American Dante Bibliography for 1971
Anthony L. Pellegrini
This bibliography is intended to include the Dante translations published in this country in 1971 and all Dante studies and reviews published in 1971 that are in any sense American. The latter criterion is construed to include foreign reviews of American publications pertaining to Dante.
Translations
Dante’s Inferno. Translated with notes and commentary by Mark Musa. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1971. xxxii, 286 p. illus. (Also, a paperback edition, “Midland Books” MB-145.)
The version is done in blank verse preserving the tercet divisions, in which the translator has striven to listen carefully to Dante’s own voice and “to find a style that does not call attention to itself.” A foreword, “On Being a Good Lover,” deals with problems of translating and the criteria observed for this version of Dante’s poem. A section of narrative abstracts of the individual cantos precedes the translation, which is also accompanied by interpretative notes following each canto. The illustrations consist of a number of drawings by Richard M. Powers. (For reviews, see below.)
The Divine Comedy. [I.] Inferno. Translated, with a commentary, by Charles S. Singleton. London: Routledge and K. Paul, 1971. 2 v. (Bollingen Series, LXXX.)
The British edition is the same as the original American edition (Princeton University Press, 1970). (See Dante Studies, LXXXIX, 107-108, XC, 189, and see below, under Reviews.)
“To Small Daylight: The Stony Sestina of Dante Alighieri (Al poco giorno...), translated by Leslie A. Fiedler. In The Collected Essays of Leslie Fiedler (2 vols.; New York: Stein and Day, 1971), Vol. 1, pp. 262-263.
Preceded by the original Italian text and the D.G. Rossetti translation, and by an interpretative essay. (See below, under Studies, for bibliographical details.)
[Eclogues] Dante and Giovanni Del Virgilio, Including a Critical Edition of the Text of Dante’s “Eclogae Latinae” and of the Poetic Remains of Giovanni Del Virgilio. By Philip H. Wicksteed and Edmund G. Gardner. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1971. x, 340 p. geneal. tables.
Reprint of the 1902 edition (Westminster: A Constable). (For another reprint and descriptive details, see Dante Studies, LXXXIX, 108.)
Studies
Appel, Anne M. “Dante, Poet of the Grail: A Study in the Relationship between the Commedia and the Queste del Saint Graal.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXI (1971), 6044A.
Doctoral dissertation, Rutgers University, 1970.
Becker, Marvin B. “Towards a Renaissance Historiography in Florence.” In Renaissance Studies in Honor of Hans Baron, edited by Anthony Molho and John A. Tedeschi (DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971), pp. 141-171.
Includes a general assessment of the contribution by Dante, along with Brunetto Latini and Giovanni Villani, towards Florentine historiography in the Renaissance.
Bergin, Thomas G. Dante’s Divine Comedy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971. xi, 116 p. illus. (Landmarks in Literature.)
A general introduction to Dante’s Commedia made up of the last four chapters on the Comedy—Narrative; Allegory; Doctrine; and Tools and Tactics—of Professor Bergin’s Dante, published in 1965 (see Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 76), and the three chapters—Ingredients and Proportion: The World of the Comedy; Themes and Variations: The Design of the Comedy; and Whose Dante? Which Comedy?-of his Perspectives on the Divine Comedy, published in 1967 (see Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 139-140), and a short bibliography (pp. 109-111). (For an Italian edition of this work, Invito alla Divina Commedia, published in 1971, see Dante Studies XC, 176.)
Bergin, Thomas G. Invito alla Divina Commedia. Bari: Adriatica Editrice, 1971. 229 p. (Biblioteca di filologia romanza, 20.)
Drawing upon many years of reading Dante’s poem, the author presents this general study of the Commedia with a series of reflections on that study. Contents: Parte prima. Gli aspetti del poema: I. L’aspetto narrativo.- II. L’aspetto allegorico. - III. L’aspetto dottrinale. - IV. La tecnica e i mezzi a disposizione del poeta. Parte seconda. Considerazioni sulla Divina Commedia: 1. Il mondo della Divina Commedia.- II. Il piano della Divina Commedia. - III. Multiforme il poeta, vario il poema. Indice dei nomi. Indice. The chapters of Part I are an Italian version of the last four chapters of Professor Bergin’s Dante, published in 1965 (see Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 76), and the chapters of Part II are translated from the three chapters of his Perspectives on the Divine Comedy, published in 1967 (see Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 139-140).
Bernardo, Aldo S. “Dante’s Pervasive Symmetry.” In Romance Notes, XII (1971), 458-460.
Notes correspondences in the astronomical references at verse 37 ff. in each of the three cantiche, evoking, respectively, (1) the ideal heavenly configuration at creation, (2) the relation of the four stars over Eden to the three theological virtues and Christ, and (3) a reminder of creation and redemption. This symmetrical pattern is recapitulated in the tri-circular image of Dante’s final vision.
Betti, Franco. “Dante, the Jansenists and the Jesuits in XVIII and XIX Century Italian Literary Criticism.” In Italian Quarterly, XV, no. 57 (1971), 3-22.
Examines the general ideologico-literary posture of such 18th-and 19th century critics as Bettinelli, Lami, Maffei, Emiliani-Giudici, Gioberti, Curci, Settembrini, and De Sanctis, as exemplified in part in their respective attitudes towards Dante.
Biasin, Gian-Paolo. “Rhetorical Questions: From James Bond to Dante.” In Diacritics, I, No. 1 (1971), 3-7.
Review-article on I metodi attuali della critica in Italia, edited by Maria Corti and Cesare Segre (Torino: ERI, 1970) and Metafora e storia: Studi su Dante e Petrarca by Enzo Raimondi (Torino: Einaudi, 1970).
Bidney, Martin P. “Ruskin’s Uses of Dante. In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXII (1971), 2631A-2632A.
Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 1971.
Bondanella, Peter E. Arnaut Daniel and Dante’s Rime Petrose: A Re-Examination.” In Studies in Philology, LXVIII (1971), 416-434.
While acknowledging Arnaut’s influence on Dante, the author questions some critical commonplaces regarding the relationship between the two poets, pointing out that they work in similar ways within a common tradition. If concrete influences are more limited than has been surmised, however, one can speak of similarity in sensibility as evinced in certain common themes and motifs, e.g., sensuality of love in the rime petrose and in Arnaut’s poems, concern with poetry in terms of matching style to inspiration, especially with love as motivating force. There are also differences, for example, Arnaut’s use of alliteration is absent from the petrose, in which Dante achieves harshness by other than linguistic means, viz., in his imagery. Even the most obvious imitation of Arnaut, Dante’s sestina, exhibits beyond the technical composition a fundamental difference in structure: while Arnaut’s sestina is organically cast in a logical progression, Dante’s is “disjunctive,” with each stanza constituting virtually an autonomous unit.
Bosco, Umberto. “I due stili della decima bolgia dantesca.” In Romanic Review, LXII (1971), 167-182.
Examines the second half of Canto XXIX and all of Canto XXX of the Inferno in order to explain Dante’s artistic intent in employing a mixture of styles, the high tragic and the low comic, for example, passing from the mythic allusions of Athamas and Hecuba to Griffolino and Gianni Schicchi, and then from the lofty beginning to the comic and grotesque altercation at the end of the highly developed episode of Maestro Adam. The author concludes that this contrastive mixture of styles is designed to set in relief the lowness of the comico-realistic vein, the lack of dignity, the utter vulgarity of this sort of thing in life and in poetry, that is, the “poesia di divertimento,” for which the poet admits an interest even as he excuses himself through Virgil’s mild rebuff at the end of the episode.
Brown, Emerson, Jr. “Proserpina, Matelda, and the Pilgrim.” In Dante Studies, LXXXIX (1971), 33-48.
At the sight of Matelda, as embodiment of prelapsarian innocence in the act of singing and gathering flowers, the pilgrim is reminded of Proserpina at the moment when she too was gathering flowers and about to lose her innocence to her abductor Pluto (Purg. XXVIII, 43-51). The author contends that the allusion may be more complex and significant than hitherto suggested, as it puts emphasis less on appearance than on action, especially on Proserpina’s having lost the “spring.” Although as much a victim as in Ovid (usually cited by commentators), Claudian’s Proserpina (De Raptu Proserpinae) is presented in a more intense action and with a more complex character—as one already on the verge of awakening from innocence to sensuality. Also, events subsequent to the mythic abduction complicate Proserpina’s character even further: in one of her aspects she is clearly malign, being the moon or Diana in the heavens and Prosperina on earth, but also wicked Hecate in Hell. Thus, while Matelda is a figure of perpetual innocence, Proserpina must be considered as a maiden poised at the instant before becoming something quite unmaidenlike. As suggested at the literal level, Matelda, whatever allegorical significance she may have, gives the pilgrim a brief glimpse at his own prelapsarian state of fragile and short-lived innocence, which at the same time he realizes is lost forever. To resolve the question of why the pilgrim can still be reminded of a Proserpina by the sight of Matelda, the author suggests that, while the pilgrim can no longer sin at this point in the journey, he is not capable of fully comprehending original innocence. “He sees innocence not entire and of itself but only as innocence-before-the-fall.” Since original innocence is beyond human comprehension, the poet reflects this in the way the pilgrim, still aware of his fallen state, sees Matelda, the embodiment of prelapsarian innocence, and can only be reminded of Proserpina on the verge of losing her innocence.
Brown, Merle E. “A Reading of the Inferno X.” In Italica, XLVIII (1971), 315-333.
Considering the greatness of the Commedia to rest in its vitally dramatic, shaping action, the author focuses in this canto upon the central quality of magnanimity in both Farinata and Dante himself, in contrast to the weakness of Cavalcanti and, momentarily, even Virgil. With striking dramatic richness. Farinata and Dante are thus represented, in the forceful directness of their interview, as able to rise above egocentric preoccupations and to be responsive to others.
Caracciolo, Peter. “Wilkie Collins’s ‘Divine Comedy’: The Use of Dante in The Woman in White.” In Nineteenth-Century Fiction, XXV (1971), 383-404.
While recognizing that Méjan’s Recueil des causes célèbres provided Wilkie Collins with the main outlines for the plot for The Woman in White, the author contends the more comprehensive source of the novel’s complex pattern of images is the Divina Commedia. Citing Collins’s quite certain reading of Dante’s poem, his travels in Italy and familiarity with the language and culture and his acquaintance with the Rossetti family, he documents numerous Dantean allusions and echoes in The Woman in White which have not yet received due critical attention. The references contribute vitally to the form, characters, meaning, and poetic language of the novel. Collins is also seen to make the Dantean echoes relevant to the problems of 19th-century Europe.
Carroll, John S. Exiles of Eternity: An Exposition of Dante’s Inferno. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1971. lxiii, 510 p. illus.
Reprint of the 1903 edition (London: Hodder and Stoughton) of this well-known exposition by the Reverend Carroll. This and the two following items over the whole Commedia. The three volumes come with diagrams and indexes.
Carroll, John S. In Patria: An Exposition of Dante’s Paradiso. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1971. xvi, 563 p.
Reprint of the 1911 edition (London: Hodder and Stoughton).
Carroll, John S. Prisoners of Hope: An Exposition of Dante’s Purgatorio. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1971. xxvii, 511 p.
Reprint of the 1906 edition (London: Hodder and Stoughton).
Carrubba, Robert W. “The Color of Dante’s Hair.” In Mediaeval Studies, XXXIII (1971), 348-350.
Submits that the references to Dante’s hair as fair in his Eclogue I, 42-44, and in the response by Dante Del Virgilio simply reflect an ancient poetic, and Virgilian, convention and so are not inconsistent with Boccaccio’s Vita where Dante is described as being “dark.”
Caserta, Ernesto G. “Il saggio del Croce su Dante.” In Dante Studies, LXXXIX (1971), 73-91.
A historical-critical analysis of Croce’s essay on Dante, aiming to clarify: (1) its polemical and pedagogical motives, (2) its aesthetic premises, (3) its results (e.g., the problem of the relationship between structure and poetry, (4) the reaction that it produced among Dante scholars and its influence on later Dante criticism. Croce’s lectura Dantis is a happy marriage of his aesthetic theory and his actual criticism and proves the validity of the Crocean methodological approach to reading Dante or any other poet: judge a work of art only on the basis of its aesthetic merits and do not focus the attention on what is extra-artistic (philosophy, morality, practical life, political and religious affiliations, etc.). At the same time, it shows that the Crocean aesthetics of expression does not exclude either thought or morality, but rather requires them, only demanding that they be lyrically expressed. Croce’s revaluation of the Paradiso, considered by the Romantic critics, including De Sanctis, to be inferior to the Inferno because too abstract and dominated by philosophy and theology, is tangible proof of this thesis. (E.G.C.)
Chapin, D. L. Derby. “IO and the Negative Apotheosis of Vanni Fucci.” In Dante Studies, LXXXIX (1971), 19-31.
Dante employs three similes to describe the metamorphosis of Vanni Fucci in Inf. XXIV, 100-118: the i and o, the phoenix, and the man possessed. The puzzling crux of the i and o is not, as has been generally supposed, a mere physical comparison of speeds, but, instead, the Ovidian monogram of Io (Metamorphosis I, 646-650) amplified by medieval commentators. Each of the three similes corresponds to a type of metamorphosis found in the Ovidian accessus of medieval commentators: Io—mutatio magica; the phoenix—mutatio naturalis; the man possessed—mutatio spiritualis. Dante’s use of types of metamorphosis derived from the Ovidian commentators is directly related to his boast concerning Ovid in Inf. XXV, 94-102, and the Virgilian echoes and exhortations of Inf. XXIV, 1-15 and 46-51, for the Dantean metamorphosis, while imitative of both Ovidian and Virgilian methods, is at the same time a translatio, a Christian exemplum of unique personal and eschatological significance. (D.L.D.C.)
Chiarenza, Marguerite Mills. “Myths in Dante’s Paradiso and Their Sources in the Latin Tradition.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXI (1971), 6596A.
Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University, 1970.
Collected Essays on Italian Language and Literature Presented to Kathleen Speight. Edited by Giovanni Aquilecchia, Stephen N. Cristea, and Sheila Ralphs [Manchester, Eng.:] Manchester University Press; [New York:] Barnes and Noble Inc, 1971. xiv, 344 p. illus.
Contains three Dantean pieces by Alan Freedman, M.F.M. Meiklejohn and Beatrice Corrigan, all separately listed in this bibliography.
Corrigan, Beatrice. “Dante and Italian Theater: A Study in Dramatic Fashions.” In Dante Studies, LXXXIX (1971), 93-105.
Echoes of the Divine Comedy in the Italian theater first appeared in G. G. Trissino’s tragedy, Sofonisba (1524). A fantastic comedy by Giovanni Briccio La Tartarea, sub-titled Commedia Infernale (1614), and a tragedy based on the Ugolino episode are the first plays to use material from Dante’s poem. In the eighteenth century two or three more tragedies appeared, with Ugolino as the favorite figure. By the nineteenth century Dante had become the symbol of national independence, and the theater made use of his work for purposes of propaganda. The actor Gustavo Modena gave readings from the Comedy in England as well as in Italy, assuming the character of Dante himself, and the poet appeared as a figure in several historical plays. Francesca da Rimini (1815) by Silvio Pellico was the first Italian Romantic tragedy to enjoy lasting popularity on the stage; in the leading role Adelaide Ristori made Dante familiar to audiences in both Europe and the Americas. Both she and Modena took part in the celebrations in Florence in May, 1865. A recent theatrical entertainment in Milan (1966) based on the Divine Comedy was less successful, though all the modern arts of the stage were lavished on its production. (B.C.)
Corrigan, Beatrice. “Foscolo’s Articles on Dante in the Edinburgh Review: A Study in Collaboration.” In Collected Essays on Italian Language and Literature Presented to Kathleen Speight, pp. 211-225.
Pieces together the story of the many editorial difficulties and mutilations experienced by Foscolo’s article on Dante published in the Edinburgh Review in two installments in 1819, which also suffered from the fact of being written in part by several literary friends like Samuel Rogers and Francis Jeffrey.
Costa, Dennis John. “Dante as a Poet-Theologian.” In Dante Studies, LXXXIX (1971), 61-72.
One of the most abiding Christian theories of poetry holds that a trope can be an accurate, effective expression of divine mystery. Indeed, a close reading of the Christian theology of the Word reveals that the experience of conversion and the structure of a life of faith can enable a poet to feel free to write theology to teach divine truths. In the life of the poet-theologian, three elements seem to be crucial: a moral and intellectual ascesis spurred by grace, a gnosis or illumination of the nature of God and of the Word, a vocation to move men to virtue by means of poetry. This trajectory is precisely the one which the figure of Dante undergoes from the Vita Nuova to Paradiso XXXIII, in very detailed theological terms. The illumination of Paradiso XXXIII is not, perhaps the Beatific Vision beyond which nothing more can possibly be said. It is, rather, an intuition of the incarnation in its Trinitarian context. It is not an end-point, but chronologically central; it allows the poet, journey over, to write a poem conceived of in ethical terms, to make his “exemplum” applicable to all men. (D.J.C.)
Croce, Benedetto. The Poetry of Dante. Translated by Douglas Ainslie. Mamaroneck, N.Y.: P. P. Appel, 1971. vi, 313 p. port.
Reprint of the 1922 edition (New York: Henry Holt, also London, Allen and Unwin) of the well-known work. Contents: I. Introduction; II. The Young Dante and the Dante of the Comedy; III. The Structure and Poetry of the Comedy; IV. The Inferno; V. The Purgatorio; VI. The Paradiso; VII The Character and Unity of Dante’s Poetry; VIII. Historical Survey of Dantean Criticism; Index. The first complete edition of the original Italian version La poesia di Dante, appeared in 1921 (Bari: Laterza).
Elwert, W. Theodor. “Inferno, Canto III.” In Italian Quarterly, XV, No. 57 (1971), 23-45.
A lectura Dantis delivered at Cambridge in 1969, giving a fairly general interpretative reading of the canto.
Evans, Arthur R., Jr. “Erich Auerbach as European Critic.” In Romance Philology, XXV (1971), 193-215.
Review-article on Auerbach’s Gesammelte Aufsätze zur romanischen Philologie (Bern and München: Francke Verlag, 1967), with an appraisal of the critic’s work on Italian literature. Of the 26 articles, 10 deal directly or indirectly with Dante. (Cf. also Auerbach’s Studi su Dante [Milano: Feltrinelli, 1963] see 82nd Report, 48.)
Ferrucci, Franco. “Comedía.” In Yearbook of Italian Studies (Montreal), I (1971), 29-52.
Seeks to construe the meaning of Dante’s title, Comedía, through the only two occurrences of the term within the poem, in Inferno XVI, 128, and XXI, 2, rather than the subsequent explanation given in the Letter to Cangrande. Interpreting the word particularly in association with the episode of Geryon (taken both morally as symbol of fraud and aesthetically as a personification of the poetic lie, in keeping with the identity of Dante’s journey and the telling of it), the author contends that Dante uses the term comedía in recognition of the fact that he must resort to the menzogna of fable and metaphor for communicating his story to the reader. In sum, the poet called his poem comedía to reflect the utter inadequacy of human language to his lofty theme, the “divine tragedy” itself, the expression of which by such futile means can only be a comedy (without comic or blasphemous connotations).
Ferrua, Pietro. “El amor en Dante y en Antonio Machado.” In Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Conference on Foreign Languages, XXII (1971), 153-158.
Briefly characterizes the work of Dante and Machado and points out that while there are some Dantean echoes in Machado the two writers are metaphysically miles apart.
Fiedler, Leslie A. The Collected Essays of Leslie Fiedler. New York: Stein and Day, 1971. 2 v. (xxiii, 562; xii, 560 p.)
Vol. I contains an interpretative essay on Al poco giorno e al gran cerchio d’ombra, “Green Thoughts in a Green Shade: Reflections on the Stony Sestina of Dante Alighieri” (pp. 241-263), including a translation of the sestina (see above) originally published in Kenyon Review, XVIII (1956), 240-262 (see 75th Report, 20 and 22) and reprinted in his No! In Thunder: Essays on Myth and Literature (Boston: Beacon Press, 1960), pp. 21-43 (see 79th Report, 40 and 43, and 80th Report, 35). (For a review, see below.)
Francon, Marcel. “Montaigne, Dante et le Tasse.” In Bulletin de la Société des Amis de Montaigne, XXV-XXVI (1971), 121-123.
Contends that Montaigne’s citation in Italian of the proverbial saying made famous by Dante (Inf. V, 121-123) that recollection of past joy increases present pain can not be attributed to Tasso as immediate source.
Freedman, Alan. “Passages from the Divine Comedy in a Fourteenth-Century Hebrew Manuscript.” In Collected Essays on Italian Language and Literature Presented to Kathleen Speight, pp. 9-21.
Contends that the quotations from the Commedia cited in Giuda Romano’s Hebrew philosophical treatise do not represent accurately the original text of either Dante or Romano, but reflect corruptions by uncomprehending scribes and therefore cannot be taken as evidence of a Judaeo-ltalian koine.
Garratt, Walden. “Dante’s Friend.” In Ball State University Forum, XII, No. 4 (Autumn 1971), 47-50.
Tribute to the custodian of Dante’s tomb in Ravenna, with a description of the poet’s last resting-place.
Gilbert, Allan H. Dante’s Conception of Justice. New York: AMS Press, 1971. vii, 244 p.
Second printing: “First AMS edition published 1965. . .2nd printing 1971.” Originally published in 1925 (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press). (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 87.)
Golden, Herbert H., and Seymour O. Simches. Modern Italian Language and Literature: A Bibliography of Homage Studies. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1971. x, 207 p.
Reprint of the 1959 edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). This bibliography, indexing 1966 Festschriften from the Renaissance to 1957, registers a number of Dante studies that might otherwise go unnoticed. (See 78th Report, 31.)
Grayson, Cecil. “Machiavelli and Dante.” In Renaissance Studies in Honor of Hans Baron, edited by Anthony Molho and John A. Tedeschi (DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 1971), pp. 361-384.
Reviews the problem of date and authorship of the Dialogo intorno alla lingua, usually ascribed to 1514-1515 with Machiavelli as author and long regarded as an important document in the history of Italian and in the fortunes of Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia. Pointing out the inconsistencies between 1514-1515 attribution and Machiavelli’s then state of linguistic knowledge as well as between the severe criticism of Dante in the Dialogo and Machiavelli’s otherwise favorable attitude towards Dante, the author presents closely reasoned arguments for dating the Dialogo between 1525 and 1530, and leaves the question of actual authorship open to further inquiry.
Gualtieri, Angelo. “Lady Philosophy in Boethius and Dante.” In Comparative Literature, XXIII (1971), 141-150.
Cites Dante’s obvious admiration for Boethius as reflected especially in the Convivio and Divina Commedia, though his concept of philosophy differed from that of Boethius. The Convivio and the Consolatio Philosophiae are characterized as “consolatory” literature, and so the two works are seen to exhibit strong similarities; they are both autobiographical in nature, dealing with a time of personal stress, and they are designed to offer help to others. But the figure of Lady Philosophy in Dante and Boethius exhibits only a minimal resemblance. Where Dante’s Lady Philosophy looks with favor upon human endeavors, including the cultivation of the Muses, Boethius’ Lady scoffs at the Muses and concentrates upon the edification of the Spirit through knowledge concerning the summum bonum in a manner acceptable to a Christian theologian. Boethius’ Lady Philosophy which represents an early reconciliation of pagan and Christian thought, was decomposed by Dante into two parts in the Commedia, with Virgil first as guide to represent philosophy as such and then Beatrice to represent theology. The relative and distinctive fictions of philosophy and theology are more explicitly stated by Dante in the Monarchia. Boethius’ Lady Philosophy goes far beyond Dante’s “philosopher’’ Virgil in the ability to explain such matters as free will, providence, evil, etc., indeed leads to God, whereas in Dante’s scheme of things philosophy is limited to the human sphere in this life and must be supplemented by theology to carry us beyond to God. Since the figure of Lady Philosophy is central to Dante’s work, in order fully to understand his thought, it is imperative to bear in mind the role this allegorical figure plays in Boethius’ Consolatio.
Hatcher, Elizabeth R. “The Moon and Parchment: Paradiso II, 73-78.” In Dante Studies, LXXXIX (1971), 55-60.
Verses 73-78 of Par. II contain a puzzling cluster of metaphors describing the moon through images of starvation, meat, and books. After first describing the moon as “starving,” perhaps because its shadowed markings seemed to the poet like the sunken face of a famished man (cf. Purg. XXIII, 22-23), Beatrice then likens its rare-and-dense structure to the alternating fat and lean in “un corpo”—to meat which cures starvation. When she says that this rare and dense matter would “change pages” in the moon’s “volume,” she is not abandoning the meat image. Rather, she extends it to consider the appearance of animal skin finished as parchment for manuscripts. The “changing pages” refer to the alternation of light-colored, smooth, flesh-side openings and darker, rough, hair-side openings in all parchment volumes. Once we understand that this image refers to a characteristic of medieval books which made evident their animal origin, we grasp the coherence of Dante’s image pattern. (E.R.H.)
Hatzantonis, Emmanuel. “Variations of a Virgilian Theme in Dante and Lope de Vega.” In Pacific Coast Philology, VI (April 1971), 35-42.
Analyzes the adaptation, under Virgil’s influence, of the figure of Charon in Dante’s Inferno III and in Lope de Vega’s La Circe III, showing the differences in treatment—the first emphasizing the demonic nature of Charon as an agent of the Christian God and the second employing him simply as a symbol of pre-Christian savage fierceness. The two treatments thus reflect the historical moments, Middle Ages and Renaissance, in which the two poets were writing.
Hay, Denys. “The Italian View of Renaissance Italy.” In Florilegium Historiale: Essays Presented to Wallace K. Ferguson, edited by J. G. Rowe and W. H. Stockdale (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), pp. 3-17.
Includes discussion of Dante’s view of Italy as a geographical-cultural entity, especially in the De vulgari eloquentia. (For reviews of this volume, see above.)
Hayward, Ralph Malcolm, III. “Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s The Early Italian Poets: A Study in the Art of Translation.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXII (1971), 2643A.
Doctoral dissertation, Tulane University, 1971.
Herford, Charles Harold. Dante and Milton. [Folcroft, Penn.:] Folcroft Library Editions, 1971. 45 p.
Reprint of the essay which first appeared in the John Rylands Library Bulletin (Manchester, England), VIII (1924), 191-235. (“A lecture based upon this essay was delivered in the John Rylands Library, March 14, 1923.”) The author considers the two Catholic and Protestant geniuses as parallels in greatness, while distinguishing their differences, and concludes that Dante was the greater spirit, in part because of his completeness.
Iliescu, Nicolae. “Gli episodi degli abbracci nelle strutture del Purgatorio.” In Yearbook of Italian Studies (Montreal), I (1971), 53-63.
Examines the three episodes of embraces, or attempted embraces, between Dante and Casella (Purg. II), Virgil and Sordello (VI), and Virgil and Statius (XXI), and explains why only the second is possible of consummation. Virgil and Sordello, although both are shades, succeed in embracing because at that moment they are in the intermediary area of Anti-Purgatory, where the shades, not yet having reached the stage of penitence, are in suspension under the four stars representing the cardinal, human, virtues; Dante cannot embrace Casella because, as a living person, he does not participate in the purgatorial condition of his old friend; Virgil and Statius cannot embrace because, coming before Christ, Virgil is separated from the condition of his fellow-Mantuan by the three theological virtues and the “religione de la montagna.” All this is consistent with the poet’s rigorous observation of the structure and metaphysical implications of the various realms through which the Pilgrim passes.
Jackson, Margret. “‘Forse tu non pensavi ch’io loico fossi’: Traces of Formal Logic in the Divine Comedy.” In Romance Philology, XXIV (1971), 563-572.
Examines the argumentation in Guido da Montefeltro’s account in Inferno XXVII, remarks the rarity of finding formally sound arguments in a poem, and concludes that Dante was familiar with the old Stoic logic, his immediate source for which was very likely Cicero’s Topica. Another example of this kind of logic is cited in Par. II, 784.
Josipovici, Gabriel. The World and the Book: A Study of Modern Fiction. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press; London: Macmillan, 1971. xviii, 318 p.
Contains substantial reference to Dante, passim (esp. pp. 34-47, in the chapter on “The World as a Book,” and pp. 122-130, in the chapter on “Some Thoughts on the Rise of the Novel”). The author takes as point of vantage Dante and the art of the Middle Ages with their ordered conception of the world based on a series of analogies, in order to examine and define the modern novel with its labyrinthine and solipsistic qualities. (For a review, see above.)
Kaske, Carol V. “Mount Sinai and Dante’s Mount Purgatory.” In Dante Studies, LXXXIX (1971), 1-18.
Mount Purgatory fills the place of Mount Sinai in the re-enactment of the Exodus and also by virtue of its earthquake, its unapproachability, and its guardian. As such, it symbolizes God’s law—particularly the New Law of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. Climbing it—the pilgrim’s goal throughout the first two cantiche—therefore represents a fulfilling of divine law. It shares with the mountain which the pilgrim sees in the Prologue Scene the Sinaitic trait of inaccessibility, but like the New Law in contrast with the old and Natural Laws it can finally be attained with the help of Virgil (practical reason), humility, and grace. Hell, as its inverted cut-out image, contrasts with it as the Old or Mosaic Law contrasts with the New, inciting to virtue by condemnation and fear. Two earthquakes—one of Mount Purgatory and one of Hell—causing faintness in the pilgrim represent Mount Sinai as law causing weakness in its inadequate human subjects. Cato acts as a Moses (law-giver and seer) of the New and Natural Laws, representing human moral effort and vision cooperating with grace. (C.V.K.)
Kaske, R.E. “‘Sì si conserva il seme d’ogne giusto’ (Purg. XXXII, 48).” In Dante Studies, LXXXIX (1971), 49-54.
In the thirty-second canto of Dante’s Purgatorio, the activity around the great bare tree includes the Griffon’s brief speech “‘Sì si conserva il seme d’ogne giusto”—apparently a comment on his own immediate action of binding the car to the tree. The tree itself seems to represent literally the withered Tree of Knowledge, spiritually signifying human nature deprived of original justice by Adam’s fall. If so, the Griffon’s speech can be explained by way of Wisdom in 10:4 and 14:6-7 and their medieval commentaries, which present Noah as the “just man” of his own generation, emphasize the importance of him and his family as the “seed” of all future generations, and allegorize their preservation in the ark as the salvation of mankind through the Cross; in the Purgatorio, when the pole representing the Cross is applied by the Griffon (Christ) to the desiccated tree of human nature, the tree bursts into the fresh bloom of rejustification, again becoming spiritually “the seed of every just one.” The Griffon’s speech then falls into place as the first in an elaborate series of cumulative images, celebrating figuratively the regeneration of mankind through the Atonement and the resulting joyous tidings of Christianity. (R.E.K.)
Kuhns, Levi Oscar. The Treatment of Nature in Dante’s “Divina Commedia.” Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1971. vi, 208 p.
Reprint of the 1897 edition (London, New York: E. Arnold). Contents: Dante’s Conception of Nature.—Dante’s Conventional Treatment of Nature. —The Different Aspects of Nature as Seen in the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso.—Italy in the Divina Commedia.—The Physical Geography of the Divina Commedia.—Atmospheric Phenomena.—The Flora of the Divina Commedia.—The Fauna of the Divina Commedia.—The Heavenly Bodies.—Light, Fire, and Colour.—General Discussion of Dante’s Attitude toward Nature.
Levenson, Jon D. “The Grundworte of Pier delle Vigne.” In Forum Italicum, V (1971), 499-513.
Stresses the limitations of Spitzer’s otherwise perceptive analysis of the Pier delle Vigne episode in his well-known “Speech and Language in Inferno XIII,” which does not get to the very essence of Piero’s nature and thus leaves several questions unanswered. The author finds the basis for a fuller understanding of Piero in the phenomenon of estrangement and its relationship to the use of language as dealt with by Martin Buber in his I and Thou. Incapable of true identity through vital human relationships, as reflected in Buber’s Grundeworte theory of the I-thou and the I-it, Piero even in life manifested a warped nature, of schismatic imprisonment in his self-contradiction, which simply continues into the after life, where he is eternally mistaken for something (the plant) that is not his real self. Indeed the poet has so brilliantly employed the character-revealing qualities of language that “the contrappasso is intricately linked with all the speech images throughout the canto.” “The speech and language of Pier delle Vigne are a manifestation of that fundamental misorientation of the spirit which produces the cleavage in his existence.”
Lipson, Lawrence. “Apollinaire Student of Dante?” In Studi francesi, XV (1971), 98-100.
Finds some parallels in Les Colchiques and Le Brasier with elements in the later cantos of the Paradiso, suggesting Apollinaire’s interest in Dante as well as other areas of Italian literature.
Logan, J.L. “The Poet’s Central Numbers.” In MLN, LXXXVI (1971), 95-98.
Points out further number patterns in the central cantos of the Paradiso in support of C.S. Singleton’s discovery of numerical patterns at the center of the Purgatorio (MLN, LXXX [1965], 1-10; see Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 100) and in refutation of contrary arguments based on mathematical probability by R.J. Pegis (Mediaeval Studies, XXIX [1967], 370-373; see Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 147).
Manca, Marie A. “Harmony and the Poet: Six Studies in the Creative Ordering of Reality.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXII (1971), 2647A.
Doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1971. (Studies the art of Dante, Shakespeare, Rimbaud, Char, and W. H. Crane with respect to the two modes of Harmony according to Plato—seeking of transcendent order beyond discord, and Heraclitus—acceptance of discord as part of ultimate reality. Dante is seen to come closest to the Platonic vision of Harmony.)
Mandelstam, Osip. “Talking about Dante.” (Translated by Clarence Brown and Robert Hughes.) In Delos, No. 6 (1971), 65-106.
A highly imaginative critical appreciation and attempt at definition (enhanced by metaphorical analogies drawn from crystallography, chemistry, painting, the dance, and music) of Dante’s achievement in the Commedia as the greatest, “most powerful chemical conductor of a poetic composition.” Illustrations are drawn from many passages in the poem and affinities cited with several modern poets.
Marshall, Roderick. Italy in English Literature, 1755-1815: Origins of the Romantic Interests in Italy. [Folcroft, Pennsylvania:] Folcroft Library Editions, 1971. xiii, 432 p. front.
Reprint of the 1934 edition (New York: Columbia University Press). This doctoral dissertation, published as number 116 in the series “Columbia University Studies in English and Comparative Literature,” contains ample reference to Dante in the context of the general thesis. Indexed.
Mathews, J. Chesley. “Longfellow’s Dante Collection.” In Emerson Society Quarterly, No. 62 (Winter 1971), 10-22.
Presents a classified, descriptive list of works by and on Dante, including some non-literary items, originally accumulated by Longfellow and now preserved in the Longfellow House in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Meiklejohn, M.F.M. “The Identity of Dante’s Matelda.” In Collected Essays on Italian Language and Literature Presented to Kathleen Speight, pp. 23-27.
Suggests that Saint Matilda (895-968), wife of the German King Henry the Fowler and mother of Emperor Otto I, could have been a likely model for Dante’s Matelda.
Meiss, Millard. “A Note on the Marciana Dante and Its Signature.” In Art Bulletin, LIII (1971), 310-311.
Disagrees with Mirella Levi D’Ancona’s reading of the “signature” of Jacopo da Verona as illuminator on folio 6v of the Marciana Dante manuscript. Upon re-examination, Mr. Meiss finds the putative letters to be an accidental flaking off of the paint, and he does not consider the work attributable to Jacopo in any case.
Miller, Stephen. “Studies in the Idea of the City in Western Literature.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXI (1971), 6018A.
Doctoral Dissertation, Rutgers University, 1970. (Argues that Dante, Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, and Robert Lowell owe their ways of considering and describing the city to a body of classical and Christian conventions, while Whitman broke this tradition.)
Montano, Rocco. “Dante and Virgil.” In Yale Review, LX (1971), 550-561.
Contends that beyond being influenced by Virgil in terms of language, extended simile, and nature realism, Dante owed him a deeper, spiritual impact that brought him back to the Christian faith and to the vision of history as a manifestation of God, and away from Averroistic naturalism. The author goes on to document this development of the poet in the Convivio, Monarchia, and Divina Commedia, showing how Dante recognized the intellectual and moral achievements of the ancients but at the same time saw that world represented by Aristotle as being in itself insufficient and sterile. It was Virgil who provided the inspiration of a higher vision that alone gave meaning to the world. Thus Virgil, more than representing simply the lumen naturale of an Aristotle, “is the representative of the Roman world who has come closest to Christ and has developed the values of humanitas, religion, moral nobility on which Christianity was to rest.” Professor Montano stresses that Virgil played the same role in Dante’s mind in life as he does in the Commedia. But Virgil is still only a bearer of limited truth; artistically effective as a real historical individual at the same time universalized to a “symbol of man seeing per speculum in aenigmate.”
Montgomery, Marion. “Wordsworth’s False Beatrice. In Arizona Quarterly, XXVII (1971), 211-218.
Contends that Wordsworth was too much concerned with the things of nature to effect the kind of transubstantiation of love achieved by Dante through his lady. While he came to realize nature cannot function as Christ, as did Beatrice for Dante, neither was Lucy for him later the equivalent of a Beatrice figure as means of transcendence, because his was a false courtship of the Beloved. The English poet failed to separate Wordsworth the Pilgrim from Wordsworth the Poet sufficiently to allow, like Dante, for the drama of becoming and thereby the transformation of the lyric to high comedy.
Norton, Glyn P. “‘Contrapasso’ and Archetypal Metamorphoses in the Seventh ‘Bolgia’ of Dante’s Inferno.” In Symposium, XXV (1971), 162-170.
Attempts to explain the use of serpents and the nature of retribution in the bolgia of the thieves (Inf: XXIV-XXV) in terms of archetypal patterns of the human search for individuation, integration of personality, and consolidation of consciousness according to Jungian psychology. “In this very state of suspended dissociation frustrating all attempts at the integration of personality, the souls of ‘Bolgia’ 7 are doomed to enact their ritual of flux and metamorphosis, ever deprived of the wholeness of being.” The serpents as archetypal figure of transmutation and traditionally associated with evil are used by the poet as “thieving” agents constantly depriving the shades of self-identity, thus eternally punishing their forever disintegrated souls.
Park, Dabney Glenn, Jr. “Dante as a Reformer.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXII (1971), 865A.
Doctoral Dissertation. Tulane University, 1971.
Pellegrini, Anthony L. “American Dante Bibliography for 1970.” In Dante Studies, LXXXIX (1971), 107-131.
With brief analyses.
Perella, Nicolas J. “Bibliographic Note: Echoes of the Latest Dante Centennial.” In Romance Philology, XXV (1971), 261-262.
Notices the contents of the 1965 Centennial issues of Books Abroad and Italica. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 78 and 89.)
Piehler, Paul. The Visionary Landscape: A Study in Medieval Allegory. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1971. (Also, London: Edward Arnold.) (vi), 170 p.
Contains a chapter on ‘Dante” (pp. 111-143) focusing on The ‘Selva Selvaggia,’ The Vergilian Categories, The Redemption of Images, Dante’s Dialogue, and The Figure of Beatrice. The work as a whole deals analytically, in the light of modern—particularly Jungian—psychology, with medieval “visionary allegory” from the standpoint of a certain archetypal mental experience and its psychotherapeutic implications; and it attempts “an elucidation of medieval allegory in terms of its most important antecedents: the ancient myths, out of which developed its central imagery, and the classical dialogue, which contributed the basis of its intellectual structure.” As for specific procedure, the author states, “I treat each allegory under the following categories: the preliminary anguish; the subsequent prayers and invocation by which the hero of the allegory obtains access to the visionary world; the loci, the landscapes and habitations, of this world; the character of the chief person or persons he meets there; the dialogue which ensues between the hero and these persons.” In his searching analysis of Dante’s allegory, specifically, the author examines the seminal image of the selva in its symbolical and allegorical aspects as developed by the poet throughout the Comedy; the “Vergilian Categories” as they reflect an archetypal rites of passage; the gradual convergence of the seminal images of selva, monte, fiume ultimately in the sempiternal rose of Paradise; Dante’s skill in linking the therapeutic dialogue closely to images of landscape; the process of nominalistic potentiation of Beatrice from historical person to allegorical figure.
Powicke, F. M. Ways of Medieval Life and Thought: Essays and Addresses. Introduction by A. L. Rowse. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971. ix, 255 p. (Apollo Editions, A-295.)
Contains a paper on “Dante’s Romeo” (pp. 239-248), originally read in 1944 to the Oxford Dante Society, which surveys the historical and legendary information surrounding the figure of Romeo (Par. VI, 127-142) and seeks to sort out fact from fiction.
Priest, Paul Lambert. “Dante and the Song of Songs.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXI (1971), 6021A.
Doctoral dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1970.
Puppo, Mario. “Il concetto del ‘vivente’ nella critica dantesca di Francesco De Sanctis.” In Romanic Review, LXII (1971), 183-191.
Recognizing the importance of De Sanctis’ Dante criticism both for interpretation of the Commedia and for aesthetic theory, the author focuses on the critic’s emphasis on the vital element of the vivente in his definition of poetry in terms of forma viva, organismo vivo, unità organica. Professor Puppo discusses De Sanctis’ eventual departure from the influence of A. G. Schlegel and Hegel; his distinctions between poetry and science, poetry and allegory, idea and art; and especially, his aesthetics as revealed in practical criticism such as in the essay on Pier della Vigna, representing a landmark in systematic application to critical interpretation of the concept of art as a living entity. Associated with De Sanctis’ conception of art as “la vita in atto,” are such characteristics as individualità, passionalità, contrasto, and drammaticità, but especially the concrete individuality, or uniqueness, of each work of art. In the absence of a formal statement of his aesthetic theory and because of the evolution of his actual criticism, a number of inconsistencies inhere in De Sanctis’ application of the concept of the vivente and the analogy of art and life.
Radcliff-Umstead, Douglas. “Love in the Italian Sweet New Style.” In Innovation in Medieval Literature: Essays to the Memory of Alan Markman, edited by Douglas Radcliff-Umstead (Pittsburgh: Medieval Studies Committee, University of Pittsburgh, 1971), pp. 63-75.
Briefly surveys the three major Italian poets of the last quarter of the thirteenth century, Guinizelli, Calvacanti, and Dante, stressing their conception of the transcendent effect of pure creature-love as their major contribution to the lyrical tradition.
Roncaglia, Aurelio. ”Lectura Dantis: Inferno XXI.” In Yearbook of Italian Studies (Montreal), I (1971), 3-28.
Offers a close reading of Inferno XXI, analyzing particular aspects of scenario, structure, style, and language and their inter-relationships. Contrary to certain critics, the author does not see this episode among the demons in the nature of a digression or comic relief. Rather, he finds a heightened artistic detachment on the part of the poet, with the comic element objectified and distantiated and, concomitantly, a widened distinction and distantiation between Dante-poet and Dante-protagonist. Professor Roncaglia demonstrates that Dante’s art here, far from diminished, remains sustained and uncompromised.
Rosenthal, Earl. “Plus ultra, Non plus ultra, and the Columnar Device of Emperor Charles V.” In Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXXIV (1971), 204-228.
Investigating the origin of Charles V’s device, Plus ultra, the author concludes, in the absence of any tradition of the formerly posited Non or Ne plus ultra, that the emperor’s device apparently originated from Dante’s più oltre (Inf: XXVI, 109) in the Burgundian version, Plus oultre, which was then translated, for political reasons, into the (incorrect) Latin form of his device.
Satin, Joseph. “Macbeth and the Inferno of Dante.” In Forum (Houston), IX (1971), 19-23.
Discusses the Hell theme in Macbeth, pointing out traits of darkness and sleeplessness and other parallels more specifically with the ninth circle of traitor-murderers in the Inferno. Whether or not Shakespeare actually read, Dante these parallels are seen as significantly enhancing the Hell theme in the play.
Salloch, Erika. “The Divina Commedia as Model and Anti-Model for The Investigation by Peter Weiss.” In Modern Drama, XIV (1971), 1-12.
Shows the various ways in which Dante’s Commedia served Weiss in his drama about Auschwitz, The Investigation, both as positive model for his view of the world and for the structural composition and as anti-model or parody where Dante’s Christian doctrine is concerned. The author finds the Weiss play an epical drama in contrast to Dante’s “dramatic epos” (Eliot’s term).
Sarolli, Gian Roberto. Prolegomena alla “Divina Commedia.” Firenze: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1971. lxxi, 456 p. illus., plates (Biblioteca dell’”Archivum romanicum.” Serie I: 8toria-Letteratura-Paleografia Vol. 112.)
Brings together in one volume a number of his Dantean studies published between 1958 and 1966, along with further pieces written expressly for the volume, and printed here in their original language of composition (Italian, English). Contents: Parte I (“Mira profunditas”: Tradizione e innovazione)—Cap. 1. Autogenesi dantesca e tradizione esegetica medievale; 2. Strategia d’Autore: il Salmo CXIII e la polisemia; 3. Purgatorio II: dal Convivio alla Divina Commedia; 4. Profezia e Visione: profilo d’un genere letterario—(a) Dicotomia delle “Visioni”: Dante e Alano; (b) La visione dantesca come visione paolina; 5. Dalla Vita Nuova alla Commedia: gradatio stilistico-culturale; 6. I quattro “sensi” figurati: fondamenta strutturali della Commedia. Parte II (Dante scriba Dei: teoria e simbolo)—Cap. 1. Simbolismo tipologico: Natàn profeta di Salomone-Cristo (Par. X, 98-138; XII, 127-41)—(a) Natàn “elettore” di Salomone; (b) Natàn nel conflitto dei due poteri alla luce della teologia politica; (c) Natàn e la salvezza di Salomone; (d) Natàn e la tradizione evangelica; (e) Natàn o della dignita della profezia; (f) Natàn “quod interpretatur dantis”: equazione tipologica Natàn-Dante; 2. Dante e la teologia politica: Simbolismo cristologico e cristomimetico—(a) “DXV” e “Veltro”: simboli cristomimetici; (b) “Veltro” - “DXV” e i “Versus retrogradi”; (c) Parallelismi antitetici: Inferno Paradiso; (d) La “M” che diventa Aquila; 3. Dante poeta teologo-politico: Poesia come “milizia letteraria.” Appendici—1. “Ingigliarsi all’emme” (Par. XVIII, 113): Archetipo di poliunivoca concordanza; 2. Noterella biblica sui sette P. Parte III (“Summum bonum-Surnma pulchritudo” et contra)-Cap. 1. Musical Symbolism: Inferno XXI, 136-9, exemplum of Musica Diaboli versus Musica Dei; 2. Dante’s katabasis and Mission. The original places of publication of the reprinted items are duly cited in the “Avvertenza”; and an analytical index has been provided to the volume as a whole: “Indice dei nomi a delle cose notevoli” (pp. 423-453).
Sells, Arthur Lytton. The Italian Influence in English Poetry, from Chaucer to Southwell. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1971. 346 p.
Reprint of the 1955 edition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press; also, London: Allen and Unwin). (See 74th Report, 53.) Includes discussion of Dante’s influence in the period covered.
Shapiro, Marianne Goldner. “Woman, Earthly and Divine, in the Comedy of Dante.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXI (1971), 4794A.
Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1968.
Squires, Radcliffe. Allen Tate: A Literary Biography. New York: Pegasus, 1971. 231 p. (Pegasus American Authors.)
Includes references, passim (esp. pp. 165-171), to the Dantean influence in Tate’s work.
Storch, R.F. “The Fugitive from the Ancestral Hearth: Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses.’” In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, XIII (Summer 1971), 281-297.
Seeing a conflict between the contrary Western ideals of individual striving and commitment to home community as the ground of poetry for the Victorian poet in his “Ulysses,” the author draws parallels with the latter’s chief literary source, Dante’s Ulysses episode (Inf. XXVI), which also evinces an affinity between the explorer’s restlessness and the poet’s imagination just as in Tennyson’s poem.
Torrens, James. ”T.S. Eliot and the Austere Poetics of Valéry.” in Comparative Literature, XXIII (Winter 1971), 1-17.
Contends that, although Eliot was very much interested in Valéry in his early years, the influence of Dante and Arnold prevented his surrendering uncritically to the French critic’s ideas ofpoésie pure.
Toynbee, Paget. Dante Studies and Researches. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1971. viii, 359 p.
Reprint of the 1902 edition (London: Methuen). The volume represents a collection of seventeen articles previously published in various periodicals.
Trowbridge, Clinton W. “The Beatricean Character in the Novels of Charles Williams.” In Sewanee Review, LXXIX (1971), 335-343.
Discusses Williams’ increasingly skilful handling of the symbolic character in his novels, particularly from Barbara Rackstraw and Chloe Brunett to Lester Furnival, as inspired by his understanding of the polysemous role in which Dante cast his lady.
Vahid, S. A “Iqbal and Western Poets.” In Iqbal: Poet-Philosopher of Pakistan, edited by Hafeez Malik (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1971), pp. 347-379. The essay includes a section “Iqbal and Dante (pp. 369-377), in which the author discusses Dante as a stimulant (rather than a direct influence) of Iqbal (1877-1928), particularly as reflected in Javid-Namah, and points out likenesses and differences between this poem and the Divine Comedy.
Wicksteed, Philip Henry. Dante and Aquinas. (Being the substance of the Jowett Lectures of 1911.) New York: Haskell House, 1971. xii, 271 p.
Reprint of the 1913 edition (London and Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons; New York: E. P. Dutton and Company). Contents: I. Mediaeval Thought and Greek Philosophy; II. Neoplatonism and the Christian Neoplatonists; III. The Migrations of Aristotle and the Transformations of Aristotelianism; IV. St. Thomas Aquinas; V. Dante and Aquinas; VI. Psychology and the Doctrine of the Soul; VII. Hell; VIII. Purgatory; IX. Heaven; Postscript to chapter VI.
Williman, Joseph P. “Dante and Durandus: The Liturgical Cincture.” In Kentucky Romance Quarterly, XVIII (1971), 293-306.
Contends that William Durandus’ Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (1296), an encyclopedic classic on the medieval liturgy, with all the allegorical meanings associated with it, is made to order for “explicating the highly charged religious allegory of Dante’s Commedia,” although the work remains little known because of its relative unavailability in an adequate edition. The author observes that “it is highly probable that Dante knew and used the Rationale and that he would have acknowledged it as an allegorical summary of the liturgy of his time,” and in any case, “the two authors are in agreement on the nature of signs.” He goes on to exemplify this by applying Durandus’ description and interpretation of the sacramental cincture to the “corda’ in Inferno XVI and other cinctural references in the Inferno and in the Purgatorio. Mr. Williman concludes that the ceremonial of the church is really the key to fullest understanding of Dante’s poem.
Wlassics, Tibor. “Nota su Dante nell’Ulisse.” In Rivista di letterature moderne e comparate, XXIV (1971), 151-154.
Explicates a lyrical and obscure meditation (“Mouth, south . . . tomb, womb.”) found in Joyce’s Ulysses and identifies the source of the allusion to rhymes as “approaching girls” in colorful garb as the similarly imaged Dantean anecdote, very likely known to Joyce, that is cited in the commentary of Benvenuto da Imola.
Wlassics, Tibor. “Sulla rima e sull’ onomatopeia nella Commedia.” In Forum Italicum, V (1971), 400-415.
Examines a number of typical instances of onomatopoeia in the Divine Comedy, stressing that this poetic device is employed most naturally and effectively at the end of the verse, that is, in the rhyme, when used with mimetic or emotive intent by the poet. The author points out the variation in quality of rhymes observed by Dante among the three cantiche, there being relatively more harsh rhymes in the Inferno, relatively more sweet rhymes in the Paradiso, and a mixture in the Purgatorio. Besides the effects of onomatopoeia obtaining in the rhymes of the poem, there are, conversely, also muted effects by the use of “neutral” rhymes wherever the context demands, such as in quiet narrative or disquisitive passages.
Wlassics, Tibor. “La trinità della terzina (note di prosodia dantesca).” In Ausonia, XXVI, No. 1-2 (1971), 24-34.
Explores the trinitarian facets of Dante’s terza rima, the poet’s own invention inspired by his essentially triadic and syllogistic forma mentis as he contemplated the physical and metaphysical world. The author suggests analogies of the terza rima with the terzetto in musical terms and with the triptych of early painting. Finally, he focuses upon the third verse (as most powerful) of each tercet throughout the poem taken as a group, which the poet may have composed initially and independently of the poem’s context and which then effectively served as the determining element for completing the tercets. Thus, according to the author, in the third verses of the terzina taken as a group may lie the key to the poetics of Dante’s Commedia.
Reviews
The Divine Comedy. Translated, with a commentary, by Charles S. Singleton. [I.] Inferno... Bollingen Series, LXXX. [Princeton, N.J.:] Princeton University Press, 1970. 2 v. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIX, 107-108.) Reviewed by:
[Anon.], in Times Literary Supplement, 4 June 1971, p. 654;
Thomas G. Bergin, in Yale Review, LX (1971), 614-617;
Robert J. Clements, in Saturday Review, 6 February 1971, pp. 34-35;
Joan M. Ferrante, in Renaissance Quarterly, XXIV (1971), 518-519;
William J. Roscelli, in Library Journal, XCVI (1971), 2088-2089.
Dante’s Inferno. Translated with notes and commentary by Mark Musa. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1971. (See Dante Studies, XC, 175 and 189, and see above, main section, under Reviews.) Reviewed by:
Bernard F. Dick, in Saturday Review, 22 May 1971, pp. 37-38;
William J. Roscelli, in Library Journal, XCVI (1971), 483.
The Paradiso. A verse rendering for the modern reader by John Ciardi. Introduction by John Freccero. New York: New American Library, 1970. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIX, 108.) Reviewed by:
Thomas G. Bergin, in Yale Review, LX (1971), 614-617
Robert J. Clements, in Saturday Review, 6 February 1971, pp. 34-35.
Bergin, Thomas G. Dante. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1965. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 76, LXXXV, 115, LXXXVI, 154 and 163, and LXXXVIII, 204.) Reviewed by:
Antonio Di Preta, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXV (1971), 482.
Bergin, Thomas G. A Diversity of Dante. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1969. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVIII, 177-178, and LXXXIX, 124.) Reviewed by:
Pietro Ferrua, in Forum Italicum, V (1971), 650-654;
Clarence E. Turner, in Romanic Review, LXII (1971), 231.
Bergin, Thomas G. Perspectives on the Divine Comedy. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1970 [©1967, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey]. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 139-140, LXXXVII, 174, and LXXXIX, 109 and 124.) Reviewed by:
Marianne Shapiro, in Romance Philology, XXV (1971), 259-260.
Boyde, Patrick. Dante’s Style in His Lyric Poetry. Cambridge, [Eng.:] At the University Press, 1971. Reviewed by:
[Anon.], in Times Literary Supplement, 15 October 1971, p. 1292.
Brieger, Peter, Millard Meiss, and Charles S. Singleton. Illuminated Manuscripts of the Divine Comedy. Bollingen Series, LXXXI. [Princeton, N.J.:] Princeton University Press, 1969. (Also, a British edition, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969.) 2 v. illus. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVIII, 161-168 and 178, LXXXIX, 125.) Reviewed by:
Patrick Boyde, in Renaissance Quarterly, XXIV (1971), 357-358;
Mirella Levi D’Ancona, in Art Bulletin, LIII (1971), 118-121;
J. H. W. [John H. Whitfield], in Italian Studies, XXVI (1971), 90-93.
Cambon, Glauco. Dante’s Craft: Studies in Language and Style. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVIII, 179, and LXXXIX, 125.) Reviewed by:
Robert Dombroski, in Modern Philology, LXIX (1971), 59-60;
Joan M. Ferrante, in Renaissance Quarterly, XXIV (1971), 49-51;
D. J. B. Robey, in Modem Language Review, LXVI (1971), 200-201;
Riccardo Scrivano, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXV (1971), 241-242.
Corrigan, Beatrice, ed. Italian Poets and English Critics, 1755-1859: A Collection of Critical Essays. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. Includes a number of essays on Dante. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVIII, 181-182 and 196, and LXXXIX, 131.) Reviewed by:
Daniel J. Donno, in Italica, XLVIII (1971), 390-391.
Dante da Maiano. Rime. Introduzione, testo critico e commento di Rosanna Bettarini. Firenze: Le Monnier, 1969. (Cf. relation to Dante, particularly the poetical exchange.) Reviewed by:
Michelangelo Picone, in Yearbook of Italian Studies (Montreal), I (1971), 329-333.
Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, Vols. LXXXIV-LXXXVI. (1966-1968). Reviewed by:
Marianne Shapiro, in Romance Philology, XXIV (1971), 536-538. .
Di Salvo, Tommaso. Lettura critica della Divina Commedia. Firenze: La Nuova Italia Editrice, 1969. 3 v. (vii, 382; 308; 302 p.) Reviewed by:
Joseph Rossi, in Italica, XLVIII (1971), 499-501.
Donadoni, Eugenio, A History of Italian Literature. With additional materials on twentieth-century literature by Ettore Mazzali and Robert J. Clements. Translated by Richard Monges. New York: New York University Press; London: University of London Press, 1969. 2 v. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVIII. 183.) Reviewed by:
Richard Andrews, in Modern Language Review, LXVI (1971), 909-911.
Fiedler, Leslie A. The Collected Essays of Leslie Fiedler. New York: Stein and Day, 1971. 2 v. Contains an essay on Dante. “Green Thoughts in a Green Shade: Reflections on the Stony Sestina of Dante Alighieri,” with a translation of the sestina. (See above, under Studies.) Reviewed by:
Thomas Lask, in New York Times, 24 August 1971, p. 39.
Fletcher, Jefferson Butler. Dante. With an introduction by Mark Musa. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 84-85.) Reviewed by:
Nicolas J. Perella, in Romance Philology, XXIV (1971), 560-561.
Hollander, Robert. Allegory in Dante’s “Commedia”. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVIII, 185-186, and, LXXXIX, 125.) Reviewed by:
Thomas G. Bergin, in Speculum, XLVI (1971), 380-382.
Lazzarini, Lino, ed. Dante e la cultura tedesca. Padova: Università degli Studi di Padova, 1967. 204 p. Reviewed by:
Glyn P. Norton, in Italica, XLVIII (1971), 93-96.
The Meaning of Courtly Love. Edited by F. X. Newman. (Papers of the first annual conference of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies. State University of New York at Binghamton, 17-18 March 1967.) Albany State University of New York Press, 1968. x, 102 p. Contains: Charles S Singleton, “Dante: Within Courtly Love and Beyond,” pp. 43-54. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVII, 170-171.) Reviewed by:
Charles Muscatine, in Speculum XLVI (1971), 747-750.
Negri, Renzo. Due temi danteschi. Bologna: R. Pàtron, 1968. [“Estratto” from Convivium, XXIV, Nos. 1-4 (1966): “Omaggio a Dante.”] Contains “Lo suo fatale andare” and “La caducità.” Reviewed by:
Natalia Costa-Zalessow, in Forum Italicum, V (1971), 284-285.
Perella, Nicolas J. The Kiss Sacred and Profane: An Interpretative History of Kiss Symbolism and Related Religio-Erotic Themes. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969. Contains sections of Dantean interest. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVIII, 190-191, and LXXXIX, 126.) Reviewed by:
John V. Fleming, in Italica, XLVIII (1971), 497-499;
Riccardo Scrivano, In Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXV (1971), 402-403.
Pipa, Arshi. Montale and Dante. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1968. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVII, 167, LXXXVIII, 197, and LXXXIX, 126.) Reviewed by:
G. Singh, in Italica, XLVIII (1971), 402-405.
Singleton, Charles S. Viaggio a Beatrice. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1968. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVII, 171, and XC, 198.) Reviewed by:
Mario Marti, in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, CXLVIII (1971), 589-594.
Vallone, Aldo. La prosa del “Convivio.” Firenze: Le Monnier, 1967. (Bibliotechina del Saggiatore, no. 26). Reviewed by:
Aldo Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXV (1971), 150.
