Bibliotheca Dantesca: Journal of Dante Studies: Volume 4, Issue 1
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01/01/2021
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Publication From the "Allora" to the "Non Ancora:" Luzi's Essays on Dante(2021-12-12) Peterson, Thomas EIn five critical essays on Dante extending from 1945 to 1999 Mario Luzi presents his view of the Divina Commedia as a living work that requires its readers to enter into its internal creative process in order to comprehend its moral and teleological meanings. At the center of the essays is the figure of Dante, identical to the poem’s protagonist, whose absolute identification with the objects of his thought gives rise to a poetry of prophecy, proclamation and testimony rooted in the experience of exile. Dante sees exile as the universal condition of humanity, which presupposes a spiritual struggle and itinerary on the part of the individual: from the “allora” of sin and perdition to the “non ancora” of penitence and expiation, and hence to the prospect of salvation. In closing, the essay considers the relation between Luzi’s critical Dantism and the impact of Dante on his poetry.Publication The Dante Lesson in Fuyumi Soryo’s 'Cesare: Il creatore che ha distrutto'(2021-12-12) Parker, DeborahThis study examines the treatment of Dante’s Divine Comedy in a graphic novel by the female Japanese mangaka (manga artist), Fuyumi Soryo—Cesare: Il creatore che ha distrutto (2005-present). The manga focuses on the Renaissance condottiere, Cesare Borgia. Soryo collaborates with Motoaki Hara, an Associate Professor in the School of Cultural and Social Studies in the Department of European and American Studies at Tokai University, who specializes in medieval and Renaissance Italy. One chapter, Divine Comedy, features a lesson delivered by the eminent Renaissance commentator, Cristoforo Landino on Inf. 33. Among the students are Cesare Borgia and Giovanni de’ Medici (future Leo X), both of whom who were actually at the University of Pisa together in the late 1400s. Landino’s lecture generates lively debates on civic responsibility and leadership. My analysis considers western and eastern readings of this unusually rich chapter. While there have been scholarly studies of Gō Nagai’s Dante Shinkyoku (Divine Comedy), there have been none of Soryo’s work. The Divine Comedy chapter warrants attention for its inventive, innovative, and bold treatment of the Ugolino episode.Publication Surprising Encounters: Manzoni’s Dantean Rhetorical Palimpsest ('Promessi sposi' VII-VIII and XXXIII-XXXIV)(2021-12-12) Nussmeier, AnthonyPrevious investigations of Alessandro Manzoni’s Dantean borrowings have unearthed a quantity of stilemes and syntagm that have revised substantially the thesis that Dantean reminiscences in Manzoni are “pochissimi” and possess only an “affinità generica” (A. Mazza). Rodney J. Lokaj’s systematic study of Manzoni’s reuse of Dante in the “comic key” has contributed greatly to our understanding of Promessi sposi as a treasure trove of references, veiled and unveiled, to the sommo poeta. Inf. 5 has been thought commonly to be the touchstone of intertextuality between Dante and Manzoni. This essay unearths further connections between Inf. 5 and Promessi sposi, and also explores a series of Dantean stilemes and syntagm present from Inf. 3 and Purg. 24 and used by Manzoni throughout the novel, beyond what De Sanctis called Manzoni’s “commedia di carattere” (Promessi sposi [PS], chapters I-VII). As a result of the systematic borrowing of Dantean episodes and lexicon, it is evident that Manzoni borrows consciously from the poet, and that such borrowings are not incidental to the narrative. Finally, this essay argues via Manzoni’s Osservazioni sulla morale cattolica that his antiphrastic use of Inf. 5 in Promessi sposi constitutes a correction to Dante’s depiction of mercy in the early canti of the Comedy, for in PS chapters VIII and XXXIV–site of the thickest network of references to Inf. 3 and 5–Manzoni provides an antidote to Dante’s somewhat-unorthodox and long-debated depiction of pietà by emphasizing mercy for others and the pairing of compassion and sound judgement (compassione e giudizio [PS ch. XXXIV]), respectively.Publication "Molti e molte:" Women Readers and Lady Philosophy in Dante's Convivio(2021-12-12) Granacki, Alyssa MIn the first Book of the Convivio, Dante names women among the readers of his text, which include “non solamente maschi ma femmine.” However, the poet’s exhortations to women in the canzone Amor che ne la mente suggest that female readers may have a unique relationship to knowledge. Juxtaposing Dante’s interpretation with the language of the poem, this article analyzes how the Convivio articulates the pursuit of philosophical knowledge as one which is at once gendered and universal. Considering Dante’s woman reader raises questions such as: To what extent are women invited to participate in knowledge-seeking? How do women undertake an amorous pursuit of philosophical knowledge? The author concludes that Dante’s work ultimately proposes that women are capable of engaging in philosophical inquiry, and that this unique vision of women in the Convivio represents a significant step from the female figures of the Vita Nuova to those of the Commedia, revealing that Dante’s portrayals of women are intimately linked to the evolution of his thought.Publication “Orecchie rose e labbra mozze” and Other Bodily Suffering in Alfonso Varano: Dantean Reminiscences in Eighteenth-Century Sepulchral Poetry(2021-12-12) Di Martino, SimonaThis paper attempts a reading of Alfonso Varano’s most famous work, Visioni sacre e morali, posthumously published in 1789, as one original response to the eighteenth-century reinstatement of Dante’s oeuvre. Notably, the goal of this contribution is to examine the semantics of bodily suffering in Varano’s Visioni. Such examination should highlight new elements on the way in which Varano directly employs Dantean references to construct his religious and sepulchral imagery. Indeed, drawing from the Dantean raw images, and particularly the infernal ones, which became popular in eighteenth-century Christianity due to their still relevant cautionary message, Varano builds an effective lyrical lexicon of bodily pain reminiscent of the Commedia. Such language lays the foundation for a fertile deathly repertoire that develops during Varano’s time being appreciated by his contemporaries and inherited decades later. Varano’s legacy is evident even in Giacomo Leopardi’s Appressamento della morte, dated 1816. Specifically, this analysis includes excerpts from Visione V entitled “Per la peste messinese coll’apparizione della beata Battista Varano” by Alfonso Varano and Inferno 28 and 29.Publication New Light on Dante’s Construction of Geryon(2021-12-12) Hosle, PaulThis essay aims to improve our understanding of Dante’s construction of Geryon in Inferno 16-17. First, I address the vexed question concerning the truth-status of the monster vis-à-vis that of the poem. After rejecting alternative interpretations, I defend the exclusively allegorical reading of Geryon and suggest that it should be seen as a conscious corrective reaction to Virgil’s metapoetic construction of Fama in Aeneid 4. In the second part of the essay, I demonstrate an unappreciated wordplay between Gerion(e) and girone and argue that this serves as a key to appreciating his allegorical nature. The latent anagrammatic wordplay underscores his symbolic mirroring of the structure of Hell and instantiates both the motif of hybridity and that of deception.Publication The Stuttgart 'Commedia'. New Investigation On A Famous Dante Manuscript(2021-12-12) Penna, Cristina TeresaThis paper offers an investigation on an ancient witness of Dante’s Commedia, the “German” cod. poet. et phil. fol. 19 (Stocc), preserved in Stuttgart, Würt-tembergische Landesbibliothek. The codex became fortuitously famous in the second half of the 19th century, thanks to the attention of the great Dantista Adolfo Mussafia, who studied and entirely collated it, together with a second manuscript from Wien. But in recent years Stocc has returned to attract the scholars’ interest for its uncertain linguistic traits and for the possibility of a backdating within the chronological limit of the “antica vulgata” established by Giorgio Petrocchi. The essay can be divided in two sections: the first one is dedicated to resume the critical history of the witness and to point out some interesting codicological and textual features. The second part, instead, is re-served to the Linguistc appendix, a short and partial report on the language of Stocc.Publication Interpreting Dante’s 'Commedia': Competing Approaches(2021-12-12) Corbett, GeorgeThis article first addresses the emphasis on the truth of the literal sense of Dante’s Commedia in twentieth-century scholarship, whether the poem is conceived as a mystical vision (Bruno Nardi, 1884-1968), figural fulfillment (Erich Auerbach, 1892-1957), or allegory of the theologians (Charles S. Singleton, 1909-1985; and Robert Hollander, 1933-2021). Secondly, it analyses the interpretative approach of the French Dominican scholars Pierre Mandonnet (1858-1936) and Joachim Berthier (1848-1924), who draw on symbolic theology (and the four senses of Scripture) but, unlike Singleton and Hollander, insist that the literal sense of the poem is a “beautiful lie.” Thirdly, it shows how literalist approaches underpin key twentieth-century discussions of Dante’s theology, contribute to broader secularizing trends in Dante Studies, and represent a rupture with the seven-hundred-year-long commentary tradition on the poem as a whole.