American Dante Bibliography for 1984

Christopher Kleinhenz and Anthony L. Pellegrini

This bibliography is intended to include the Dante translations published in this country in 1984 and all Dante studies and reviews published in 1984 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 our special thanks go to the following graduate students at the University of Wisconsin: Tonia Bernardi, Giuseppe Candela, Scott Eagleburger, Jay Filipiak, Edward Hagman, John Meany, Pauline Scott, Elizabeth Serrin, and Scott Troyan. 

 

Translations

The Divine Comedy. Vol. 1: Inferno. Translated with an introduction, notes, and commentary by Mark Musa. Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin Books, 1984. 430 p. illus., diagrs.

This translation, originally published in 1971 by Indiana University Press (see Dante Studies, XC, 175), is here reprinted without the R.M. Powers drawings but with the addition of diagrams of Dante’s Hell, “An Introduction to Dante and His Works,” a “Glossary and Index of Persons and Places,” and a “Selected Bibliography.” Also, the arguments are prefixed to their respective cantos.

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. [II. Purgatorio.] A verse translation, with an introduction, by Allen Mandelbaum. Notes by Laury Magnus, Allen Mandelbaum, and Anthony Oldcorn, with Daniel Feldman. Drawings by Barry Moser. Toronto, N.Y.: Bantam Books, 1984. xxx, 411 p. illus., diagrs (Bantam Classics.)

Paperback reprint of the original edition by University of California Press, 1982 (see Dante Studies, CI, 193), with the addition of diagrams and annotations to the text.

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. [III. Paradiso.] A verse translation, with introductions and commentary by Allen Mandelbaum. Drawings by Barry Moser. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1984. xxi, 307 p. illus. (“The California Dante.”)

The first volume, Inferno, appeared in 1980, the second, Purgatorio, in 1982 (see Dante Studies, XCIX, 173-174, and CI, 194, respectively). There are 19 pen and wash drawings to illustrate the cantica.

Dante’s Paradise. Translated with notes and commentary by Mark Musa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. vii, 405 p. Illus.

The Inferno and Purgatory in this translation were published in 1971 and 1981, respectively (see Dante Studies, XC, 175 and 189, and C, 134). The Paradise, like the Purgatory, volume comes with a bibliographical list of “References.”

“Paolo and Francesca.” Translated by Francis Blessington. In Italian Quarterly, XXV, No. 96 (Spring), 107-110. [1984]

A version in free verse of line 25 to the end of Inferno V.

Paradiso: Cantos XXX-XXXIII.” Translated by James Finn Cotter. In Italian Quarterly, XXV, No. 96 (Spring), 91-106. [1984]

An unrhymed version in verse, observing the tercet divisions, of the last four cantos of the cantica.

 

Studies

Adams, Shirley. “The Role of Sense Perception in the Divine Comedy.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XLIV, No. 11 (May), 3379A. [1984] Doctoral dissertation, University of California, San Diego, 1983.

Ahern, John. “Dante’s Last Word: The Comedy as a liber coelestis.” In Dante Studies, CII, 1-14. [1984]

Contends that, besides constituting the usually cited thematic motif, Dante’s closing of each cantica with stelle (1) serves as a built-in explicit and textual safeguard and (2) innovatively combines two traditional metaphors, the book of the heavens and the alphabet of the stars. After tracing a brief historical sketch of these metaphors from their Greek, Hebrew, and exegetical sources, the author shows how Dante links them to the actual format of the Comedy, emphasizing book-making as an imitation of divine creation. In short, “the scribal activities of God, Poet-Pilgrim, and Reader-Copyist are analogous.”

Alford, John A., and Dennis P. Seniff. Literature and Law in the Middle Ages: A Bibliography of Scholarship. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1984. xvi, 292 p.

Contains an Italian section dominated by Dante with 74 entries (Items 721-794) annotated in accordance with the thematic focus of the work: “the relationship between medieval literature and law.” Contents: Introduction; List of Abbreviations; The Bibliography—General, Latin, Old and Middle English, German, Icelandic, French and Provençal, Italian, Hispanic; Author Index, Subject Index.

Arrowsmith, William. “Ruskin’s Fireflies.” In Pequod, XVI-XVII (1984), 156-179.

Examines “one of the most prominent instances of a ‘saturated’ image or obsessional metaphor in Ruskin—the famous fireflies” with some references to Dante (Inf. XVII, XXVI, XXX; Par. XXX).

Barolini, Teodolinda. Dante’s Poets: Textuality and Truth in the “Comedy.” Princeton: Princeton University Press. xiv, 312 p.

Examines Dante’s critical treatment of earlier poets and his autocitations as well as the significance of their distribution in the Commedia, but more important for marking his own development as a poet from the lyrical tradition to his ultimate achievement as a new Virgil, bearer of truth. Contents: . . . Preface; I. Autocitations and Autobiography—Prelude: the Inferno; Textual History; “Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona”; “Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore”; “Voi che ‘ntendendo il terzo ciel movete”; II. Lyric Quests—Historiography Revisited: “‘l Notaro e Guittone e me”; Fathers and Sons: Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti; Poetry of Politics: Bertrand and Sordello; The Lyric Picture: Patterns of Revision; III. Epic Resolution— Prelude: the Opere minori; Vergil: “Poeta fui”; Statius: “Per te poeta fui”; Dante: “ritornerò poeta”; Appendix. Dante’s Poets; Index.

Becker, Christopher. “Justice among the Centaurs.” In Forum Italicum, XVIII, No. 2 (1984), 217-229.

Treats the relationship between the dual nature of the physical form of the centaurs, half man and half beast, and its counterpart in human nature, that is, the combination of natural (animal) appetites with rational (human) judgment. Furthermore, in the double-breasted centaurs one finds a graphic representation not only of human nature but also of human politics, because for Dante the politics of the state begin with the politics of the self, and in a correctly ordered state or individual, rational judgment must always overcome mindless appetite. In Inferno XII, then, “the allegory is not only of the right ordering of the body and soul, but also of the well-ordered state; for Dante the two are inseparable.”

Borgia, Carl Ralph. “Notes on Dante in the Spanish Allegorical Poetry of Imperial, Santillana, and Mena.” In Hispanofila, XXVII, No. 3 (May, 1984), 1-10.

Surveys the differing critical views on the nature of allegory in the Divine Comedy and notes the very different conception of this literary mode by three fifteenth-century Spanish poets—Francisco Imperial, the Marqués de Santillana, and Juan de Mena—who, nevertheless, acknowledge Dante’s influence on the form if not the meaning of their works.

Brownlee, Kevin. “Phaeton’s Fall and Dante’s Ascent.” In Dante Studies, CII, 135-144. [1984]

Examines the six references—three direct, three indirect—to Ovid’s Phaeton (Met. II and VIII) in the Commedia, and notes a pattern, reinforced by the numerologically symmetrical occurrence of the direct references in Canto XVII of the three cantiche and by the guidance element in the indirect references. An inverted parallel obtains between Dante protagonist and Phaeton of the subtext, the first as a “corrected Phaeton” who achieves a successful ascent with a guide appropriate to each stage, the second who suffers a disastrous descent of his own doing, i.e., without a guide. The effective structuring of the six references to Phaeton serves to highlight Dante’s upward journey.

Brownlee, Kevin. “Why the Angels Speak Italian: Dante as Vernacular Poeta in Paradiso XXV.” In Poetics Today, V, No. 3 (Special issue: “Medieval and Renaissance Representation: New Reflections”), 597-610. [1984]

Finds a pattern of authorial strategy in the Commedia with increasing use of the vernacular in religious contexts, in order to endow Italian with authority to stand beside Latin for serious purposes, and with this an exaltation of Dante’s status to that of poeta, even theology.” With numerically reinforcing symmetry, the groundwork is laid already in the Vita Nuova XXV, and the pattern elaborated in Inferno XXV and Purgatorio XXV, and intensified in the Paradiso, culminating in Canto XXV, where Dante expresses the hope of one day returning to Florence as a poeta (v. 8).

Brownlee, Marina Scordilis. “The Generic Status of the Siervo libro de amor: Rodríguez del Padrón’s Reworking of Dante.” In Poetics Today, V, No. 3 (Special issue: “Medieval and Renaissance Representation: New Reflections”), 629-643. [1984]

Examining the Dantean echoes in the Siervo, the author contends that Rodriguez is motivated intertextually to undermine Dante’s position on the spiritualized woman, Beatrice, the rehabilitation of the pagans in Christian terms, and even the conflating of the world and eternity as one theocentric system. Against the hitherto accepted generic classification of the Siervo as the first novela sentimental, she holds that it is rather in the medieval tradition of the “erotic pseudoautobiography,” and as such can illuminate the historical contention between innovative literary trends and the conservative tradition.

Butler, Robert J. “Dante’s Inferno and Ellison’s Invisible Man: A Study in Literary Continuity.” In College Language Association Journal, XXVIII, No. 1 (Sept.), 57-77. [1984]

Points out a number of Dantean echoes and parallels in Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, such as images of circularity and elements of tripartite arrangement reinforcing the narrative structure, reflections of specific examples of sin, infernal enclosure, and surrealistic landscape, to show that Dante’s influence, long overlooked by critics, was crucial to the development and efficacy of the novel.

Carne-Ross, D.S. “Giants in Dwarfs’ Jackets.” In New York Review of Books, XXXI, No. 20 (Dec. 20), 9-12. [1984]

Review-article on Allen Mandelbaum’s translation of the Paradiso (see above, under Translations), with references to the Binyon and Sisson versions as well.

Cassell, Anthony K. Dante’s Fearful Art of Justice. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press, 1984. xiv, 186 illus. (34 halftone pls.)

Deals principally with symbolic representation of the “state of souls after death” in the Inferno as reflecting the justice of God’s unchanging punishment, strictly reasoned and based on Old Testament retribution (lex talionis). Proceeding from certain assumptions—that the Epistola to Can Grande is substantively if not authorially genuine, that the Commedia represents a new kind of secular writing, i.e., in imitation of God’s way of writing, that the poem reflects in itself the divine plan of history, including pagan history directed to Christian ends (De Monarchia)—the author interprets polysemously a number of key episodes in the first cantica, respecting the artistic wholeness of Dante’s deft presentation of the poem as a “paradigm of moral lesson” as well as an aesthetic and emotional experience for the reader. Contents: . . . Note on Works Cited and Abbreviations; [Chapter] 1. Justice and Contrapasso; 2. Farinata; Pier Della Vigna; 4. Avarice and Suicide; 5. The Gran Veglio; 6. The Idolaters; 7. Ulysses; 8. Satan; Plates; List of Plates; Notes; Index. Previously published essays are duly indicated as being incorporated in whole or in part, variously revised, in chapters 2, 3-4, 7, and 8 (see Dante Studies, XCVI, 216-218, CII, 148, C, 137, and XCVIII, 163, respectively).

Cassell, Anthony K. “The Letter of Envy: Purgatorio XIII-XIV.” In Stanford Italian Review, V, No. 1 (Spring), 5-22. [1984]

Concentrating particularly on Purgatorio XIII the author traces the Christian and classical elements in Dante’s presentation of the terrace of Envy, illustrating how the stark visual imagery and economy of language serve to evoke these elements by allusion. Specific points discussed include: the stone-like qualities of the repentant sinners, their sewn-shut eyelids, and Sapia’s speech.

Castle, Ellen E. “Wittgenstein and Practical Criticism: Readings in Dante, Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XLIV, No. 11 (May), 3386A. [1984] Doctoral dissertation, Boston College, 1984.

Argues for “a more natural reading of Dante’s allegory . . . based on Wittgenstein’s argument against the primacy of private experience and his emphasis on the adequacy of public convention.”

Chance, Jane. “The Medieval Sources of Cristoforo Landino’s Allegorization of the Judgment of Paris.” In Studies in Philology, LXXXI, No. 2 (Spring), 145-160. [1984]

In the last two books of his Disputationes Camaldulenses, Landino presents an allegorization of the Aeneid. The Judgment of Paris is linked to Aeneas’ journey with each of the three goddesses being connected to one of the three major locations and to a stage in the psychological life of man. The author draws the following associations: (1) Venus: Troy: voluptuous; (2)Juno: Carthage: active; (3) Pallas Athena: Italy: contemplative. This allegory is, then, related to Landino’s commentary on the Divine Comedy, especially Inferno I-III and Purgatorio XXVII.

Chiampi, James T. “Consequentia Rerum: Dante’s Pier della Vigna and Vine of Israel.” In Romanic Review, LXXV, No. 2 (March), 162-175. [1984]

Argues that Pier della Vigna represents the spiritual fate of Israel and the Israelites, referred to in Psalm 80 as God’s vineyard, and by extension the spiritual fate of political Europe, and finally the fate of the individual human soul who has rejected eternal life through adoration of God in favor of devotion to earthly and transient matter. This is only made clear in retrospect, after a reading of the entire poem when upon reflection one finds that Pier’s repudiation of eternal life through the resurrection of the body suggests “in malo” all that Purgatory and Paradise promise. Ironically, Pier has become a perverse image of God.

Chiampi, James T. “The Fate of Writing: The Punishment of Thieves in the Inferno.” In Dante Studies, CII, 51-60. [1984]

Examines the punishment of the thieves in Inferno 24-25 where Dante’s various use of the writing metaphor links his poetic act to the process of spiritual reformation. Essential to the interpretation is the established notion of Christ as the figure of the supreme instance of the book—the totality of meaning, in whom Divine Scripture is fulfilled (Hugh of St. Victor). Conforming to Christ’s way, Dante’s writing in charity leads back to likeness with God, whereas the sinning of the thieves conforms with the serpent that is Lucifer. Thus, Dante’s reforming of the imago Dei within him through writing the Commedia undertaken in charity is glossed by its contrary, the punishment of the thieves, who are antitypes of the redeemed poet.

Cleary, Thomas R., and Terry G. Sherwood. “Women in Conrad’s Ironical Epic: Virgil, Dante, and Heart of Darkness.” In Conradiana, XVI, No. 3 (1984), 183-194.

Examines the parallels between the Divine Comedy and Conrad’s novel and how Dante’s influence helps “guide his conception of the symbolic journey and shape his ironic treatment of women and their crucial role in the journey.”

Collins, James. Pilgrim in Love: An Introduction to Dante and His Spirituality. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1984. xvi, 287 p.

Offers an introduction to Dante for the general reader, briefly presenting an account of the poet’s life and short treatment of the Vita Nova and the Convivio, but concentrating on the Divine Comedy and focusing particularly on “two themes of Dante’s life and spirituality: pilgrimage and love.” Contents: Foreword (by David Tracy); Preface; Dante Alighieri: A Biographical Sketch; PART ONE. An Overview of Dante’s Works—The New Life; The Banquet; The Divine Comedy: An Introduction; PART TWO. Commentary on Selected Cantos of the ComedyHell; Purgatory: Through Canto 16; Purgatory: From Canto 17; Paradise: Through Canto 13; Paradise: From Canto 14; Bibliography.

Cooksey, Thomas L. “Dante’s England, 1818: The Contribution of Cary, Coleridge, and Foscolo to the British Reception of Dante.” In Papers on Language and Literature, XX, No. 4 (Fall), 355-381. [1984]

Credits Henry Francis Cary, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Ugo Foscolo with favorably transforming the reception and reading of Dante in 1818. This results not so much from a shift in taste as from a shift to a new hermeneutic.

Cooksey, Thomas L. “Rossetti’s Intellegenza nova: Perception, Poetry and Vision in Dante at Verona.” In Victorian Newsletter, LXVI (Fall, 1984), 10-13.

Discusses Rossetti’s use of Dante’s Vita Nuova and especially the theme of political exile in Dante at Verona.

Cowan, Bainard. “Dante, Hegel, and the Comedy of History.” In The Terrain of Comedy, edited with an introduction by Louise Cowan (Dallas: Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, 1984), 89-109.

Discusses the general theory of “comedy” and Dante’s particular notion of this genre, with a consideration of Hegel’s philosophy of history.

Daigle, Marsha Ann. “Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Fiction of C.S. Lewis.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XLV, No. 2 (August), 513A. [1984] Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 1984.

Analyzes how each of Lewis’ fourteen novels is indebted in varying degree to Dante’s art in the Commedia.)

Davis, Charles T. Dante’s Italy, and Other Essays. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984. xii, 342 p. frontis.

Gathers together a number of diverse yet related studies, all but the first, along with an appendix on recent Malispini scholarship, previously published, including several of particularly Dantean interest. Contents: Preface; Introduction; 1. Dante’s Italy; 2. Dante’s Vision of History; 3. Poverty and Eschatology in the Commedia; 4. Il buon tempo antico (The Good Old Time); 5. The Malispini Question; 6. Education in Dante’s Florence; 7. Brunetto Latini and Dante; 8. An Early Florentine Political Theorist: Fra Remigio de’ Girolami; 9. Roman Patriotism and Republican Propaganda: Ptolemy of Lucca and Pope Nicholas III; 10. Ptolemy of Lucca and the Roman Republic; Appendix: Recent work on the Malispini Question; Bibliography; Index. Places of original publication are duly indicated. For the essays dealing substantially with Dante see Dante Studies, as follows: for number 2: XCIV, 159-160; 3: XCIX, 178; 4: LXXXVIII, 200; 6: LXXXIV, 83; 7: LXXXVI, 143; and 10: XCIII, 228.

De Bonfils Templer, Margherita. “Elisio e Tartaro nell’Inferno dantesco (Pegaso e Medusa).” In Dante Studies, CII, 37-49. [1984]

Compares and contrasts the pagan conception of Elysium and Tartarus in Dante’s Inferno (4 and 9) incorporating the pagan notions of Hell or Hades within a Christian notion of Hell, with the difference that deliverance from the terror of death is possible through Grace in Dante’s world, while insuperable in the classical world. Interestingly, according to mythology, Pegasus, who with his hoof struck the font of the Muses, was born of the blood of the Medusa. It is only fitting that the ancient greats, including Virgil, dwell in Dante’s nobile castello, or Limbo, the equivalent of Elysium. Pagan world and Christian world are dramatically contrasted by Dante at the gates of Dis, where, contrary to other interpreters, the author contends that Medusa represents spiritual death, while the unique intervention of the angelic messenger (Inf. 11) represents Grace, recalling the redeeming value of the Crucifixion and the descent of Christ into Hell. Also noted is the inverted parallelism of the Medusa episode and that of the femmina balba of Purgatorio 19, each coming at a critical transition, structurally—in the case of the first from the sins of incontinence to the graver sins of the spirit.

Di Scipio, Giuseppe C. The Symbolic Rose in Dante’s “Paradiso.” Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1984. 178 p. illus., diagrs. (L’Interprete, 42.)

A study of the White Rose (Par. 32) in its originality, perfection, harmony, and unity of Dante’s vision. Treated are the structure of the Rose, the personae, symbolism, numerology, geometric symmetry, and relationship with Gothic architecture and figurative arts. Contents: Introduction: Status Quaestionis; I. Tradition and Innovation; II. Structure of the Rose; III. The Personae of the Rose—i. The Hebrew Women, ii. Remaining Figures; IV. Numerical Symbolism; V. The Rose and Gothic Cathedral; Conclusion; Appendix; Index. One chapter, “The Hebrew Women,” is much reworked and expanded from an earlier version, “The Hebrew Women in Dante’s Symbolic Rose,” published in Dante Studies, CI (1983), 111-121 (see Dante Studies, CII, 151-152).

Dougherty, Jay. “T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ and Dante’s Divine Comedy.” In Explicator, XLII No. 4 (Summer), 38-40. [1984]

Contends that to appreciate the pertinence of the Guido passage (Inf. 27.61-66) set as epigraph of the Love Song we must consider the totality of the Dantean episode and Eliot’s poem and their contrasting settings—the Christian world of the Divine Comedy and the barren modern world of Prufrock.

Economou, George D. “Self-Consciousness of Poetic Activity in Dante and Langland.” In Vernacular Poetics in the Middle Ages, edited by Lois Ebin (Studies in Medieval Culture, XVI; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1984), 177-198.

Sees in the Casella episode (Purg. 2) with its incorporation of a previous philosophical poem of Dante’s within the context of the total vision and certain specific passages of the Commedia, evidence of the poet’s self-evaluation in his poetic career within the tradition of poetry, and contrasts this with Langland’s self-evaluation and justification of this role as poet among a particular class of minstrels. The author contends that, unlike Dante whose experience as poet is assessed under the aspect of eternity, Langland finds his salvation in his poem-making on the model of the parable of seeding of the field in Matthew 13, from which Langland cites a key line in his own poem.

Elledge, Jim. “Dante’s Lovers in Sherwood Anderson’s ‘Hands’.” In Studies in Short Fiction, XXI, No. 1 (Winter), 11-15. [1984]

Postulates George Willard as a modern analogue to Dante’s poet/pilgrim, as well as representing Winesburg, Ohio as similar both structurally and thematically to the Divina Commedia. Specifically, the article compares Inferno 5 to the short story “Hands.” The author draws a number of interesting parallels while ignoring others, for example, the pervasive use of bird imagery in both texts. The article concludes with the observation that Wing Biddlebaum’s tortuous existence constitutes a “penance,” though unlike Paolo and Francesca he is innocent of the sin he was accused of committing and his “hell” is therefore a self-created one.

Ellrich, Robert J. “Envy, Identity, and Creativity: Inferno XXIV-XXV.” In Dante Studies, CII, 61-80. [1984]

In keeping with Dante’s holistic procedure, the author seeks to relate details of interpretation here to the underlying design and hidden meanings, in this episode “organized around Dante’s perception of theft as a movement of envy whose consequences are the negation of identity and creativity.” Envy, stemming from the root sin of pride, leads here to theft or illegitimate appropriation to exceed one’s duly appointed lot in the divinely ordained order, and therefore involves an act of turning away from God. The author elaborates on the implications of the sin of theft as it “analogizes outward, through its moral and psychological meanings, towards the political, the poetic, and the theological.” Unlike the thieves’ misappropriation by transgressing upon another’s goods and identity, Dante’s appropriation from poets of the past participates in a natural process of acknowledging indebtedness to them while progressing in creative innovation. Fresh interpretations are also offered of several other aspects of this episode—numerological references to 6, 5, and 7; the relation of Cantos 24-25 to 5 and 26; Vanni Fucci as the key to understanding the pervasive erotic motif and aspects of theft; the rustic opening of 24 linked to the end of 25; the poet’s seeming boast over Ovid and Lucan in 25.

Ferrante, Joan M. “Farai un vers de dreyt nien: The Craft of the Early Trobadors.” In Vernacular Poetics in the Middle Ages, edited by Lois Ebin (Studies in Medieval Culture, XVI; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1984), 93-128.  

Investigates the technical achievement of six major and chronologically representative Provençal poets—Guillem IX, Marcabru, Jaufré Rudel, Bernart de Ventadorn, Raimbaut, and Arnaut Daniel—and concludes with a brief discussion of Dante’s debt to and elaboration of the literary language and techniques created by them.

Ferrante, Joan M. The Political Vision of the “Divine Comedy. “ Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. ix, 392 p.

Focuses on the political dimension of the Comedy, with particular attention to three areas of major concern to Dante—the individual and society, city and empire, the church and the secular state—as variously evinced in the Convivio, the Monarchy, and the letters, as well as the Comedy. For implicit in Dante’s relatively greater emphasis on public issues and their effects on society is the recognition that personal morality is impossible in a corrupt society. The study seeks “to analyze the political concepts expressed in the Comedy in relation to contemporary history and theory, and to define the political message(s) of the poem.” Contents: . . . Introduction: Political Theory and Controversy; 1. City and Empire in the Comedy; 2. Church and State in the Comedy; 3. The Corrupt Society: Hell; 4. Society in Transition: Purgatory; 5. The Ideal Society: Paradise; 6. Exchange and Communication, Commerce and Language in the Comedy; Index.

Frankel, Margherita. “Dante’s Anti-Virgilian Villanello (Inf. XXIV, 1-21).” In Dante Studies, CII 81-109. [1984]

Analyzes the much-debated opening verses of Inferno 24.1-21, and construes the long simile, deliberately designed to oppose the high style of Virgil (the vehicle, vv. 1-6) and Dante’s sermo humilis of the successful villanello section (the tenor, w. 7 ff. ), representative of Dante and his poem itself. The villanello’s quiet faith and humility, recalling the Scriptural “poor in spirit,” stands in marked contrast to Virgil’s manifest pride and self-confidence, not to mention his pinning hopes for fame on the text of his “alta tragedia,” the Aeneid, while unaware of the more important Christian significance imbedded in his work. The episode is related to the general pattern of down-grading Virgil as guide, starting with the Medusa episode (Inf. 9), but especially with Virgil’s being duped by the treacherous devil in Canto 21. Many other aspects and implications of the villanello passage, including linkage with other parts of the Commedia, are addressed by the author with suggested fresh interpretations. On the broader authorial level, abandonment of the Convivio in favor of the new spiritual orientation achieved in the Commedia consonant with that of the villanello, reflects Dante’s realization that “only by renouncing the Ulysses-like—and the Virgil-like—parts of himself can he hope to be saved.”

Freccero, John. “Infernal Irony: The Gates of Hell.” In MLN, XCIX, No. 4 (September), 769-786. [1984]

Uses the inscription above the gates of Hell as a pivot point for discussing the “realism” of the Inferno. The study focuses on the presence of these words as they appear to the pilgrim upon entering Hell and as they appear on the page to the reader. Verses 1 through 9 of Inferno then, act as the primary representation of the corporeal nature of the canticle. The essay is based on St. Augustine’s identification of the three modes of vision representing the three stages of human understanding and the three canticles of the Divine Comedy.

Fyler, John M.Auctoritee and Allusion in Troilus and Criseyde.” In Res Publica Litterarum, VII, 73-92. [1984]

Contends that Chaucer’s direct allusions to Statius’ Thebaid and Virgil’s Aeneid in Book II demonstrate the way that Chaucer treated them as “historical sources” and developed heuristic but complicated analogies from these sources. In similar manner, Criseyde’s oaths to Juno in Book IV point to Inferno 30 and underscore Chaucer’s elevation of Dante to the level of classical authorities such as Statius and Virgil.

Hawkins, Peter S. “‘By Gradual Scale Sublimed’: Dante’s Benedict and Contemplative Ascent.” In Monasticism and the Arts, edited by Timothy Gregory Verdon with the assistance of John Dally, with a foreword by John W. Cook (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1984), 255-269.

Examines Dante’s treatment of St. Benedict and the ladder in the Heaven of Saturn (Par. XXI-XXII), as well as the symbolic role of monasticism in late medieval society.

Heilbronn, Denise. Concentus Musicum: The Creaking Hinges of Dante’s Gate of Purgatory.” In Rivista di studi italiani, II, No. 1 (June), 1-15. [1984]

Deals with Purgatorio 9.133-145, and the musical/tonal relationship between the sound of the Gate opening and the choral voice which emanates from within. The analysis revolves around the interpretation of the two phrases “al primo tuono” and “al dolce suono.” The apparent inconsistency between the two terms is resolved in a discussion of medieval musical theory, including concepts of”musica mundana,” harmony, and volume as they relate to the passage.

Heilbronn, Denise. “Contrapuntal Imagery in Paradiso VIII,” Italian Culture, V (1984), 39-54.

Analyzes the dual simile in Paradiso VIII (vv. 16-21), in which visual and auditive elements are made analogous, and discusses this notion of “contrapuntal imagery” in the more general context of polyphonic music in the early Trecento.

Herzman, Ronald B. “The Friar’s Tale: Chaucer, Dante and the Translatio Studii.” In Acta IX: “The Early Renaissance: Virgil and the Classical Tradition,” edited by Anthony L. Pellegrini (Binghamton: The Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1984), 1-17.

Analyzes with some references to iconographic evidence the important similarities between the story of Frate Alberigo (Inferno 33) and, more generally, cantos 33-34 and Chaucer’s Friar’s Tale (and to a lesser degree, the Summoner’s Tale), which suggest that the latter poet was consciously using the Commedia in both a playful and a serious manner.

Holdheim, W. Wolfgang. “Criticism and Current Intellectual Trends: On T.K. Seung.” In Comparative Literature Studies, XXI, No. 2 (Summer), 217-226. [1984]

Review-article on T.K. Seung, Semiotics and Thematics in Hermeneutics (Columbia University Press, 1982). The author characterizes the section on Dante as a piece of textual criticism that demonstrates that the structure of the Divina Commedia is consistent with Bonaventure’s trinitarianism and not Thomas’ dualism; he also points out that for Seung Dante’s conception of man is Augustinian.

Hollander, Robert. “Dante on Horseback? (Inferno XII, 93-126).” In Italica, LXI, No. 4 (Winter), 287-296. [1984]

Contends that here again the poet’s refraining from details places the burden on the reader to visualize the Wayfarer’s mounting on Nessus’ croup at verse 114, where Virgil instructs him with the words, “Questi ti sia or primo, e io secondo,” for the actual crossing of the boiling Phlegethon. The poet perhaps avoided a graphic description of the actual riding scene for aesthetic reasons, but probably also wished to distance himself from savage mercenary cavalrymen of his acquaintance. Comes with an illustration by the 15th-century illustrator G. Giraldi of the Codice Urbinate Latino 365, which best visualizes the scene of Dante mounted on Nessus, the centaur.

Hollander, Robert. “Dante’s ‘Georgic’ (Inferno XXIV, 1-18).” In Dante Studies, CII, 111-121. [1984]

Suggests several points of possible interpretation based on echoes from Book III of Virgil’s Georgics in the opening simile of Inferno XXIV, which would reinforce M. Frankel’s essential point (“Dante’s Anti-Virgilian Villanello,”—q.v., supra) about the inadequacy of Virgil as guide. Virgil’s troubled awareness (Inf. 23) of having been tricked by Malacoda (Inf. 21), the rest of which canto reflects a Dantean recapitulation of the three poetic modes of “Virgil’s wheel”: Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid, all of whose poetic modes fall short in Dante’s Christian poem. Dante’s falling in behind Statius (end of 23) is an act of humility that prepares for the humble pose of Dante/villanello in 24, with its “Christian vernacularization in modo remisso et humile of a Virgilian georgic.” Other echoes here strengthen the notion of a Dante who turns away from prideful intellectuality to faithful humility, abandoning the Convivio and continuing the moment of the Vita Nuova in the Commedia.

Hollander, Robert. Decameron: The Sun Rises in Dante.” In Studi sul Boccaccio, XIV (1983-84), 241-255. [1984]

Offers a preliminary analysis of and apparent series of programmatic citations from Dante’s Commedia in the introductory dawn descriptions at the beginning of each Day of the Decameron, citing the textual parallels in each case, which are summarized in a chart at the end. The brief study invites continued investigation, which, if proven valid, will further significantly substantiate Boccaccio’s indebtedness to Dante.

Hollander, Robert. Inferno XXXIII, 37-74: Ugolino’s Importunity.” In Speculum, LIX, No. 3 (July), 549-555. [1984]

Contends that better awareness of literary resonance can counteract misdirected reader sympathy for Ugolino, who, like Francesca (Inf. 5), only seeks to enlist pity for himself. Ugolino is seen as a failed father who in a crisis did not even provide spiritual food for the higher welfare of his children, an interpretation reinforced intertextually by the well-known parable of the importunate friend (Luke 11:5-13).

Hollander, Robert. “A Note on the Missing Musaeus (Inferno IV, 140-141).” In Quaderni d’italianistica, V, No. 2 (Autumn), 217-221. [1984]

Taking as point of departure the traditional reference to the three theologi poetae - Orpheus, Musaeus, and Linus (cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, IV, 83, and Augustine, De Civitate Dei XVIII, xiv, xxxvii), the author discusses the verses in Inferno 4.140 f., where Orpheus and Linus are mentioned, but not Musaeus. The reason for this omission may lie in the similar omission of Musaeus by Virgil in the fourth Eclogue (vv. 53-57).

Hollander, Robert. “Virgil and Dante as Mind-Readers (Inferno XXI and XXIII).” In Medioevo romanzo, IX (1984), 85-100.

Examines two problems in the episode of the Malebranche (Inf. XXI-XXIII): 1. Virgil’s inability to “read” and understand the devils’ oral gestures (“digrignare”) as posing a danger to the Pilgrim; and 2. the multiple correlation of Aesop’s fable to the persons and events at hand. According to Hollander, Ciampolo and Dante are the mouse, Alichino and Virgil are the frog, and Calcabrina and the entire squad of devils are the kite.

Iannucci, Amilcare A. Forma ed evento nella “Divina Commedia.” Roma: Bulzoni Editore, 1984. 193 p. (Strumenti di ricerca, 41-42.)

Gathers together five previously published essays in English, here variously revised and in Italian translation, that are related to the historico-formalistic theme of the title. “Event” is of course understood in the sense of Providential history and in the context of Christian typology. Contents: Premessa; Nota bibliografica; 1. La Divina Commedia: teoria e prassi dei generi letterari; 2. La “discesa di Beatrice agli Inferi”; 3. Autoesegesi dantesca: la tecnica dell’ ‘episodio parallelo’ (Inferno 15 - Purgatorio 11)”; 4. Fortuna, tempo, e l’esilio di Dante (Inferno 15.95-96); 5. Il “folle volo” di Ulisse: il peso della storia; Indice dei nomi. The original places of publication are duly indicated (see, respectively, Dante Studies, XCII, 187-188; XCVIII, 167; XCVIII, 183-184; c, 145 and CI, 204; XCVI, 245-246).

Kern, Edith. “The Importance of Not Being Earnest: Modern-Medieval.” In Symposium, XXXVIII, No. 1 (Spring), 13-27. [1984]

Examines, following closely Bakhtin, the way in which farcical elements in modern literary texts constitute a subversion of bureaucratic institutions analogous to the subversion of religious authority implicit in such medieval practices as the Feast of Fools. The author plays on the notion of earnestness in her assertion that farce masks an earnest message behind a clown face. Boccaccio’s playful rebelliousness in adopting the medieval practice of exempla is contrasted with Dante’s invective against precisely such practices in Paradiso 29.

Klemp, P.J. “The Women in the Middle: Layers of Love in Dante’s Vita Nuova.” In Italica, LXI, No. 3 (Autumn), 185-194. [1984]

Examines the structure of the fourfold pattern of allegorical interpretation as it first takes form in the Vita Nuova. There are essentially four women present in Dante’s life, offering a “layering” of love experience. The four layers of love evident in Dante’s progression from the Vita Nuova to the Commedia correspond to the four layers of allegory defined in the Convivio. The argument is grounded on the reinterpretative nature of Dante’s works.

Le Goff, Jacques. The Birth of Purgatory. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. ix, 430 p. illus.

Closes with a chapter on the “noblest representation” of Purgatory, by Dante (334-355), in the context of the book as a whole, which traces the formation of the purgatorial idea from its roots in Judaeo-Christian antiquity to its medieval flowering and spatialization by the end of the twelfth century. Contents: The Third Place; Part I. The Hereafter before Purgatory—1. Ancient Imaginings, 2. The Fathers of Purgatory, 3. The Early Middle Ages: Doctrinal Stagnation and the Root of Imagination; Part II. The Twelfth Century: The Birth of Purgatory. The Century of the Great Advance—4. The Fire of Purgatory, 5. “Locus Purgatorius”: A Place for Purgation, 6. Purgatory between Sicily and Ireland, 7. The Logic of Purgatory; Part III: The Triumph of Purgatory—8. The Scholastic Systematization, 9. Social Victory: Purgatory and the Cure of Souls, 10. The Poetic Triumph: The Divina Commedia; Why Purgatory? Also includes: Appendix 1. Bibliography of Purgatory; Appendix 2. “Purgatorium”: The History of the Word; Appendix 3. Earliest Images; Appendix 4. Recent Works; Notes; and Index. Comes with four illustrations (after p. 208). Originally published in French as La Naissance du Purgatoire (Paris: Gallimard, 1981).

Lemay, Helen Rodnite. “Guido Bonatti: Astrology, Society and Marriage in Thirteenth-Century Italy,” Journal of Popular Culture, XVII, No. 4 (Spring, 1984), 79-90.

Examines the multitude of information on daily life (marriage, child-raising, friendship, etc.) found in the Liber astronomicus of Guido Bonatti (whom Dante places among the diviners in Inf. 20).

Levin, Joan H. “Sweet, New Endings: A Look at the tornada in the Stilnovistic and Petrarchan Canzone.” In Italica LXI, No. 4 (Winter), 297-311. [1984]

Includes substantial reference to Dante’s example and his critical comment in a brief survey of the evolution of the tornada (or envoi or commiato) from its simple origins in Proven,cal poetry to a highly developed art form by the time of Dante and Petrarch.

MacDonald, Ronald Russell. “The Burial-Place of Memory: Epic Underworlds in Virgil, Dante, and Milton.” In Dissertation Abstracts International XLIV, No. 9 (March), 2755A. [1984]

Doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1983.

Mallin, Eric S. “The False Simile in Dante’s Commedia.” In Dante Studies, CII, 15-36. [1984]

Examines the nature and use of the false simile or pseudosimile in the Commedia, particularly in its thematic function, and relates it to the limited knowledge of the self. The author finds that this rhetorical redundancy, with its exact correspondence between vehicle and tenor in both structure and content, dominates Dante’s descriptions of himself and many of his impressions of others throughout the poetic journey. This obtains especially at times of paralysis, and thus represents a stasis of the divided self, wherein the Pilgrim is caught in the regio dissimilitudinis, “that Augustinian landscape where fallen man recognizes both the desire for likeness with God and the distance from Him—and from salvation.” Finally, the author links every false or failed simile in the poem to the inexpressibility of Dante’s marvelous experience; the false simile expresses the impediment of human language and perception, the impediment of unlikeness.

Masciandaro, Franco. “Cavalcanti’s Fresca rosa novella: Beyond Analogy.” In Selecta, V, 79-84. [1984]

Contends that in his innovative ballata, Fresca rosa novella, Cavalcanti avoids use of analogy, drawing rather an identity of the vivifying lady with the rose, spring, Love, and the poem itself. It is Dante who discovers proportion and analogy between Cavalcanti’s Giovanna and Primavera (Vita Nuova XXIV). Hence the author’s conclusion: “the poetry of Guido precedes and announces the poetry of Dante, as Giovanna announces Beatrice, and as Primavera announces Amor.”

Mastrobuono, Antonio C. “Criticism on Ambiguity.” In Italian Culture, V, 15-37. [1984]

Review-article on Giuseppe Mazzotta, Dante, Poet of the Desert: History and Allegory in the “Divine Comedy” (Princeton University Press, 1979). (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, 168-169.)

Mazzotta, Giuseppe. “Dante and the Virtues of Exile.” In Poetics Today, V, No. 3 (Special issue: “Medieval and Renaissance Representation: New Reflections”), 645-667. [1984]

Dwells on the vital role played by exile in Dante’s professional life from its contingency as an irreducible personal experience to its metamorphization in the Commedia. From an examination of Inferno 15 and Paradiso 15-17, as well as the canzone, Tre donne intorno al cor mi son venute, can be seen how “Dante’s consciousness that being outside of the political structure in a marginal exilic space becomes the necessary perspective from which the poet can undertake to challenge, like the prophets of old, the myths and complacencies of the secular world.” A compelling parallel is drawn between Dante’s personal exile and the “exilic” status of poetry itself under the age-long suspicion of philosophers and churchmen from Plato to Thomas Aquinas. Dante boldly made the symbolic language of poetry a means to knowledge of God and thus elevated it to the capacity of speaking the visionary language of creation.

Miller, Clarence H. “Hercules and His Labors as Allegories of Christ and His Victory over Sin in Dante’s Inferno.” In Quaderni d’italianistica, V, No. 1 (Spring), 1-17. [1984]

Examines how the significance of Hercules as a Christ figure gradually unfolds throughout the three major levels of Dante’s Inferno. Through a judicious use of ethical and theological allegory, Dante is seen to create a parallel relationship between the powers of Christ and those of Hercules, and between the nature of the sin of classical monsters and that of devils in the Christian tradition.

Milne, Fred L. “Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, II. v. 10-11.” In The Explicator, XLII, No. 3 (Spring, 1984), 23-24.

Refers to Dante’s view of the noon hour (Convivio IV, xxiii, 15) in relation to Shelley’s lines “The sun will not rise until noon. Apollo / Is held in heaven by wonder.”

Milowicki, Edward J. “Characterization in Troilus and Criseyde: Some Relationships Centered on Hope.” In Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, XI, No. 1 (March), 12-24. [1984]

Argues that Chaucer’s characterization of Troilus is based upon Boethius’ conception of properly directed Hope and upon Dante’s portrayal of St. Bernard as the Saint of Hope (Par. XXXIII, 10-12). This characterization suggests spiritual dimensions to Troilus’ love of Criseyde, as seen in Book III, 1261-1274, by using Dante’s prayer in the Paradiso to link Hope and Penance and to lead Chaucer to place Troilus in the eighth sphere of heaven, where the soul continues to learn, even after death.

Mussetter, Sally. Ritornare a lo suo principio: Dante and the Sin of Brunetto Latini.” In Philological Quarterly, LXIII, No. 4 (Fall), 431-448. [1984]

Redefines Brunetto’s sin and paints it with political colors, contending that Brunetto’s sin should be traced back to the vagaries of Florence and be classified as professional in nature: as “maestro e cominciatore” (G. Villani) he was the leading political and literary figure of Florence. Brunetto therefore bore responsibility for the city’s turning “verso lo suo principio,” a reversion toward a primordial vicious state.

Noakes, Susan. “Dante’s Vista Nova: Paradiso XXXIII, 136.” In Quaderni d’italianistica, V, No. 2 (Autumn), 151-170. [1984]

Through a comparative analysis of three passages in the Paradiso, all sharing the phrase “vista nova’ or its equivalent (14.113; 30.58; 33.136), the author examines their affinity with the linguistically similar “vita nova” in terms of the increasing acuity of the Pilgrim’s vision and the Poet’s concern over the nature and limits of language and its ability to express the inexpressible.

Oxenhandler, Neal. “Seeing and Believing in Dante and Beckett.” In Writing in a Modern Temper: Essays on French Literature and Thought in Honor of Henri Peyre, edited by Mary Ann Caws (Saratoga, Calif.: Anma Libri, 1984), 214-223.

Examines, in the context of Postmodern art as reaction to tradition, the Dantesque indebtedness of Samuel Beckett in the early More Pricks Than Kicks, where the relation is metaphorical, and the later comment c’est, where it is chiasmic. Beckett draws particularly from the Inferno with its medieval fusional metaphysics, but goes against Dante, for example, by portraying compassion towards the damned. Though tending towards disjuncture, Beckett remains a formalist.

Parker, Deborah. “The Trecento Commentators’ Interpretation of Exile in the Commedia.” In Carte italiane, VI, 19-33. [1984]

The Trecento commentators are important for their special understanding of Dante’s values, language, and political allusions. Commenting on Dante’s exile, the early critics of Inferno 6.64-75, and 15.55-78, focus mostly on the underlying historical events. In the case of Inferno 10.79-81, and Paradiso 17.46-72, they focus mostly on Dante’s inclusion of myths rather than on how he shapes the myths to his own poetic purposes. But whether they emphasize a literal or an allegorical reading, whether they emphasize Dante’s theology or the influence of the Aeneid, the Trecento commentators were most impressed with the poem’s doctrine, and they saw their function as unfolding its moral message.

Pellegrini, Anthony L. “American Dante Bibliography for 1983.” In Dante Studies, CII, 145-173. [1984]

With brief analyses.

Pietropaolo, Domenico. “The Figural Context of Buonconte’s Salvation.” In Dante Studies, CII, 123-134. [1984]

Submits that the devil-angel altercation over the soul of Buonconte da Montefeltro at his death (Purg. V, 105-129) is enhanced by a figural reading, for which there is ample basis in Scripture (Epistle of Jude, verse 9), and especially in the derivative medieval work, The Assumption of Moses—both of which Dante likely knew—involving a typologically similar devil-angel dispute. The case of Buonconte can be “related to the Moses- and Exodus-dominated figural context of Antepurgatory,” with its christological implications.

Pietropaolo, Domenico. “Giovanni Gaetano Bottari (1689-1775) and the Issue of Dante’s Originality: A Case of Enlightened Erudition.” In The Enlightenment in a Western Mediterranean Context, edited by F. Gerson, A. Percival, D. Pietropaolo (Toronto: Society for Mediterranean Studies, 1984), 117-126.

Although Bottari’s critical method is still deeply indebted to traditional approaches, he shows, in the examined work, a deep interest in applying the method of science in solving literary problems. Using the concepts of “chance occurrence,” “conjecture,” and “probability” typical of the empirical skepticism of the new science, instead of the traditional deductivity, Bottari formulates the hypothesis that Guerrin meschino plagiarizes the Divine Comedy and not viceversa, as many of his contemporaries affirmed. Bottari’s use of this new approach shows that even in fields less open to innovation (he was the librarian of a Cardinal in Rome) the spirit of the new culture starts to develop.

Pirrotta, Nino. Music and Culture in Italy from the Middle Ages to the Baroque: A Collection of Essays. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984. xiv, 485 p. illus. (music) (Studies in the History of Music, 1.)

Contains “Dante Musicus: Gothicism, Scholasticism, and Music” (13-25), reprinted from Speculum, XLIII (1968), 245-257 (see Dante Studies, LXXXVII, 167-168); and “Ars Nova and Stil Novo” (26-38), reprinted from Rivista italiana di musicologia, I (1966), 3-19 (see Dante Studies, LXXXVII, 184).

Pollack, Nancy. The Obscure Way to Mandel’stam’s Armenia.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, XLV, No. 2 (August), 540A. [1984] Doctoral dissertation, Yale University, 1983.

Sees Mandel’stam’s “Putesestvie v Armeniju” (1933) as epitomizing the poetics of his late work and through close textual analysis reveals Dante to be one of the possible subtexts, along with works of Goethe and Pushkin.

Poole, Gordon. “Scrittori etimologisti, prima di Gutenberg in Italia.” In Belfagor, XXXIX, Fasc. 3 (May), 316-326. [1984]

Contends that scholars have not paid sufficient attention to etymology and word-play for an adequate reading and interpretation of early Italian texts and discusses a number of examples particularly in Dante’s Commedia and Boccaccio’s Decameron.

Quinn, Mary A. “Shelley’s Translation of Dante’s Sonnet.” In Explicator, XLIII, No. 1 (Fall), 23-26. [1984]

Points out that, joining Dante and Guido in their “philosophic revel,” Shelley writes himself into his elegant translation of Guido, i’ vorrei, by substituting “Vanna and Bice and my gentle love” for the line “E monna Vanna e monna Lagia e poi . . .” (his corrupt Italian text, reading illogically “Bice” instead of “Lagia,” gave him his opening).

Ralston, Michael Earl. “A Typology of Guides in Medieval Literature.” In Dissertation Abstracts International XLV, No. 4 (Oct.), 1111A. [1984] Doctoral dissertation, Auburn University, 1984.

Sees Dante’s Virgil as an inclusive figure fulfilling the requirements of all four typological categories and so capable of serving as a referential figure for discussing other such literary guides.

Russell, Jeffrey Burton. Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984. 356 p.

In this far-reaching study of the concept of the devil in the period from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries, Russell includes a section (pp. 216-233) on Dante’s depiction of Lucifer and his presentation of medieval cosmography, and the moral polarization that obtains therein between heaven and hell, God and Lucifer.

Schless, Howard H. Chaucer and Dante: A Revaluation. Norman, Okla.: Pilgrim Books, 1984. xiv, 268 p.

Citing cultural contacts through relations of the English Crown with Florentine commercial and banking families, the author argues for the early acquaintance of Dante in England and therefore for Chaucer’s early knowledge of Italian and the Divine Comedy—by 1372, possibly even 1368. His investigation then proceeds seriatim through Chaucer’s works in which he cites indebtedness to Dante, as evinced in ascriptions by translation or citation, verbal parallelism, and contextual parallelism, though acknowledging that caution must be observed in an evaluation of source and influence. It seems that “Chaucer drew on Dante not heavily but over a long period of time.” He was most beholden to Dante’s poem for his use of visual and dramatic images and for a stylistic technique of focusing on the actual world of living people. Contents: Preface; Abbreviations; Chapter 1. Chaucer and Fourteenth-Century Italy; 2. The House of Fame; 3. Anelida and Arcite; 4. The Parliament of Fowls; 5. Troilus and Criseyde; 6. The Legend of Good Women; 7. The Canterbury Tales; 8. The Minor Poems; 9. Conclusion; Index of Comparisons: Chaucer—Dante; Bibliography; General Index.

Schnapp, Jeffrey Thompson. “The Transfiguration of History at the Center of Dante’s Paradiso.” In Dissertation Abstracts International XLV, No. 1 (July), 178A-179A. [1984] Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, 1984.

Focuses on the dialectic between history and eternity in Cantos 14-16.

Seniff, Dennis P. (Joint author). Literature and Law in the Middle Ages: A Bibliography of Scholarship. See Alford, John A....

Singer, Irving. The Nature of Love. Vol. 2: Courtly and Romantic. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1984. xv, 513 p. Indexed.

Contains a chapter entitled “Love in Three Italian Poets: Petrarch, Cavalcanti, Dante” (129-164), in which these poets’ attitudes toward love are discussed and placed within the larger medieval context.

Speciale, Emilio. “Brunetto Latini e il sapere.” In Carte Italiane, V (1983-84), 19-32.

Discusses Brunetto Latini’s notion of knowledge and its uses, with some comparisons to Dante.

Spiegelman, Willard. “The ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ and Paradiso XXIII.” In Keats-Shelley Journal, XXXIII, 37-40. [1984]

Substantiating further the concept of multiplicity of origins of inspiration and diction, the author cites echoes of the Nightingale Ode in Paradiso XXIII as reflected in the Cary translation, to join those from other favorite sources of the poet—Horace, Milton, and Shakespeare.

Stephens, Walter E.De historia gigantum: Theological Anthropology before Rabelais.” In Traditio, XL, 43-89. [1984]

Includes references to and a brief discussion of the giants in Inferno XXXI.

Swaim, Kathleen M. “Some Dante and Milton Analogues.” In Renascence, XXXVII, No. 1 (Autumn), 43-51. [1984]

Opens up the notion of simple verbal parallelisms between Dante and Milton to suggest that Milton’s work actually acts as a Protestant translation of the Catholic original. The discussion centers on Milton’s re-orientation of his “inherited literary material” to his audience.

Syska-Lamparska, Renata. “A proposito di ‘Il nome della storia’ di Antonio D’Andrea.” In Quaderni d’italianistica, V, No. 2 (Autumn), 262-269. [1984]

Review-article on Il nome della storia (Napoli: Liguori, 1982), which contains a previously printed essay on “La struttura della Vita Nuova: le divisioni delle rime” (see Dante Studies, CI, 197, and XCIX, 177-178).

Terpening, Ronnie. “Charon after Dante: The Representation of The Infernal Boatman in Italian Epic from Petrarch to Marino.” In Canadian Journal of Italian Studies, VII, Nos. 28-29, 97-120. [1984]

Explains how the authors who followed Dante reacted to his influence, giving Charon the following features: he is an old man overcome by the beauty of Sophonisba and acts like a lover’s rival in Petrarch’s Africa. In Federigo Frezzi’s Quadriregio, Charon is employed as a two-dimensional figure, assuming the role of ferryman and Christian rhetorician, a more medieval figure than Dante’s. In Teofilo Folengo’s Baldus, the boatman assumes grotesque features, and is depicted as “senex.”

Theoharis, Theoharis Constantine. “The Unity of Ulysses.” In Dissertation Abstracts International XLIV, No. 8 (July), 2479A. [1984] Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1983.

Contends Joyce had a theoretically formulated idea of the soul derived from his reading in Aristotle, Giordano Bruno, and Dante.

Vance, Eugene. “The Differing Seed: Dante’s Brunetto Latini.” In Vernacular Poetics in the Middle Ages, edited by Lois Ebin (Studies in Medieval Culture, XVI; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1984), 129-152.

Considers the clustering in Inferno 15 of three notions commonly associated in the Middle Ages: erotic desire, rhetoric, and text. Like Pézard, the author contends that Dante placed Brunetto among the sinners against nature not for sodomy, but for his higher perversion as a social being and maker of signs, given the close association between the political order and its living expression, language. Brunetto, along with many litterati, violated his relationship to the polis and his culture by “exiling” himself from his culture in his use of French and by pursuing a prideful concern for worldly fame and an idolatrous relationship to his written work. Priscian’s presence here, likewise, is explained in terms of “an idolatry that is fatal to meaning as the inner life of the soul.”

Verdicchio, Massimo. “The Veltro and Dante’s Prologue to the Commedia.” In Quaderni d’italianistica, V, No. 1 (Spring), 18-38. [1984]

In the Veltro episode, the author casts Virgil as a poet rather than as a seer, one who proposes, as a fictional solution, a hero who will restore Italy to health. According to the author, the solution to the riddle is in Inferno 1.103-105, which—in his revised English reading with a transitive construction of the verb “feed”—describes the coming of a personage that “feeds neither land, nor pelt, but only wisdom, love and virtue and its domain is between two felts”: Dante’s Commedia.

Wallace, David. “Chaucer and the European Rose.” In Studies in the Age of Chaucer: Proceedings, I, 61-67. [1984]

Analyzing the crucial importance of the Roman de la Rose for Italian (Brunetto, Dante, Boccaccio) and English (Chaucer) literature, the author makes a number of pertinent comments on Il Fiore and the Commedia—the first as a liberal re-working of the Rose and the second as Dante’s reaction to his close (re)reading of the Old French poem.

Weldon, James F.G. “The Infernal Present: Auden’s Use of Inferno in ‘The Chimeras.’” In Quaderni d’italianistica, V, No. 1 (Spring), 97-109. [1984]

Notes that the final lines of Auden’s “The Chimeras” echo Virgil’s advice to Dante the Pilgrim at the end of Inferno 3 to establish the intertextual referent. The author argues that the poem itself recreates the dramatic situation of Inferno 3, as it provides a modern re-working of the canto.

Welle, John Patrick. “The Search for a Unifying Code: Andrea Zanzotto’s Il Galateo in bosco.” In Dissertation Abstracts International XLIV, No. 10 (April), 3062A. [1984] Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 1983.

Chapter 1 compares Zanzotto’s poetic style with similar elements in Dante’s Comedy and in the works of Eugenio Montale.

Wetherbee, Winthrop. “‘Poeta che mi guidi’: Dante, Lucan, and Virgil.” In Canons, edited by Robert von Hallberg (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 131-148.

Analyzes in great detail three episodes in the Commedia to demonstrate the dynamic interaction between Dante and two classical poets (Lucan [Pharsalia] and Virgil [Aeneid]), the care with which he read their texts, and the intense manner of his response to them. The episodes treated are Purg. 1-2 (Cato), Inf. 5 (Francesca), and Inf. 1-2 (the initial encounter with Virgil.

Wetherbee, Winthrop. “‘Per te poeta fui, per te cristiano’: Dante, Statius, and the Narrator of Chaucer’s Troilus.” In Vernacular Poetics in the Middle Ages, edited by Lois Ebin (Studies in Medieval Culture, XVI; Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1984), 153-176.

Examines, by means of the encounter with Statius in the Purgatorio, Dante’s notion of himself as a Christian poet transcending his pagan predecessors in a new form of epic poetry. Chaucer, in turn, while in the Troilus much indebted to Dante as well as to Boccaccio, evolved a different conception of his art, which was concerned “with aspiration as much as with transcendence.” Thus, even as he makes Dante’s achievement the measure of his own in the Troilus, Chaucer differs from him: “in the secular world of the Canterbury Tales he will continue to seek out the spiritual element in the imaginative lives of even his most worldly and tormented characters.”

Whatley, Gordon. “The Uses of Hagiography: The Legend of Pope Gregory and the Emperor Trajan in the Middle Ages.” In Viator, XV, 25-63. [1984]

Traces, through the 8th-14th centuries, various forms of the legend of the saintly Pope’s intercession for the deliverance from Hell of the pagan emperor Trajan, as it was interpreted and used by the hagiographers, humanists, 13th-century scholastics, and others. Among these others was Dante, who concerned himself with the question of the eternal destiny of the “just pagans.” Creatively synthesizing the earlier traditions, Dante not only verifies Trajan’s beatitude, but he also presents him as an exemplar and reason to hope for the eternal salvation of other pagans like him. In the larger context surrounding Dante’s Trajan, the poet shows his anticlericalism by implying that divine mercy and justice transcend the limits of the established “ecclesia” which is mired in its present corruption.

Wilcox, John C. “The Love Poem as Vita nuova in Juan Ramón Jiménez: A Reading of ‘Subes de ti misma’ (Estio).” In Estudios en honor a Ricardo Gullón, edited by Luis T. Gonzalez-del-Valle and Dario Villanueva (Lincoln, Neb.: Society of Spanish and Spanish-American Studies, 1984), 369-383.

Contains brief references to Dante’s Vita nuova as a source of inspiration for the love poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez. 

 

Reviews

The Divine Comedy. A new verse translation by C.H. Sisson. Foreword to the American edition by Thomas G. Bergin; introduction, commentary, notes, and bibliography by David H. Higgins. Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1981. (See Dante Studies, C, 133-134, and CI, 215.) Reviewed by:

            D.S. Carne-Ross, in New York Review of Books, XXXI, No. 20 (Dec. 20), 9-12.

The Divine Comedy. Translated, with a commentary, by Charles S. Singleton. [II.] Purgatorio; [III.] Paradiso Bollingen Series, LXXX. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973-75. (See Dante Studies, XCII, 182, and XCIV, 155-156; extensively reviewed.) Reviewed by:

            [John Bayley], in London Review of Books, 15 March-4 April, 10-11.

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. [II. Purgatorio] A verse translation, with introductions and commentary, by Allen Mandelbaum. Drawings by Barry Moser. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1982. (See Dante Studies, XCIX, 173-174, and CI, 194; extensively reviewed.] Reviewed by:

            Richard H. Lansing, in Speculum, LIX, No. 2 (April), 390-391.

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. [III. Paradiso] A verse translation, with introductions and commentary, by Allen Mandelbaum. Drawings by Barry Moser. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1984. (See above, under Translations.) Reviewed by:

            D.S. Carne-Ross, in New York Review of Books, XXXI, No. 20 (Dec. 20), 9-12.

Dante’s Purgatory. Translated with notes and commentary by Mark Musa. Illustrated by Richard M. Powers. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981. (See Dante Studies, C, 134, and CI, 215.) Reviewed by:

            [John Bayley], in London Review of Books, 15 March-4 April, 10-11.

Dante’s Paradise. Translated with notes and commentary by Mark Musa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. (See above, under Translations.) Reviewed by:

            Clareece Godt, in Library Journal, CIX, No. 7 (April 15), 813.

Anderson, William. Dante the Maker. London: Hutchison [Re-issue], 1983. Same as original edition (London; Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980) and the American (New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1982). (See Dante Studies, CI, 194-195.) Reviewed by:

            [John Bayley], in London Review of Books, 15 March-4 April, 10-11.

Bahner, Werner. Formen, Ideen, Prozesse in den Literaturen der romanischen Völker. Vol. I: Von Dante bis Cervantes. Berlin: Akademie, 1977. Reviewed by:

            Aldo Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXXVII, No. 4 (May), 526-528.

Bertelli, Italo. La poesia di Guinizelli e la poesia del “Dolce stil nuovo.” Firenze: Le Monnier, 1983. Reviewed by:

            Rinaldina Russell, in Forum Italicum, XVIII, No. 2 (Fall), 380-382.

Boyde, Patrick. Dante, Philomythes and Philosopher: Man in the Cosmos. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Reviewed by:

            Vincenzo Cioffari, in Italica, LXI, No. 3 (Autumn), 263-266;

            Albert Wingell, in Quaderni d’italianistica, V, No. 1 (Spring), 140-142.

Cambridge Readings in Dante’s “Comedy.” Edited by Kenelm Foster and Patrick Boyde. Cambridge, Eng., and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Reviewed by:

            Teodolinda Barolini, in Speculum, LIX, No. 1 (Jan.), 233-234.

Chiampi, James Thomas. Shadowy Prefaces: Conversion and Writing in the “Divine Comedy.” Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1981. (See Dante Studies, C, 138.) Reviewed by:

            Joan M. Ferrante, in Speculum, LIX, No. 1 (Jan.), 129-131.

Comprendere Dante, a cura di Rocco Montano e Ugo Barra. Napoli: Vico, 1976. Reviewed by:

            Donna Mancusi-Ungaro, in Italian Quarterly, XXV, No. 95 (Winter), 102-105.

The Emergence of National Languages. Edited by Aldo Scaglione. Ravenna: Longo, 1984. Reviewed by:

            Robert J. Di Pietro, in Italian Culture, V (1984), 171-175.

Franco, Charles. La Beatrice di Dante: un’interpretazione psicanalitica. Poggibonsi: Antonio Lalli Editore, 1981. Reviewed by:

            Gaetano Cipolla, in Italian Quarterly, XXV, No. 96 (Spring), 111-112.

Giannantonio, Pompeo. Endiadi: dottrina e poesia nella “Divina Commedia.” Firenze: G.C. Sansoni, 1983. Reviewed by:

            Vincenzo Cioffari, in Italica, LXI, No. 3 (Autumn), 266-269.

Green, Geoffrey. Literary Criticism and the Structures of History: Erich Auerbach and Leo Spitzer. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. (See Dante Studies, CI, 201-202. Reviewed by:

            Albert J. Kuhn, in South Atlantic Quarterly, LXXXIII, No. 4 (Autumn), 467-468.

Greene, Thomas M. The Light in Troy: Imitation and Discovery in Renaissance Poetry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982. Contains material of Dantean interest. (See Dante Studies, CI, 202.) Reviewed by:

            S.K. Heninger Jr., in Renaissance Quarterly, XXXVII, No. 1 (Spring), 113-118;

            Aldo Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXXVIII, No. 1 (August), 99-102.

Guidubaldi, Egidio. Dal “De luce” di R. Grossatesta all’islamico “Libro della Scala”: il problema delle fonti arabe una volta accettata la mediazione oxfordiana. Firenze: Olschki, 1978. Of Dantean interest. Reviewed by:

            Michelangelo Picone, in Romance Philology, XXXVII, No. 4 (May), 514-516.

Lansing, Richard H. From Image to Idea: A Study of the Simile in Dante’s “Commedia.” Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1977. (See Dante Studies, XCVI, 227, and XCVIII, 178.) Reviewed by:

            Thomas G. Bergin, in Italian Quarterly, XXV, No. 96 (Spring), 112-113.

Latini, Brunetto. Il tesoretto (The Little Treasure). Edited and translated by Julia Bolton Holloway. New York and London: Garland Publishing Company, 1981. (See Dante Studies, C, 146.) Reviewed by:

            Thomas G. Bergin, in Italica, LXI, No. 3 (Autumn), 271-272;

            Christopher Kleinhenz, in Speculum, LIX, No. 1 (Jan.), 178-179.

Le Goff, Jacques. La Naissance du purgatoire. Paris: Gallimard, 1981. (Bibliothèque des histoires.) (For English version see above, under Studies.) Reviewed by:

            Alan E. Bernstein, in Speculum, LIX, No. 1 (Jan.), 179-183.

Mazzaro, Jerome. The Figure of Dante: An Essay on the “Vita Nuova.” Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. (See Dante Studies, C, 148; extensively reviewed.) Reviewed by:

            Rachel Jacoff, in Modern Philology, LXXXI, No. 3 (Feb.), 303-306;

            Susan Noakes, in Speculum, LIX, No. 2 (April), 183-185.

Mimesis: From Mirror to Method, Augustine to Descartes. Edited by John D. Lyons and Stephen G. Nichols. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1982. Contains an essay of Dantean interest, “Imitative Distance: Boccaccio and Dante,” by R. Hollander (see Dante Studies, CI, 203). Reviewed by:

            Patricia Harris Stablein, in Speculum, LIX, No. 3 (July), 673-676.

Pagani, Ileana. La teoria linguistica di Dante: “De vulgari eloquentia.” Napoli: Liguori, 1982. Reviewed by:

            Aldo Scaglione, in Speculum, LIX, No. 2 (April), 432-433.

Picone, Michelangelo. “Vita Nuova” e tradizione romanza. Padova: Liviana Editrice, 1979. (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, 171-172.) Reviewed by:

            Teodolinda Barolini, in Romance Philology, XXXVII, No. 4 (May), 519-521.

            Priest, Paul. Dante’s Incarnation of the Trinity. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1982. Reviewed by:

            Joan M. Ferrante, in Romance Philology, XXXVIII, No. 1 (August), 114-117.

Reynolds, Mary T. Joyce and Dante: The Shaping Imagination. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. (See Dante Studies, C, 151.) Reviewed by:

            Hermione De Almeida, in Comparative Literature Studies, XXI, No. 2 (Summer), 242-244.

Shapiro, Marianne. Hieroglyph of Time: The Petrarchan Sestina. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980. (See Dante Studies, XCIX, 191.) Reviewed by:

            Robert Grim, in Romance Philology, XXXVII, No. 4 (May), 516-519.

Slade, Carole, editor. Approaches to Teaching Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1982. (See Dante Studies, CI, 211.) Reviewed by:

            Donna Mancusi-Ungaro, in Italian Quarterly, XXV, No. 95 (Winter), 102-105.

Wilhelm, James J. Il Miglior Fabbro: The Cult of the Difficult in Daniel Dante, and Pound. Orono: University of Maine, National Poetry Foundation, 1982. (See Dante Studies, CI, 214.) Reviewed by:

            Sarah Spence, in Speculum, LIX, No. 2 (April), 460-462.

The World of Dante: Essays on Dante and His Times. Edited by Cecil Grayson. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. (See Dante Studies, CI, 219.) Reviewed by:

            Teodolinda Barolini, in Romance Philology, XXXVII, No. 4 (May), 519-521.