselves as well. The effect of reticence is to make Ugolino horrible especially because he is us.”

Taylor, Paul Beekman (with Sophie Bordier). “Chaucer and the Latin Muses.” In Traditio, XLVII (1992), 215-232.

Contains brief references to Dante’s invocations to the Muses.

Took, John. “Dantean Existentialism: An Experimental Reading of the Commedia.” In Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 52-71.

This preliminary study seeks to define the question of the idea as a principle of being and becoming of the individual in Dante’s works, primarily in the Comedy. Although such ontological concerns are characterically modern, Dante’s insistence on the unfolding or drama of spiritual exile and salvation would place him among the first of Christian existential theologians. Anachronistic implications are approached by examining various dimensions of Dante’s own understanding of being, both in its general sense and in relation to man in particular.

Usher, Jonathan. “Paolo and Francesca in the Filocolo and the Esposizioni.” In Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 22-33.

Discusses Boccaccio’s use of themes from the two speeches by Francesca in Inferno V, together with echoes of the love story of Venus and Mars from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the Filocolo, Boccaccio found Francesca’s second speech, the reading scene, most amenable to his purposes. However, in the Esposizioni he was able to do an imaginative re-telling of the first speech, the in flagrante episode, and to provide many of the details about which Francesca is silent.

Vallone, Aldo. “Il silenzio in Dante.” In Dante Studies, CX (1992), 45-56.

Examining what he calls the “dialogue between speaking and silence” in Dante, Vallone focuses on the ways that silence is employed as a narrative strategy in the Comedy. Beginning with Paolo and Francesca and Ugolino in the Inferno, he then moves to an examination of silence as it characterizes Dante the Pilgrim’s moments of confusion, soul-searching and awe, as well as the ways that silence functions in the relationship between Dante and his various “maestri” in the Comedy. Vallone tracks a general movement away from the use of silence to convey the otherwise inexpressibly tragic breaking-away from God, to a silence which in the Paradiso is characteristic of “saldezza e volontà e interiore determinazione, in stretto rapporto al volere di Dio.” The article notes that silence is especially prevalent in the Paradiso where moments of silence express the insufficiency of words in the face of infinity.

Welle, John P. “Dante and Poetic Communio in Zanzotto’s Pseudo-Trilogy.” In Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 34-58.

Zanzotto’s concept of poetic communio is useful especially for an understanding of his poetics of “borrowing” and his imitation of Dante. Rather than providing a series of close readings of all the poems with Dantean references, Welle analyzes Zanzotto’s idiosyncratic rewriting of particular Dantean passages. The themes treated include: the descent to the underworld in Idioma, Inferno XIII in Il Galateo in Bosco, and the journey to the logos in Fosfeni.

West, Rebecca. “Mr. Bergin: A Remembrance.” In Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 3-7.

Personal recollections of Thomas G. Bergin as teacher and mentor.

Yavneh, Naomi. “The Threat of Sensuality: Tasso’s Temptress and the Counter-Reformation.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LIII, No. 6 (December, 1992), 1903-A. Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1991. 255 p.

In a more general discussion of the figure of Armida in Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, there are some references to the Divine Comedy and to the illusory nature of the “seductive beauty” of the enchantress.

Zappulla, Elio. “Francesca da Rimini.” In Italian Journal, VI, Nos. 2-3 (1992), 37-39.

A general reading and appreciation of canto V of the Inferno.

 

Reviews

Alighieri, Dante. The Banquet. Translated by Christopher Ryan. Saratoga: Anma Libri, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 114.) Reviewed by:

            Elizabeth Mozzillo, in Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 94-96.

Alighieri, Dante. Il Convivio (The Banquet). Translated by Richard H. Lansing. New York: Garland Publishing, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CIX, 163-164.) Reviewed by:

Leslie Z. Morgan, in Forum Italicum, XXVI, No. 2 (Fall 1992), 424-427;

Elizabeth Mozzillo, in Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 94-96.

The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages. Edited by Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. (See Dante Studies, CXI, 278.) Reviewed by:

            Carolyn M. Craft, in Christianity and Literature, XLI, No. 4 (Summer, 1992), 484-486.

Alighieri, Dante. La Divina Commedia. Edited by Pietro Cataldi and Romano Luperini. Firenze: Le Monnier, 1989. Reviewed by:

            Salvatore Cappelletti, in Annali d’Italianistica, X (1992), 341-342.

Dante’s Lyric Poems. Translated into English Verse by Joseph Tusiani. Introduction and Notes by Giuseppe C. Di Scipio. Brooklyn, New York: Legas, 1992. (See above, under Translations.) Reviewed by:

Antonio Pagano, in Italian Journal, VI, Nos. 2-3 (1992), 74-75;

Justin Vitiello, in Annali d’Italianistica, X (1992), 329-332.

Armour, Peter. Dante’s Griffin and the History of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Reviewed by:

            Carolynn Lund-Mead, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XIII, No. 1 (1992), 143-145.

Barolsky, Paul. Michelangelo’s Nose: A Myth and Its Maker. University Park and London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CX, 321.) Reviewed by:

David Carrier, in Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, L, No. 3 (1992), 249-251;

Thomas L. Cooksey, in Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 121-122;

Gregory L. Lucente, in Italica, LXIX, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 229-230;

Paul F. Watson, in Renaissance Quarterly, XLV, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 373-376.

Barolsky, Paul. Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales by Vasari. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 281.) Reviewed by:

David Carrier, in Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, L, No. 3 (1992), 249-251;

Thomas L. Cooksey, in Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 102-103;

Karen J. Rosell, in Sixteenth Century Journal, XXIII, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 375-376.

Benvenuto da Imola lettore degli antichi e dei moderni. Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Imola 26 e 27 maggio 1989. Edited by Pantaleo Palmieri and Carlo Paolazzi. Ravenna: Longo, 1991. Reviewed by:

            Antonio Franceschetti, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XIII, No. 2 (Autunno, 1992), 332.

Boccaccio, Giovanni. Diana’s Hunt: Caccia di Diana. Boccaccio’s First Fiction. Edited and translated by Anthony K. Cassell and Victoria Kirkham. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. (See below under ADDENDA: Studies.) Reviewed by:

            Jonathan Usher, in Italian Studies, XLVII (1992), 96.

Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Life of Dante (Trattatello in Laude di Dante). Translated by Vincenzo Zin Bollettino. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1990. (Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Volume 40, Series B) (See Dante Studies, CIX, 164.) Reviewed by:

            Claudia Rattazzi Papka, in Envoi, III, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), 233-234.

Boitani, Piero. The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Reviewed by:

Caron Ann Cioffi, in Modern Philology, XC, No. 1 (August, 1992), 83-91;

Phillipa Hardman, in Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XCI, No. 3 (1992), 421-424;

Mark Parker, in Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 115-117;

Howard H. Schless, in Speculum, LXVII, No. 2 (April, 1992), 381-382.

Camporesi, Piero. The Fear of Hell: Images of Damnation and Salvation in Early Modern Europe. Trans. Lucinda Byatt. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993. Reviewed by:

            Gerald Morgan, in Envoi, III, No. 2 (Autumn, 1992), 356-360.

Carugati, Giuliana. Dalla menzogna al silenzio. La scrittura mistica della “Commedia” di Dante. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 284.) Reviewed by:

            Steven Botterill, in Italica, LXIX, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 241-242.

            Antonio Franceschetti, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XIII, No. 2 (Autunno, 1992), 331.

Cassell, Anthony K. Inferno I. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 121.) Reviewed by:

            Margherita Frankel, in Speculum, LXVII, No. 2 (April, 1992), 391-393.

Chiarenza, Marguerite Mills. The Divine Comedy: Tracing God’s Art. Boston: Twayne, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 123.) Reviewed by:

            Regina Psaki, in Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 98-100.

Le chiose ambrosiane alla “Commedia.” Edited by Luca Carlo Rossi. Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore, 1990. Reviewed by:

            Lino Pertile, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XIII, No. 1 (Primavera, 1992), 145-147.

Cioffari, Vincenzo. Anonymous Latin Commentary on Dante’s Commedia: Reconstructed Text. Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 123-124.) Reviewed by:

            Louis M. La Favia, in Speculum, LXVII, No. 4 (October, 1992), 947-949.

Comollo, Adriano. Il dissenso religioso in Dante. Firenze: Olschki, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CIX, 176.) Reviewed by:

Giuliana Carugati, in Annali d’Italianistica, X (1992), 342-343;

Marcella Roddewig, in Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch, LXVII (1992), 135-161 (review article: “Und immer wieder: Die Frage der Häresie bei Dante”).

Couliano, Ioan P. Out of This World: Otherworldly Journeys from Gilgamesh to Albert Einstein. Boston: Shambhala, 1991. Reviewed by:

            John B. Williams, in Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 109-110.

D’Angelo, Rosetta. Il poemetto dell’ “Intelligenza”. Urbino: Quattroventi, 1990. Reviewed by:

            Giacomo Striuli, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XIII, No. 1 (Primavera, 1992), 139-141.

Dante Studies, CVII (1989). Reviewed by:

Massimo Seriacopi, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCVI, Nos. 1-2 (gennaio-agosto, 1992), 209-210.

Dante Studies, CVIII (1990). Reviewed by:

Massimo Seriacopi, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCVI, No. 3 (settembre-dicembre, 1992), 166-167.

Dante Today. Edited by Amilcare A. Iannucci. Special issue of Quaderni d’Italianistica, X, Nos. 1-2 (Spring-Fall, 1989). Reviewed by:

Margherita De Bonfils Templer, in Annali d’Italianistica, X (1992), 332-339;

Marina De Fazio, in Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 113-115;

Angelo Mazzocco, in Rivista di studi italiani, X, No. 2 (Dicembre, 1992), 80-85.

Dasenbrock, Reed Way. Imitating the Italians: Wyatt, Spenser, Synge, Pound, Joyce. Baltimore, Maryland, and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 288-289.) Reviewed by:

Corinna Del Greco Lobner, in James Joyce Quarterly, XXIX, No. 3 (Spring, 1992), 702-706;

Sally Greene, in Spenser Newsletter, XXIII, No. 1 (Winter, 1992), 1-4;

Phillip F. Herring, in Italica, LXIX, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 248-249.

Del Greco Lobner, Corinna. James Joyce’s Italian Connection: The Poetics of the Word. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 127.) Reviewed by:

Mary T. Reynolds, in Comparative Literature, XLIV, No. 4 (Fall, 1992), 439-441;

Mary T. Reynolds, in Italica, LXIX, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 255-256.

Demaray, John. Cosmos and Epic Representation: Dante, Spenser, Milton and the Transformation of Renaissance Heroic Poetry. Pittsburgh, Penn.: Duquesne University Press, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 289.) Reviewed by:

            Patrick Cook, in South Atlantic Review, LVII, No. 2 (May, 1992), 97-99.

Doob, Penelope Reed. The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages. Ithaca, New York, and London: Cornell University Press, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CIX, 180.) Reviewed by:

Peter Armour, in Modern Language Review, LXXXIV, No. 4 (October, 1992), 918-919;

C. David Benson, in Medium Aevum, LXI, No. 1 (1992), 106-107;

James J. O’Donnell, in Comparative Literature Studies, XXIX, No. 2 (1992), 210-214;

John M. Rist, in University of Toronto Quarterly, LXII, No. 1 (Fall, 1992), 138-139.

Durling, Robert M., and Ronald L. Martinez. Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante’s “Rime Petrose.” Berkeley-Los Angeles-Oxford: University of California Press, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CIX, 180-181.) Reviewed by:

John C. Barnes, in Italian Studies, XLVII (1992), 94-95;

Thomas L. Cooksey, in Romance Quarterly, XXXIX, No. 2 (May, 1992), 251-252;

Charles Jernigan, in Italica, LXIX, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), 524-527;

Christopher Kleinhenz, in Isis, LXXXIII, No. 4 (1992), 650;

Sara Sturm-Maddox, in Le Moyen Age, XCVIII, Nos. 3-4 (1992), 532-533;

M[ario] M[arti], in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, CLXIX, fasc. 545 (1992), 147-148.

Edwards, Robert R. The Dream of Chaucer: Representation and Reflection in the Early Narratives. Durham, N.C., and London: Duke University Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 128.) Reviewed by:

            Sarah McNamer, in Medium Aevum, LXI, No. 1 (1992), 125-126.

Fleming, John V. Classical Imitation and Interpretation in Chaucer’s “Troilus.” Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CIX, 182.) Reviewed by:

            Winthrop Wetherbee, in Speculum, LXVII, No. 4 (October 1992), 965-967.

Gorni, Guglielmo. Lettera nome numero. L’ordine delle cose in Dante. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1990. Reviewed by:

            Fernando di Mieri, in Rivista di Studi Italiani, X, No. 1 (Giugno, 1992), 50-55.

Guzzardo, John J. Textual History and the “Divine Comedy.” Potomac, Md.: Scripta Humanistica. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 132-133.) Reviewed by:

Filippo-Maria Toscano, in Modern Language Studies, XXII, No. 2 (Spring, 1992), 119-120.

Harrison, Robert Pogue. The Body of Beatrice. Baltimore, Md., and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988. (See Dante Studies, CVII, 139-140.) Reviewed by:

            David Ward, in Comparative Literature, XLIV, No. 1 (Winter, 1992), 88-90.

Harrison, Robert Pogue. Forests: The Shadow of Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. (See above, under Studies.) Reviewed by:

            John Haines, in The New York Times Book Review (June 7, 1992), 15-16.

Iannucci, Amilcare. Forma ed evento nella “Divina Commedia”. Roma: Bulzoni, 1984. (See Dante Studies, CIII, 153.) Reviewed by:

            John Ahern, in Speculum, LXVII, No. 1 (January, 1992), 156-158.

Jacoff, Rachel, and William A. Stephany. Inferno II. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989. (Lectura Dantis Americana) (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 135-136.) Reviewed by:

            Antonio C. Mastrobuono, in Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 111-113.

Kallendorf, Craig. In Praise of Aeneas: Virgil and Epideitic Rhetoric in the Early Italian Renaissance. Hanover, New Hampshire, and London: University Press of New England, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 136-137.) Reviewed by:

            Ronald R. Macdonald, in Speculum, LXVII, No. 1 (January, 1992), 168-169.

Kelly, Henry Ansgar. Tragedy and Comedy from Dante to Pseudo-Dante. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 137.) Reviewed by:

Joachim Leeker, in Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, CVIII, Nos. 3-4 (1992), 414-416;

Deborah Parker, in Speculum, LXVII, No. 3 (July, 1992), 704-705;

John Took, in Modern Language Review, LXXXVII, No. 1 (January, 1992), 216-217.

Kiser, Lisa J. Truth and Textuality in Chaucer’s Poetry. Hanover, New Hampshire, and London: University Press of New England, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 295.) Reviewed by:

            David Aers, in Medium Aevum, LXI, No. 1 (1992), 126-128.

Lectura Dantis, VII (1990). Reviewed by:

Roberta Gentile, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCVI, Nos. 1-2 (gennaio-agosto, 1992), 210-211.

Lectura Dantis, VIII (1991). Reviewed by:

Massimo Seriacopi, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCVI, No. 3 (settembre-dicembre, 1992), 164-165.

Lectura Dantis Newberryiana, Volume I. Lectures presented at the Newberry Library, Chicago, Ilinois, 1983-1985. Edited by Paolo Cherchi and Antonio C. Mastrobuono. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1988. (See Dante Studies, CVII, 147-148.) Reviewed by:

Massimo Seriacopi, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCVI, No. 3 (settembre-dicembre, 1992), 165-166.

Lectura Dantis Newberryana, Volume II. Lectures presented at the Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois, 1985-1987. Edited by Paolo Cherchi and Antonio C. Mastrobuono. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CIX, 190.) Reviewed by:

Peter Armour, in Italian Studies, XLVII (1992), 93-94;

Jonathan Usher, in Medium Aevum, LXI, No. 1 (1992), 152-153.

Letture classensi, Volume XVIII. Edited by Anthony Oldcorn. Ravenna: Longo, 1989. Reviewed by:

            Peter Armour, in Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 90-91.

Masciandaro, Franco. Dante as Dramatist: The Myth of the Earthly Paradise and Tragic Vision in the “Divine Comedy.” Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 298.) Reviewed by:

            John G. Demaray, in Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 103-106;

            M[ario] M[arti], in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, CLXIX, 546 (1992), 308.

Mastrobuono, Antonio C. Dante’s Journey of Sanctification. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CIX, 191-192.) Reviewed by:

John C. Barnes, in Medium Aevum, LXI, No. 2 (1992), 348-349;

R. A. Shoaf, in Italica, LXIX, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 256-258;

William Wilson, in Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 96-98;

            Albert Wingell, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XIII, No. 2 (Autunno, 1992), 293-296.

McGregor, James H. The Image of Antiquity in Boccaccio’s Filocolo, Filostrato and Teseida. New York: Peter Lang, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 299.) Reviewed by:

            Janet L. Smarr, in Renaissance Quarterly, XLV, No. 3 (Autumn, 1992), 542-543.

McGregor, James H. The Shades of Aeneas: The Imitation of Vergil and the History of Paganism in Boccaccio’s “Filostrato,” “Filocolo,” and “Teseida.” Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 299.) Reviewed by:

David Anderson, in Medium Aevum, LXI, No. 1 (1992), 153-154;

John Kleiner, in Philosophy and Literature, XVI, No. 1 (April, 1992), 187-188;

Millicent Marcus, in Renaissance Quarterly, XLV, No. 4 (Winter, 1992), 833-836;

Anna Torti, in Studies in the Age of Chaucer, XIV (1992), 172-174.

Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism, c. 1100-c. 1375: The Commentary Tradition. Edited by A. J. Minnis and A. B. Scott, with the assistance of David Wallace. New York and Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. (See Dante Studies, CX, 322-323.) Reviewed by:

            Richard K. Emmerson, in Philosophy and Literature, XVI, No. 1 (April, 1992), 195-196.

Manlove, Colin. Christian Fantasy: From 1200 to the Present. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992. (See Dante Studies, CXI, 285.) Reviewed by:

            Dabney A. Hart, in Christianity and Literature, XLI, No. 4 (Summer, 1992), 504-506.

Menocal, María Rosa. Writing in Dante’s Cult of Truth: From Borges to Boccaccio. Durham, North Carolina, and London: Duke University Press, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 300.) Reviewed by:

Karin E. Beeler, in Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, XIX, No. 3 (September, 1992), 440-443;

Bernhard Teuber, in Modern Language Notes, CVII, No. 2 (March, 1992), 406-410.

Morgan, Alison. Dante and the Medieval Other World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Reviewed by:

            Teodolinda Barolini, in Speculum, LXVII, No. 3 (July, 1992), 728-729.

Muratori, Santi. Scritti danteschi. Edited by Giovanna Bosi. Ravenna: Longo, 1991. Reviewed by:

            Antonio Franceschetti, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XIII, No. 2 (Autunno, 1992), 331.

The New Medievalism. Edited by Marina S. Brownlee, Kevin Brownlee, and Stephen G. Nichols. Baltimore, Maryland, and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. Reviewed by:

            David Townsend, in University of Toronto Quarterly, LXII, No. 2 (1992-93), 305-308.

Nolan, Edward Peter. Now through a Glass Darkly: Specular Images of Being and Knowing from Virgil to Chaucer. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CIX, 193.) Reviewed by:

Carolyn M. Craft, in Christianity and Literature, XLI, No. 2 (Winter, 1992), 208-210;

Roy Michael Luizza, in Studies in the Age of Chaucer, XIV (1992), 194-198.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. Eternal Feminines: Three Theological Allegories in Dante’s “Paradiso.” New Brunswick, N.J. Rutgers University Press, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CIX, 194.) Reviewed by:

Zygmunt G. Baranski, in Italica, LXIX, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 258-260;

William Wilson, in Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 119-121.

Pietropaolo, Domenico. Dante Studies in the Age of Vico. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1989. Reviewed by:

            Douglas Biow, in Romance Quarterly, XXXIX, No. 2 (May, 1992), 252-253.

The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante’s “Commedia.” Edited by Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey T. Schnapp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 303-304.) Reviewed by:

            Steven Botterill, in Annali d’Italianistica, X (1992), 327-329.

Procaccioli, Paolo. Filologia ed esegesi dantesca nel Quattrocento. L’ “Inferno” nel “Comento sopra la “Comedia” di Cristoforo Landino. Firenze: Olschki, 1989. Reviewed by:

            Paolo Cherchi, in Modern Philology, XC, No. 1 (August, 1992), 94-96;

            Deborah Parker, in Italica, LXIX, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), 91-92.

Quinones Ricardo. The Changes of Cain: Violence and the Lost Brother in Cain and Abel Literature. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 304-305.) Reviewed by:

Paul Barolsky, in Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 106-108;

James Finn Cotter, in Hudson Review, XLV, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 345-350.

Sabbatino, Pasquale. L’Eden della nuova poesia: Saggi sulla “Divina commedia.” Firenze: Olschki, 1991. Reviewed by:

            Adriano Comollo, in Annali d’Italianistica, X (1992), 343-345.

Scaglione, Aldo. Knights at Court, Courtliness, Chivalry and Courtesy from Ottonian Germany to the Italian Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. (See Dante Studies, CX, 305.) Reviewed by:

            Gaetano Cipolla, in Italian Journal, VI, No. 1 (1992), 67.

Schnapp, Jeffrey T. The Transfiguration of History at the Center of Dante’s “Paradise.” Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, 1986. (See Dante Studies, CV, 158.) Reviewed by:

            Joan M. Ferrante, in Romance Philology, XLV, No. 3 (February, 1992), 460-462.

Shapiro, Marianne. De Vulgari Eloquentia: Dante’s Book of Exile. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CIX, 164.) Reviewed by:

Stefano Albertini, in Lectura Dantis, XI (Fall, 1992), 100-101;

Steven N. Botterill, in Envoi, III, No. 2 (Autumn, 1992), 478-485;

Marguerite Chiarenza, in Italica, LXIX, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), 100-102;

Massimo Verdicchio, Quaderni d’italianistica, XIII, No. 1 (Primavera, 1992), 141-143.

Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature. Edited by Julian N. Wasserman and Lois Roney. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1989. Reviewed by:

            Jo Ann Cavallo, in Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 117-119.

Smith, Forrest S. Secular and Sacred Visionaries in the Late Middle Ages. New York and London: Garland Publishing, @1985, 1986. (Garland Publications in Comparative Literature) (See Dante Studies, CV, 175.) Reviewed by:

            Yolande de Pontfarcy, in Romance Philology, XLVI, No. 2 (November, 1992), 178-181.

Sodi, Risa B. A Dante of Our Time: Primo Levi and Auschwitz. New York-Bern-Frankfurt am Main-Paris: Peter Lang, 1990. (See Dante Studies, CIX, 199.) Reviewed by:

            Jonathan Druker, in Italica, LXIX, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 263-264.

Spence, Sarah. Rhetorics of Reason and Desire. Vergil, Augustine, and the Troubadours. Ithaca, New York, and London: Cornell University Press, 1988. Reviewed by:

            Lino Pertile, in Lectura Dantis, X (Spring, 1992), 109-111.

Tambling, Jeremy. Dante and Difference: Writing in the ‘Commedia’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Reviewed by:

            Giuseppe Mazzotta, in Comparative Literature, XLIV, No. 4 (Fall, 1992), 427-429.

Taylor, Karla. Chaucer Reads “The Divine Comedy.” Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 151-152.) Reviewed by:

            Piero Boitani, in Speculum, LXVII, No. 3 (July, 1992), 750-752.

Took, J. F. Dante Lyric Poet and Philosopher: An Introduction to the Minor Works. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Reviewed by:

            Richard H. Lansing, in Italica, LXIX, No. 2 (Summer, 1992), 268-269.

Vallone, Aldo. Strutture e modulazioni nella “Divina Commedia.” Firenze: Olschki, 1990. Reviewed by:

            Adriano Comollo, in Annali d’Italianistica, X (1992), 339-341.