This bibliography is intended to include the Dante translations published in this country in 1981 and all Dante studies and reviews published in 1981 that are in any sense American. The latter criterion is construed to include foreign reviews of American publications pertaining to Dante. The listing of reviews in general is selective, particularly in the case of studies bearing only peripherally on Dante.

As a rule, items cited from Dissertation Abstracts International are registered without further abstracting, since the titles tend to be self-explanatory. Items not recorded in the bibliographies for previous years are entered as addenda to the present list.

NOTE. Generally, the citation of an individual study from a collected volume representing several authors is given in brief, while the main entry of the volume is listed with full bibliographical data in its alphabetical order. Issues of this journal under the former title of Annual Report of the Dante Society continue to be cited in the short form of Report, with volume number.

The Divine Comedy. A new translation by C[harles] H[ubert] Sisson. Foreword to the American edition by Thomas G. Bergin; introduction, commentary, notes and bibliography by David H. Higgins. Chicago: Regnery Gateway. iii, 688 p. illus. (diagr., tables) 20.5 cm. (Gateway Editions.) [1981]

According to his preface, "On Translating Dante" (pp. 35-43), the translator takes as his purpose "to convey Dante's meaning into English," and so forgoes the distorting use of rhyme and even takes liberties with the verse-length, varying it between thirteen syllables and nine, but observing the tercet division. The verse translation alone was first published in England in 1980 (Manchester: Carcanet New Press Limited); the translation with introduction, commentary, notes, and bibliography was first published in England in 1981 (Pan Books Limited). (For a review, see below, under Reviews).

Dante's Purgatory. Translated with notes and commentary by Mark Musa. Illustrated by Richard M. Powers. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. x, 373 p. illus. 21.5 cm. [1981]

As with the Inferno (see Dante Studies, XC, 175; for reviews, XCI, 180, XCII, 199, and XCIII, 245), the version is in blank verse preserving the tercet divisions and furnished with a narrative abstract preceding and interpretative notes following each canto. A list of "References" is provided at the end. (For reviews, see below.)

The New Life (La Vita Nuova) and selected rime, translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In The Early Italian Poets, [translated by] Dante Gabriel Rossetti, edited by Sally Purcell (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press), pp. 151-211; 212-228. [1981]

The well known version is reprinted from the 1913 edition (Oxford University Press). See also below, under Studies: The Early Italian Poets.

Dante in Hell: The "De Vulgari Eloquentia." Introduction, text, translation, commentary [by] Warman Welliver. Ravenna: Longo Editore. 257 p. 21.5 cm. (L'interprete, No. 21.) [1981]

As he explains in his introduction, the translator favors a literal rendering, even to preserving incongruities in Dante's original. He offers a new theory and interpretation of what he considers the deliberate confusion that Dante created in the De Vulgari Eloquentia and resolved, together with this work and the Convivio, only later in the Commedia. Contents I. Introduction-- 1. The De Vulgari Eloquentia 2. The Post-exilic Trilogy--3. The Evidence of the Inferno-- 4. Synopsis of the Two Prose Works [De vulgari Eloquentia and Convivio]-- 5. The Text--6. The Translation--7. The Commentary--8. Bibliographical Note--9. The Structure of the Treatise; II. The De Vulgari Eloquentia (Text and Translation [on facing pages]); III. Commentary; Appendix A. Latin and Italian; Appendix B. Some Contributions of the De Vulgari to the Interpretation of the Comedy. (For reviews, see below.)

Allen, Judson Boyce. "The Chalice in Dante's Paradiso." In Quaderni d'italianistica, II, No. 1 (Spring), 71-77. [1981]

Descries in Dante's presentation of figures and icons from the sphere of Mars upward in the Paradiso the composite image, conceptually, of a chalice. The idea finds support, iconographically, in a type of historiated chalice widespread in Italy by Dante's time, which was composed of many elements similar to those of the poet's paradisal program. If the Eucharist may be seen as the poem's conclusion, then the image of the chalice is plausible and valid.

Arnaut Daniel. The Poetry of Arnaut Daniel. Edited and translated by James J. Wilhelm. New York and London: Garland Publishing Inc. XXXIX, 146 p. illus. 22.5 cm. (Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Series A, 3.) [1981]

Includes in the introduction a brief discussion of Dante's relationship to this Provencal poet of Dantean interest. Contents: Introduction, Select Bibliography, The Poetry of Arnaut Daniel [text of nineteen poems and verse translation facing], Textual Notes, Glossary of Special Words, Index to Names in Arnaut's Poetry, Index of Opening Lines, Musical Appendix, and Folios 39-41 from MS A. Illustrations are reproduced in half-tone, including manuscript text and musical accompaniments with modern transcripts of the latter.

Baldassaro, Lawrence. "Metamorphosis as Punishment and Redemption in Inferno XXIV". In Dante Studies, XCIX 89-112. [1981]

Relates the various narrative, psychological, and linguistic elements of metamorphosis in Inferno XXIV to each other and to the larger context of the whole poem, of which metamorphosis is the central structural metaphor, as illustrated, for example, by the image of the "angelica farfalla" (Purg. X, 121-129). The example of Vanni Fucci's repeated metamorphosis of stagnant circularity stands in poignant contrast to the wayfarer's positive metamorphosis through conversion and gradual, continual transformation of his vision in the poem.

Ball, Robert. "Theological Semantics: Virgil's Pietas and Dante's Pieta." In Stanford Italian Review, II, No. 1 (Spring), 59-79. [1981]

Examines the polysemous use of pietas and pius in the Aeneid and of pieta, pio, and pietoso in the Commedia, and from a close comparison, sometimes in the light of certain parallelisms (as in Anchises' greeting to Aeneas [VI, 687f.] and Inf. II, 4f.) reflecting a conflation of meanings, contends, contrary to the accepted critical position, that Dante indeed draws on the Latin associations of pietas in reinforcement of typological effects in his poem.

Barber, Joseph A. "The Role of the Other in Dante's Vita Nuova." In Studies in Philology, LXXVIII, No. 2 (Spring), 128-137. [1981]

Contends that besides the three principals, Beatrice, Amore, and the poetlover, there is a further important character, a collective "other" or altrui made up of the fedeli d'amore, gentle ladies, and the peregrini, who serve to enlarge the scope of Beatrice's significance in the Vita Nuova from the traditional privacy of the love event to the public domain. The often noted intermingling of identities in the work helps the poet define the role of the "other" and even implies a circle of identities--Amore, Beatrice, donne. More important, the author concludes that Beatrice is identifiable with the other in the resulting expanded meaning that she comes for all.

Barth, R.L. "Inferno I, II, and XXVI: Dante as Poet and Wayfarer, Ulysses, and the Reader." In Kentucky Review, II, No. 2, 35-48. [1981]

Elaborates on the parallelism between the journey of Dante as Everyman and Ulysses from the contextual and spiritual standpoint of the poem, noting particularly the point at which the two journeys diverge, the point where the wayfarer comes to his senses, eventually passes his test in humility, and accepts Virgil's heaven-initiated aid, while Ulysses, even as he recognizes his being lost persists in his outward journey with pride and daring. The author stresses the presence of the water image in both journeys and also the respective analogical pairings of guidance, Virgil to Dante, Ulysses to his followers, and Dante to his reader, with Ulysses providing the point of contrast by persisting in his manifold sinning of evil counsel, pursuit of experience as such, disobedience of higher law, and pride.

Bergin, Thomas G. Boccaccio. New York: The Viking Press. viii, 392 p. 24 cm. [1981]

Contains a chapter on "The Life of Dante and the Lectures on the Comedy" (pp. 214-229), treating of Boccaccio's interest in and writings on Dante, with an account of the differences in these writings.

Bonaffini, Luigi. "Campana, Dante e l'orfismo: componenti dantesche nei Canti orfici." In Italica, LVIII (Winter), 264-280. [1981]

Points out that in his search for the new, but grafted upon the traditional, Dino Campana was much indebted to Dante, whom the poet considered as best representing the fusion of Nordic and Latin cultures. In illustration of Campana's indebtedness, the author cites many Dantean parallels, echoes, and borrowings in the Canti orfici, associating in particular the Notte and the Verna with the Inferno and the Purgatorio, respectively, not to mention parallels with the Vita Nuova as well.

Boucher, Holly Wallace. "Metonymy in Typology and Allegory, with a Consideration of Dante's Comedy." In Allegory, Myth and Symbol, Harvard English Studies, 9, edited by Morton W. Bloomfield (Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England: Harvard University Press), pp. 129-145. [1981]

Distinguishes between the tropes of metaphor (the object substituted for the thing) and metonymy (replacement of one name for another), and recalls that the early definition of allegory allows for other ingredients in allegory besides metaphor (as in non-metaphoric allegory), concluding that a typological allegory may consist of continued metonymy. According to the author, the Christian typology of the Divine Comedy consists of metonymic relationships, such as in the substitution of part for whole, or whole for part, and in the general continuities implied by the Christian concept of time, of God, and even man as the subject of typology as it unfolds in history. Such aspects of Dante's poem as the journey, the exemplum, and the contrapasso are interpreted as metonymic in the typological structure of the poem. Indeed, the view of the poetic journey as a metaphor has been considered inadequate because, the author submits, "the journey depends on a principle of coherence of time and space and person which belongs only to metonymy." She uses the Paolo and Francesca canto (Inf; V) to illustrate how the typology of Dante's Comedy works on metonymic, rather than metaphoric, principles.

Burns, Alexandra. "The Narrative Sources of Lyricism in the Divine Comedy." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XLII, No. 2 (August), 725A-726A. [1981]

Doctoral dissertation, New York University, 1981. 166 p. ("... the poetic techniques . . . conform to the content . . . and arise directly from the narrative necessities of the content.")

Bush, Ronald. "The 'Rhythm of Metaphor': Yeats, Pound, Eliot, and the Unity of Image in Postsymbolist Poetry." In Allegory, Myth, and Symbol, Harvard English Studies, 9, edited by Morton W. Bloomfield (Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press), pp. 371-388. [1981]

Includes discussion of Dante's poetry (esp. Purg. III, IV, and V) as a model of Eliot's Wasteland for illustrating the shaping power of the controlling image for organizing emotion and narrative.

Cassell, Anthony K. "The Lesson of Ulysses." In Dante Studies, XCIX, 113-131. [1981]

Marshals massive evidence from Scripture and the exegetes, such as St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Gregory, and Richard of St. Victor, to show that Ulysses, is not the ambiguous figure with a bias of virtue claimed by so many critics, but the very exemplar of fraud, indicated by his location in the eighth bolgia. Many textual details of allusion and metaphor utilized by the poet are clarified in this interpretation. All the actions of Dante's Ulysses figure are incontrovertibly typical of dissemblers. "Ulysses, far from being the exceptional paragon of virtue imagined by romantic-minded critics, was chosen by the Poet as the exemplary ambitious, dissembling pretender to noble counsel, one whose aims and posturing advice were as deceptive as the rest of the 'lordura' held in this ditch of Malebolge."

Cassell, Anthony K. "Ulisseana: A Bibliography of Dante's Ulysses to 1981." In Italian Culture, III, 23-45. [1981]

Lists alphabetically over 300 items limited to the period 1800-1981 and excluding ephemera, such as newspaper articles.

Castellani, Victor. "Heliocentricity in the Structure of Dante's Paradiso." In Studies in Philology, LXXVIII, No.3 (Summer), 211-223. [1981]

Contends, on the basis of perceived bipartite and tripartite structural parallels with Virgil's Aeneid and the specific distribution of cantos and spheres in the cantica, that the Paradiso reveals concentricity and heliocentricity, with the sun thereby seen as an important element for structure as well as for theme, image, and symbol.

Cecchetti, Giovanni, "'Per te poeta fui, per te cristiano' (Purg. XXII, 73)." In Pacific Coast Philology, XVI, No. 2 (Nov.), 25-32. [1981]

Construes Purgatorio XVII, along with XXI, as a key episode, echoing the initial encounter with Virgil in Inferno I and reinforcing the exaltation of poetry as the noblest manifestation of the human spirit built by Dante into the whole Commedia. Specifically, Statius is seen as a figura Christi, a poet and savior--what Virgil was for Statius, and what Dante wants to be for all humanity. Also, functioning as Dante's alter ego, Statius is a figura Dantis, in further celebration of poets, and specifically Dante himself as well.

Chiampi, James Thomas. Shadowy Prefaces: Conversion and Writing in the "Divine Comedy." Ravenna: Longo Editore. 198 p. 21.5 cm. (L'interprete, 24.) [1981]

Contends that in the Comedy Dante writes as if he has participated in the inner life of God, that we must broaden the traditional understanding of mimesis as the key structure of the poem, that the poet can love God and write what he wishes, as his efforts are directed to God as their final end. Besides transcending its own beauty to help man rise above his preoccupation with created goods through conversion and a renewal of spiritual vision with a reordering of the will, the composition of the Comedy has a major counterplot in its effect on the poet himself, constituting his epistrophic return to God. In achieving these ends, the poem "offers an immanent apologia by calling attention to its own structure, a structure created in imitation of the Logos." The work is cast in five essays discussing many episodes in the three cantiche to address ethical and aesthetic matters based on the fundamental notion of conversion. Contents: Preface--Introduction: [I] Reading the Divine Comedy; II. Dantesque Miraculism: Autonomy and Heteronomy--Chapter One: Francesca da Rimini: From the Intransitive Moment to the Point--Chapter Two: The Mediations of Unlikeness: The Punishment of the Thieves--Chapter Three: The Logos of Visible Speech; I. The Entry to Purgatory; II. The Panels; III. Visible Speech; Chapter Four: I. Dante's Poetics of Reformation; II. The Strategies of Reformation. Each essay is divided into detailed sub-sections.

Cioffari, Vincenzo. "C.E. Norton's Corrections on Nannucci." In Dante Studies, XCIX, 159-167. [1981]

Presents the marginal corrections penciled by Charles Eliot Norton in his personal copy (now in the Houghton Library of Harvard University) of Vincenzio Nannucci's edition of the Pietro Alighieri Commentarium to the Comedy (Florentiae: apud Angelum Garinei, MDCCCXLV) for their usefulness until a new edition becomes available. This is already in progress by an American scholar and based on over twenty known manuscripts of the Commentarium compared with the three utilized by Nannucci.

Costa, Dennis. Irenic Apocalypse: Some Uses of Apocalyptic in Dante, Petrarch and Rabelais. [Saratoga, California:] ANMA Libri. iv, 144 p. 23.5 cm. (Stanford French and Italian Studies, XXI.) [1981]

Contains a chapter on Dante, "Learning to Read Irenically," in the context of his theme of the "irenic" or peaceful aspects (qualifying the violent, horrific aspect) of the biblical book of Apocalypse, which is proposed here as "the literary type of Christian eschatalogy," characterizing in turn the traditional literature that describes the anticipation of Paradise. Irenic imagery is found to prevail in the process of signification and interpretation structurally from Purgatorio XXVII through the Paradiso, reflecting the point of view acquired by Dante-pilgrim at the end of the second cantica and rooted in the ascetic/aesthetic of Apocalypse as Dante's context for interpretation. Conflated are the ecclesial presentation of general salvation history and Dante's particular salvation history. The author goes on to apply the irenic-apocalyptic context established by Dante in the final cantos of the Purgatorio to the problem of interpretation in Paradiso X-XIV, and evolves the structural logic of Dante's irenic confidence in language, with its traditional Christian confidence in the ultimate transcendent inheritance. Contents: 1. Irenic Apocalypse: 2. Revelation: The Text as Acceptable Sacrifice; 3. Learning to Read Irenically; 4. Petrarch: De legendo Deo; 5. Daily Bread: The "Horrible Mysteries" of Rabelais; Selected Bibliography.

Dante Soundings: Eight Literary and Historical Essays. Edited by David Nolan . . . Dublin: Irish Academic Press; Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield. 192 p. 22 cm. (Publications of the Foundation for Italian Studies, University College Dublin, 1.) [1981]

According to the foreword, like Dante Commentaries (see Dante Studies, XCVI, 219), this volume is based on the annual Dante lectures in University College Dublin, in this instance by eight members of Irish and English universities. Of the selection, seven focus on the poetry of the Commedia and the last on the Monarchia. Contents: Robin Kirkpatrick, "Dante's Fortuna: Inferno VII"; J.C. Barnes, "Inferno XIII"; Peter Armour, "The Theme of Exodus in the First Two Cantos of the Purgatorio"; Christopher J. Ryan, "Free Will in Theory and Practice: Purgatorio XVIII and Two Characters in the Inferno"; J.H. Whitfield, "Dante and Statius: Purgatorio XXI-XXII"; Jennifer Petrie, "Dante's Virgil: Purgatorio XXX"; M.B. Crowe, "Paradiso X: Siger of Brabant"; Michael Richter, "Dante the Philosopher-Historian in the Monarchia"; Index.

Della Terza, Dante. "Inferno V: Tradition and Exegesis." In Dante Studies, XCIX, 49-66. [1981]

Reviews briefly the varying course of Dante criticism over the centuries from the earliest commentators to the present, with specific reference to Inferno V as illustrative example. The author cites certain gains of recent years, such as the enhanced understanding of Francesca through better information, increased exploration of the Romanesque background, increased awareness of pitfalls surrounding a memorable text, availability of Petrocchi's critical edition, the distinction between Dante poet and Dante pilgrim, and a return to an allegorizing reading. He ends with the admonition that any new interpretative intuition must respect philological soundness.

D'Epiro, Peter. "Canto 74: New Light on Lucifer." In Paideuma, X, No. 2 (Fall), 297-301. [1981]

Contends that when Ezra Pound wrote Canto 74, line 425 ("when Lucifer fell in N. Carolina") he had in mind Inferno XXXIV, 121-126, and points out other Dantean echoes in this "Pisan" canto.

Deschene, James M. "The Divine Comedy: Dante's Mystical and Sacramental World-View." In Studia Mystica, IV, No. 2 (Summer), 36-46. [1981]

Addresses the difficulty of reading the Comedy because of the loss to modern readers of its sacramental nature, i.e., recognition that all things reflect the glory of God Who speaks to us through and in things. To enhance understanding of Dante's view of the world the author examines how Dante deals with the problem of the One and the Many, his theme of love within the poem's context and imagery, and the mystery-laden figure of Beatrice as coordinating focus of Dante's complex of ideas and essence of his sacramental vision. The three-fold approach deals with "the world as sacrament," "the poem as sacrament," and "Beatrice as sacrament," focusing especially on Paradiso XXXIII. Creativity and divine activity, power, and love are all inter-associated in the poem's celebration of man and the Other, with the effect that Dante's sacramental art awakens spirit and senses to contemplation and wonder.

De Vito, Anthony J. "La 'Dante Society of America.' "; In Il Veltro, XXV, No. 6 (Nov.-Dec.), 683-697. [1981]

Presents a brief history of the Dante Society and its activities from the time of Longfellow and his translation of the Divine Comedy and the local "Dante Club" that was prompted by that effort, to the eventual incorporation of the society as a national organization and its accompanying growth in world-wide scholarly importance.

Durling, Robert M. "Deceit and Digestion in the Belly of Hell." In Allegory and Representation, Selected Papers from the English Institute, 1979-80 (New Series, No. 5), edited, with a preface, by Stephen J. Greenblatt (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press), pp. 61-93. [1981]

Considering the metaphorics based on food, nourishment, digestion, and generation used by Dante throughout the Commedia and in light of supporting references among certain ancient writers (e.g., Seneca) as well as medieval commentators (e.g., St. Augustine), the author, from a whole pattern he sees in various parts of the Inferno corresponding analogically to parts of the human body, contends that the area of fraud in Malebolge corresponds metaphorically to the belly, digestion, generation, and expulsion--all related analogically, in turn, to money and wealth and the body politic, as well as to the body of Satan as antithetical counterpart of the body of Christ and the Church. The figure of Mastro Adamo, then, in his punishment represents counterfeiting as a disease, reflected in his own bodily condition as a mirror in turn of his soul, and by extension, a resulting distemper of the digestive system of the body politic, as fraud violates the natural bond of love that should obtain in society. Dante's allegorical method here is seen to focus and combine religious, metaphysical, cosmic, social, moral considerations in representations of the human body. Drawing upon ancient and medieval exegetical sources, Professor Durling underscores the parallels between poetry itself and the metaphorics of digestion-generation combining with the various possibilities of counterfeiting and deceit, especially as relating to the outward (bodily) lying and the violation of the natural trust among men on which society is based. For example, the cantos of the Purgatorio corresponding to Inferno XIX-XXVII of Malebolge, while referring literally to the purification of avarice, gluttony, and lust, figuratively refer to spiritual wealth, food, and creativeness, equally liable to distortion, as they develop the parallelism between the physical body and the soul's other modes of expression, especially poetry. In fact, it is here that Dante makes his most direct statement on his poetics (Purg. XXV, 49-63). The poet, in effect, has to speak through the poem as an extension of his own body. "Dante's central metaphors for poetry, as for fraud, derive from the two chief vital functions of the body, nutrition and generation, because for him man is a song-making animal by the same token that he is an embodied spirit." (p. 84) "The gift of poetry is rooted in physical expressiveness." (p. 85) In a poem so serious and ambitious, the problem Dante faced in striving to understand and digest the experience of his own life and his own time was particularly ambiguous and difficult, becoming the problem of the relation between allegory and deceit.

Durling, Robert M. "Farinata and the Body of Christ." In Stanford Italian Review, II, No. 1 (Spring), 5-35. [1981]

Elaborates in further detail on his previous position of drawing a correlation between the parts of Dante's Hell and the parts of the human body, and more specifically and poignantly the body of Satan as an infernal parody of the body of Christ. In this analogy, Inferno X and the heretics would correspond to the human breast and heart, the latter being traditionally considered the seat of faith and wisdom, against which heresy sins. The representation of Farinata and Cavalcante are related antithetically to the iconographic "Imago pietatis" figuring the dead Christ from the waist up in a moment of suspension between life and death and as such representing a Eucharistic symbol. Farinata and Cavalcante in their respective magnanimity and pusillanimity, or impassive resignation and fleshly despair, represent the Stoic and Epicurean, who shared the basic error of limiting man's goal to this life. Farinata and Cavalcante have turned away from the revelation of the Creator in the visible world and therefore each appears as a distorted imitatio Christi. Beyond this clustering of iconographical references to the Revelation and the Eucharist, the author mentions parallel connections with corresponding cantos in the Purgatorio and Paradiso yet to be treated elsewhere, limiting himself here to closing with a brief discussion of the link between the Eucharist, the heart, and the sun as supported by previous literary, biblical, and theological tradition.

The Early Italian Poets. [Translated by] Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Edited by Sally Purcell. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. xxiii, 320 p. 20 cm. [1981]

The well known work is photographically reproduced from the 1913 edition of Rossetti's Poems and Translations 1850-1870 (Oxford University Press), which "is generally closer to the 1861 edition than to the 1874 revision" (Note on the Text, p. xxiv). It contains Rossetti's version of the Vita Nuova and selected further lyrics of Dante (see above, under Translations), as well as translations of other early Italian poets, all in the original metre. There is a foreword by John Wain (pp. xv-xvi) and an introduction by Sally Purcell (pp. xvii-xxiii).

Ellis, Stephen Paul. "Yeats and Dante." In Comparative Literature, XXXIII, No. 1 (Winter), 1-17. [1981]

Analyzes William Butler Yeats's interest in and use of Dante primarily in his prose writings, and more specifically in A Vision, in the decade 1915-1925. It seems that Yeats, who knew Dante only in English translation, was impressed less by the content of the Divine Comedy than the formal design, in which work however he envisioned a Dante at variance with reality, a Dante wearing the mask of solitude, of the anti-self, really of Yeats's own fashioning to answer a personal psychological need, a Dante on which to model his own life as an Imitatio Dantis. Beyond the "hieroglyphics" of A Vision, the author sees the ultimate justification of Yeats's Dante to lie in the poems he wrote in the last third of his life.

Fengler, Christie K., and William A. Stephany. "The Capuan Gate and Pier della Vigna." In Dante Studies, XCIX, 145-157. [1981]

Present a reconstructed design of the Capuan Gate (no longer extant), built under Emperor Frederick II between 1234 and 1239, and point out allusive parallels in Inferno XIII, 58-75, in clarification of Dante's figure of Pier della Vigna.

Fergusson, Francis. Dante's Drama of the Mind: A Modern Reading of the Purgatorio. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood press. 231 p. 23 cm. [1981]

Reprint of the well-known work, originally published in 1953 (Princeton University Press) and subsequently reprinted in paperback in 1968 (Princeton Paperbacks in Language and Literature). (See 68th to 72nd Reports, 45-46, and see Dante Studies, LXXXVII, 157; widely reviewed.)

Findlay, L.M. "Sensation and Memory in Tennyson's 'Ulysses.' " In Victorian Poetry, XIX, No. 2 (Summer), 139-149. [1981]

Touches on a number of Dantean echoes in the context of his theme emphasizing that Tennyson's grief and consolation over the death of his friend Hallam reflected in the poem, "Ulysses," is colored by Homeric and Dantean literary memory.

Fine, Thomas Rea. "Fernandez de Villegas's Translation and Commentary on Dante's Inferno." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XLII, No. 2 (August), 727A. [1981]

Doctoral dissertation, The University of Michigan, 1981. 299 p.

Fitzgerald, Robert. "Mirroring the Commedia: An Appreciation of Laurence Binyon's Version." In Paideuma, X, No. 3 (Winter), 489-508. [1981]

Assesses Binyon's translation of the Divina Commedia as most nearly reproducing "the total quality of the original poem" by its accuracy and Dantean tone, even to recapturing the effect of terza rima; relates the story of its making and of the acquaintance through correspondence between Binyon and Ezra Pound over the translation which the latter found to his liking while he made many helpful criticisms and suggestions for improving it; laments the lack of commercial success of the Binyon version and hence its very limited availability; and ends with a comparison of Binyon's translation with that, also in terza rima, by Dorothy Sayers, which by contrast has found remarkable favor and is constantly reprinted.

Fortin, E.L. Dissidence et Philosophie au moyen âge: Dante et ses antécédents. Montréal: Bellarmin; Paris: J. Vrin. 201 p. illus., front. 21.5 cm. (Cahiers d'études médiévales, VI--Institut d'Etudes Médiévales, Université de Montréal.) [1981]

Examines a problem especially widespread at the time of Dante, viz., the reaction of medieval thinkers and poets whose suspect ideas were in conflict with the general religious, political, and social ambience. Contents (by major headings): Introduction; I. Du monde politique en philosophie; II. L'Islam et la redécouverte de la philosophie politique; III. La Philosophie politique dans le monde chrétien; IV. Dante et l'allégorie philosophique; V. L'Impérialisme de la Comédie; VI. Dante et le christianisme; VII. La Théorie de la double vérité; VIII. Le Déclin de la philosophie politique; Appendice: Saint Basile et l'Hellénisme; Bibliographie. (For reviews, see below.)

Fowlie, Wallace. A Reading of Dante's "Inferno." Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. viii, 237 p. illus. 23 cm. (Phoenix Books--Literary Criticism.) [1981]

Offers an interpretative reading of the Inferno as a work that "has given me the fullest realization of what literature is," and as a work of perpetual relevance, "a work of such plenitude and totality that it is capable of reflecting and absorbing experiences that come to its readers today or at any time." The series of thirty-four brief chapters, canto by canto, is preceded by an introduction ("Personal thoughts on Reading the Inferno"; "Background for the Reading"), including comments on the significance of the Inferno for the modern reader and some comparative remarks on the twentieth-century masterpieces of Proust and Joyce in relation to Dante's Inferno. The book concludes with a "Note on Reading Dante Today," including brief remarks on how the Divine Comedy has been-variously read in the past, on the modern reader's necessary adjustment to Dante's recognition of a created and ordered world, and on further points of comparison with Ulysses and A la recherche du temps perdu. Includes a short "Selected Bibliography" and an index.

Gale, Robert L. "Lewis' Babbitt." In Explicator, XXXIX, No. 3 (Spring), 39-40. [1981]

Comments briefly on some Dantean echoes in Sinclair Lewis' novel, Babbitt.

Holloway, Julia Bolton. "Medieval Liturgical Drama, the Commedia, Piers Plowman and The Canterbury Tales." In American Benedictine Review, XXXII, No. 2 (June), 114-121. [1981]

Reports on three medieval liturgical dramas (Officium Peregrinorum, Visitatio Sepukhri, and Resuscitatio Lazari) associated with Easter as sung in recent presentations at Princeton University, and points out how such Latin plays influenced medieval and modern literature through the international language created by them. Examples include echoes of the pilgrim tale of Luke 24 in Purgatorio II and XXI, and even in the very pilgrim figure assumed by the poet questing the Truth; in illuminations of Virgil and Dante in the Inferno are found iconographic echoes of Cleophas and Luke.

Holloway, Julia Bolton. " 'Not Babilon, nor great Alcairo.'" In Milton Quarterly, XV, No. 3 (Oct.) 92-94. [1981]

Cites Inferno VIII, 70-73, as an earlier echo, among others, of Egypt in its typological association with infernality, as reflected in Milton's Paradise Lost I, 717-719.

Holloway, Julia Bolton. "Semus Sumus: Joyce and Pilgrimage." In Thought, LVI (June), 212-225. [1981]

Examines many ways of pilgrimage in which James Joyce used the mode of figura, a technique partly learned from Dante's pilgrim text, the Divine Comedy, particularly in the novel Ulysses, seen here as "an incarnational game of flesh and words."

Holme, Timothy. "Vile Florentines": The Florence of Dante, Giotto, and Boccaccio. New York: St. Martin's Press. 193 p. 20.5 cm. [1981]

Presents a homely narrative descriptive account of twelfth- and thirteenth century Florence interwoven with threads of major historical events and the lives of Dante, Giotto, and Boccaccio. Contents: Prologue, 1. Portents, 2. Streets, 3. Paint, 4. Festa, 5. War, 6. Love, 7. Marriage, 8. Jubilee, 9. Satan, 10. Fresco, 11. Emperor, 12. Merchant, 13. Usurer, 14. Hell, 15. Banker, 16. Tower, 17. Flame, 18. Plague, 19. Poet, 20. Widow, 21. Comedy, 22. Saint, and Index. Identical with the British edition originally published in 1980 (London: Cassell).

House, Richard H. (Joint Author). "Nimrod the Astronomer." See Livesay, Steven J....

Howard, Lloyd. "Giovanna as John the Baptist and the 'disdegno' of Guido." In Quaderni d'italianistica, II, No. 1 (Spring), 63-70. [1981]

Relates Inferno X, 63, to Vita Nuova XXIV, suggesting that Dante's allusion to Cavalcanti's (former) lady, Giovanna, as Primavera was in part an attempt to bring his "first friend" back into the courtly fold, with Giovanna in this context understood as a John the Baptist for Cavalcanti too, leading him to Beatrice/Christ as well. Such a reading helps resolve the crux of Guido's "disdain."

Iannucci, Amilcare A. "Autogenesi dantesca: La tecnica dell' 'episodio parallelo' nella Commedia." In Lettere italiane, XXXIII, No. 3 July-Sept.), 305-328. [1981]

Given the mass of confusing and at times contradictory, even distorting, criticism accumulated around the Commedia, the author suggests it is time more attention were paid to Dante's self-exegesis built into his works. Dante is obviously seen to be his own commentator in the Vita Nuova and the Convivio. This is true also in the Commedia in which he integrates the device of the parallel episode common to biblical exegesis, where the second related episode clarifies the full meaning of the first. The paired episodes of Guido and Buonconte da Montefeltro, of Pier della Vigna and Romeo di Villanova, and others come readily to mind. But Professor Iannucci dwells at length upon the much debated and often misconstrued episode of Brunetto Latini (Inf. XV) whose full significance is resolved by that of Oderisi da Gubbio (Purg. XI) which definitively destroys Brunetto's reasoning about what constitutes glory and immortality. Even when he does not provide a parallel episode as such Dante builds hints into his poem to guide us to create our own edifying parallel episodes.

Kennedy, Christopher B. "Dante Meets the Son of Uther." In Romance Notes XI, No. 3 (Spring), 364-365. [1981]

Contends that, despite the exhaustive work of Toynbee and others, there may well be yet undiscovered further instances of Dantean echoes in English literature, and cites a hitherto overlooked close parallel with the opening tercet of Inferno I in Arthur's dream of the Wheel of Fortune in the Middle English alliterative Morte Arthure (Anon.).

Kenner, Hugh. "Going to Hell." In Harper's Magazine, CCLXII (June), pp. 69-71. [1981]

Review-article that considers briefly the interest in Dante in English during the twentieth century since the Temple Classics Dante and comments on recent translations of the Divine Comedy by C.H. Sisson, Mark Musa, C.S. Singleton, and Allen Mandelbaum and their respective commentaries, published and/or projected.

Lansing, Richard H. "Dante's Concept of Violence and the Chain of Being." In Dante Studies, XCIX, 67-87. [1981]

Construes Dante's treatment of violence in Circle 7 of the Inferno as modeled referentially on the paradigm of the Aristotelian chain of being, where man is recognized to participate in all levels. The interpretation is deemed to help also to resolve the ambiguity surrounding the concept of matta bestialitade. By so structuring the seventh circle, Dante analogically portrays man's falling away from God in successive stages from rational being to vegetative to mineral and elemental. Dante here unifies the triple division of a complex sin thus presented, exceptionally in the Inferno, on a single plane; expresses the gradation of evil, absent the usual means of the cantica; and effects a distinction between the categories of Violence and Fraud, marked by injury to man and society respectively. Also, Circle 6, where Heresy is seen as a denial of immortality, prepares the way for Circle 7 in the same declension of evil modeled on the chain of being.

Latini, Brunetto. Il tesoretto (The Little Treasure). Edited and translated by Julia Bolton Holloway (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc.). xliii, 164 p. illus. 22.5 cm. (Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Series A, 2.) [1981]

The introduction includes ample reference to Dante, together with Brunetto, with whose life his was so intertwined, as well as a discussion of parallels between the Commedia and the Tesoretto. Contents: Introduction, Select Bibliography, Il Tesoretto (the Little Treasure), La penetenza (Penance), Art Appendix, and Index of Names. There are eighteen half-tone illustrations, mostly from the illuminations in Strozzi 146, Biblioteca laurenziana.

Leiva-Merikakis, Erasmo. "On Auerbach on Dante: The Catholic AfterLife." In Faith and Reason, VII, No. 1 (Spring), 24-31. [1981]

Contends that critics like Auerbach misrepresent Dante's portrayal of the after-life in concretely human terms, because they are blinded by a too modern, aesthetic, even mechanical view of the divine order. Far from a rivalry between the natural and the divine, it is a case of humanity achieving perfection in God through the concrete yet mystical body transformed in Christ, based on the Incarnation. The abstracting bias of Auerbach's approach leads to a misinterpretation of the Commedia. The key is Dante's Christian faith that the creature can attain ultimate and intensest reality in the beyond, the present life itself being the great figura of eternity.

Lipking, Lawrence I. The Life of the Poet: Beginning and Ending Poetic Careers. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. xvi, 243 p. 24 cm. [1981]

Reacting against the by now deep-seated critical tendency to ignore the poet and focus upon the poem as an independent, virtually anonymous artifact, the author seeks to study a selected number of poets of various ages in relation to their works, in order to learn something about the making of poetry by examining the various stages common to poets' careers. In this context, the author devotes a section to "La Vita Nuova" (pp. 20-34) as part of a chapter on "Initiation: Books of New Life," and includes ample further references to Dante, passim. Contents: Preface: The Life of the Poet; Beginning: A First Look into Keats; I. Initiation: Books of New Life--La Vita Nuova--The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Per Amica Silentia Lunae; II. Harmonium: The Tradition of One and Four Quartets The Aeneid Faust Leaves of Grass The Death of Virgil; III. Tombeau: Jonson on Shakespeare Collins on Thomson Auden on Yeats; The Tombs of Mallarme: Poe Baudelaire Verlaine; Ending: This Living Hand Keats Lowell Rilke; Notes and Glosses; Index.

Livesey, Steven J., and Richard H. House. "Nimrod the Astronomer." In Traditio, XXXVII, 203-266. [1981]

Focusing on the alternate tradition of the figure of Nimrod as astronomer, manifest in the Liber Nimrod (c. 9th-11th cent.), the authors trace the manuscript tradition, transmission of the work, and its uses and influence. Referring briefly to the Liber in relation to Dante's Nimrod in Inferno XXXI, which is consistent with the biblical and Augustinian tradition of the figure, they conclude negatively, arguing "not that Dante did not regard Nimrod as the image of unbridled love of knowledge, but that there is no evidence on either the literal or the allegorical level to indicate that Dante was using the Liber Nimrod as a source or that he knew of it."

Lopez, Robert S. "Dante, Salvation and the Layman." In History and Imagination: Essays in Honour of H.R. Trevor-Roper, edited by Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Valerie Pearl, and Blair Worden (London: Gerald Duckworth and Company), pp. 37-42. [1981]

Acknowledges Dante's greatness in his original handling of Purgatory both geographically and theologically, a figurative representation that has become our traditional and unique possession, but questions his bungling of the physical and religious geography of the East in the face of much available information for better resolving the difficult problem of the virtuous/guiltless infidel. This may be due to Dante's drawing "an 'ideological iron curtain' between the Latin Christianity and the schismatic" and to his reputedly being conceited, aloof, and disdainful towards laymen (e.g., Marco Polo) who might have provided much useful information.

Maresca, Thomas E. "Dante's Virgil: An Antecedent." In Neophilologus, LXV, No. 4 (Oct.), 548-551. [1981]

Stresses a parallel in the figure and role of Virgil in Dante's Commedia and in Fulgentius' Expositio continentiae Virgilianae secundum philosophos moralia, and suggests that Fulgentius' Virgil deserves more study for a better understanding of Dante's.

Martin, W.R., and Warren U. Ober. "Dantesque Patterns in Henry James's 'A Round of Visits.' " In Ariel (A Review of International English Literature), XII, No. 4 (October), 45-54. [1981]

Point out various correspondence with Dante's Inferno in James's last tale (about New York), involving the title, setting, chronology, language, and characters. There is also a notable difference in that the lovers in James's tale escape their hell, since for the modern Romantic writer damnation was not an eternal, irrevocable state.

Matt, Bernard Francis. "Quando amor mi spira: Virtue in Dante's Purgatorio." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XLI, No. 7 (Tan.), 3100A. [1981]

Doctoral dissertation, Emory University, 1980. 233 p. (In the rhetoric of the Purgatorio, the Pilgrim not only sees the souls purging themselves, but he also undergoes the process of sanctification and draws the reader into the formation of his own virtues as well.)

Mazzaro, Jerome. The Figure of Dante: An Essay on the "Vita Nuova." [Princeton, New Jersey:] Princeton University Press, xix, 150 p. 22.5 cm. (Princeton Essays in Literature.) [1981]

Focusing less on the literary content than "the union of its novel content with an ongoing new social role," Professor Mazzaro examines the Vita Nuova as an image of its author, bringing to bear on the form of the work the notion of self, medieval ideas about memory, medieval theory of music, and St. Thomas. The study views Dante as a pioneer in modern autobiography, while shedding new light on Dante as artist in the context of contemporary cultural and religious developments. Contents: Preface; 1. The Vita Nuova and the "New" Poet; 2. The Vita Nuova and the Literature of Self; 3. The Architecture of the Vita Nuova; 4. The Prose of the Vita Nuova; 5. The "Dante" of the Vita Nuova; 6. The Vita Nuova and Subsequent Poetic Autobiography; Bibliography; Index. Chapters 1 and 6, here reprinted in revised form, previously appeared as "Dante's The Vita Nuova and the 'New' Poet," in La Fusta, II, No. 1 (Spring 1977), 17-40 (see Dante Studies, XCVII, 186), and "The Fact of Beatrice in The Vita Nuova," in The Literature of Fact: Selected Papers from the English Institute, edited with a foreword by Angus Fletcher (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 83-108 (see Dante Studies, XCVI, 247).

Mazzoni, Francesco. "Per il centenario della 'Dante Society.' " In Dante Studies, XCIX, 1-8. [1981]

Pays tribute to the Dante Society of America on its hundredth anniversary, citing the various activities and contributions of American students of Dante in the context of changing critical approaches marked between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly the innovative interpretation represented by C.S. Singleton after the rather stagnant period between the two world wars. This address, delivered at a special celebratory meeting of the Dante Society in New York City on June 24, 1981, was followed by Professor Mazzoni's paper entitled "I 'battezzatori' di Dante (Inf. XIX, 16-21)," which however was abruptly withdrawn because of newly discovered important further evidence necessitating a thorough revision of the presentation before it can be released for publication.

Musa, Mark. "Filling the Gap with consiglio frodolente." In Italian Culture, III, 11-21. [1981]

Finds discrepancies in the evidence pertaining to the Ulysses episode as presented by J.G. Truscott and David Thompson in their respective articles, "Ulysses and Guido (Inf. XXVI-XXVII)" (see Dante Studies, XCL, 47-72) and "A Note on Fraudulent Counsel" (see Dante Studies, XCII, 149-152). The author stresses that the gap left by Dante must not be filled by mechanically projecting back upon Ulysses in Canto XXVI the sin category applicable to Guido in Canto XXVII.

Ober, Warren U. (Joint author). "Dantesque Patterns in Henry James's 'A Round of Visits.' " See Martin, W.R....

O'Brien, William James. "Walker Percy's Lancelot: A Beatrician Visit to the Region of the Dead." In Southern Humanities Review, XV, No. 2 (Spring), 153-164. [1981]

Cites hitherto neglected Dantean parallels in Percy's novel, Lancelot, already anticipated in the epigraphic quotation from Purgatorio XXX, 136-139. In particular, the author notes echoes of Inferno V, even of the Vita Nuova, as well as the purgatorial role of Beatrice, and stresses the study of Dante as central to an accurate reading of Lancelot. Percy has learned from Dante "that the horror of sin is that it is powerfully seductive."

Owens, M.T. "The Siren and Virgil: Dante on Beauty and Truth." In Faith and Reason, VII, No. 4 (Winter), 286-294. [1981]

Contends that Virgil is rebuked by the holy lady in the Siren episode (Purg. XIX) because, along with classical poetry generally he represents excessive attachment to beauty in itself, not as leading to the ultimate good. Christianity provides what is lacking to classical poetry: the rectification of the will, which is precisely the function of Purgatory, i.e., to effect the coincidence of the good and the beautiful. The process is consummated for Dante through the image of Beatrice in the Paradiso, where he is seen to become the new Virgil, or true guide to the good, not just the beautiful. This is consistent with the psychology of love presented in Purgatorio XVII-XVIII and XXI, as well as Aristotelian Ethics and metaphysics.

Patterson, Lee W. "'Rapt with Pleasaunce': Vision and Narration in the Epic." In ELH, XLVIII, No. 3 (Fall), 455-475. [1981]

Examines the topos of the entranced gaze upon a significant image as both retarding pause and prefiguration of the goal in medieval and Renaissance literature, exemplified here by Perceval's gaze upon the blood-drops in the snow in Chrétien de Troyes' Conte du Graal, Dante's transfixion on Beatrice in Purgatorio XXXII, 1-12, and Satan's two contemplations of Eve in Paradise Lost. In the Dantean example, the instructional function fulfilled by Beatrice is eventually confirmed by repeated enactments of that rapt gaze throughout the Paradiso and poignantly recalled in Paradiso XXXIII, where "a poetry of absence, of nostalgia and desire, has been fulfilled into a poetry of presence."

Pellegrini, Anthony L. "American Dante Bibliography for 1980." In Dante Studies, XCIX, 173-209. [1981]

With brief analyses.

Peterman, Larry. "Dante and Happiness: A Political Perspective." In Medievalia et Humanistica, N.S., X, pp. 81-102. [1981]

Analyzes the differing perspective on happiness in the Convivio and Monarchia, noting in particular (1) the different audiences addressed by the two works--in the more secular first, the middle class of chivalric gentility loyal to convention and interested in practical knowledge; in the less politically oriented second, the Church faithful (as in the Commedia) who seek the truth; and (2) the essentially different focus of the two works--the first based more on Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and Politics and the second, on the Physics and Metaphysics. In the tension between theoretical and practical concerns, the Convivio yields to practical necessity within the political sphere, while the Monarchia focuses on the love of truth, which man's higher nature may, it is hoped, translate into public use, even though the search for happiness here is viewed independently of political considerations. Where the Convivio emphasizes the link between happiness and political obligations of community, the Monarchia ties happiness to peace and freedom from mutual dependency, so that the first is local city-oriented, while the second looks to the larger peace-enhancing framework of universal empire. Thus, Dante moves from the Aristotelian certainty about linking happiness and politics (reflected in the modest middle-class happiness of the Convivio) to the perfect theoretical happiness of the Monarchia.

Picone, Michelangelo. "La poesia romanza della salus (Bertran de Born nella Vita Nuova)." In Forum Italicum, XV, No. 1 (Spring), 3-10. [1981]

In light of Dante's triple categorization (in De vulgari eloquentia) of poetry as salus, Venus, and virtus, the author analyzes sample diction like salus and saluto/Salute, and cor/coratge and cuore/coraggio in Bertran de Born and Dante and more specifically the latter's use of saluto/salute (vs. salus) in the Vita Nuova to distinguish how Dante raises the sense of such terms and their love-context beyond the terrestrial plane of the Provencal poet.

Pivato, Joseph. "Dante's 'Canzone terza': The Convivio of Complexity." In Canadian Journal of Italian Studies, IV, Nov. 3-4 (Spring-Summer), 211-226. [1981]

Sketches an analysis of the third canzone of the Convivio as the last major lyric of the "stil novo," presented by Dante in an express change of style--plain, though difficult and subtle, not allegorical, in keeping with the poet's didactic purpose of treating "gentilezza." Following his analysis from the standpoint of style, structure, accompanying commentary, and larger literary context, the author concludes that the poem, like those of the Vita Nuova, gains depth and clarity of meaning from the prose commentary, and also from the greater literary context, in this case marked by echoes of Plato's Symposium, Aristotle's Ethics, Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, two poems of Cavalcanti, and Guinizelli's Al Cor Gentil.

Quinones, Ricardo J. "Reading Dante Transliterally." In Dante Studies, XCIX, 169-172. [1981]

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

Reynolds, Mary T. Joyce and Dante: The Shaping Imagination. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press. xix, 375 p. illus. 24 cm. [1981]

Treats comprehensively James Joyce's indebtedness to Dante, stressing that Joyce read Dante as a poet, rather than as a Catholic, was interested in Dante's criticism of society and especially in his powers of innovation, and created a Dantean allegory of art in his own fiction. Contents: Introduction; Chapter 1. The Presence of Dante in Joyce's Fiction; 2. Paternal Figures and Paternity Themes; 3. The Theme of Love: Dante's Francesca and Joyce's "Sirens"; 4. Poetic Imagination and Lustration Patterns; 5. Toward an Allegory of Art; 6. Between Time and Eternity; Appendix: Joyce's Allusions to Dante; Notes; Index.

Richards, Earl Jeffrey. Dante and the "Roman de la Rose": An Investigation into the Vernacular Narrative Context of the "Commedia." Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. vii, 116 p. 23.5 cm. (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, Band 184). [1981]

Re-examining various problems in the relationship between the Roman and the Commedia, the author considers the latter complementary to the former "rather than antagonistic toward it," does not find persuasive Contini's and Vanossi's attribution of the Fiore to Dante, recognizes poetological affinities and parallels between the Roman and the Commedia. Contents: Introduction; 1. The Emergence of Italian as a Literary Language: The Problem of the Fiore and the Influence of the Roman de la Rose; 2. The Translatio Topos and Dante; 3. Textual Parallelism between the Rose and the Commedia; Conclusion: Bibliography of Works Cited. The monograph represents a reworking of the author's dissertation at Princeton University, "Dante's Commedia and Its Vernacular Narrative Context" (1978).

Rolfs, Daniel. The Last Cross: A History of the Suicide Theme in Italian Literature. Ravenna: A. Longo Editore. 142 p.21 cm. (L'interprete, 26.) [1981]

Includes, with minor changes, a portion of a longer study, "Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio and the Problem of Suicide" (Romanic Review, LXVII [1976],200-225; see Dante Studies, XXCV, 170-171), as a section, "Dante's Interpretation of Suicide" (pp.22-25), of an introductory part on the Western heritage. Other parts of the book are: The Middle Ages; The Early and High Renaissance; From the Counter Reformation Era to the Age of Enlightenment; The Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries; The Latter Nineteenth Century; and the Twentieth Century; Index.

Ronte, D. "Die Nazarener und Dante." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XLI, No. 2 (Winter 1980-81),5/1489C. [1981]

Doctoral dissertation, Universität Munster, 1970. 199 p. (The artist group, the Nazarenes, and their illustrations of Dante.)

Scaglione, Aldo. "Rassegna di studi danteschi." In Romance Philology, XXXIV, "Special Issue" (February), *32-*46. [1981]

Review-article on recent Dantean studies: J.A. Scott, Dante magnanimo: Studi sulla "Commedia" (six pieces on Dante; see Dante Studies, XCVIII, 178); Richard Kay, Dante's Swift and Strong (see Dante Studies, XCVII, 171-172); Giuseppe Mazzotta, Dante, Poet of the Desert (see Dante Studies, XCVIII, 168-169); R.L. Montgomery, The Reader's Eye: Studies in Didactic Literary Theory from Dante to Tasso (see Dante Studies, XCVIII, 169); Studien zu Dante ... [etc.]. Festschrift für Rudolf Palgen (includes eleven essays of Dantean interest by various European scholars); and Dante's Rime, translated by P.S. Diehl (see Dante Studies, XCVIII, 160). The six items are also listed separately below, under Reviews.

Scheckter, John. "Dante's Purgatorio." In Explicator, XL, No. 1 (Fall), 2-3. [1981]

Considers Arnaut's speech, exceptionally in Provencal (Purg. XXVI, 139-147), as representing all courtly lyric, and interprets folor as Arnaut's error in love, dolor as his failure in divine love, and valor as Dante's example of a soul ready to apprehend divine love. Arnaut burns now, that his soul may understand the highest love.

Shapiro, Marianne. "Dante and the Painting of Nature." In Dante Studies, XCIX, 133-144. [1981]

Glosses indico legno in the passage, Purg. VII, 73-78, as a special color "blue" based on Dante's close acquaintance with the activities of artist friends and his first-hand knowledge of the Val d'Elsa, source of the color material as referred to also in Cennino Cennini's art manual, Libro dell'arte (1396-1427?).

Shoaf, R. Allen. "Dante's Commedia and Chaucer's Theory of Mediation: A Preliminary Sketch." In New Perspectives in Chaucer Criticism, edited by Donald M. Rose (Norman, Oklahoma: Pilgrim Books, Inc.), pp. 83-103. [1981]

Relying much on Saussurian linguistics, e.g., the theory of signs and referentiality and specifically the tenet that referentiality respects difference, the author analyzes in these very terms Dante's treatment in the Divine Comedy of signs and their falsifications in relation to the originals, with particular reference to the relative significance of Canto XXX in each of the three cantiche, in order to illustrate Chaucer's indebtedness to Dante in his own treatment of these matters in Troylus and Criseyde.

Skulsky, Harold. Metamorphosis: The Mind in Exile. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press. 244 p. 24 cm. [1981]

Contains a chapter on "Thieves and Suicides in the Inferno: Metamorphosis as the State of Sin" (pp. 114-128 and 232-234), in which he interprets the significance and implications of Dante's representation of the thieves (Inf. XXIV-XXV) and the suicides (Inf. XIII) as they are metamorphosed in their infernal state, within the context of the book's general theme of exploring the deeper meaning of famous examples of metamorphosis in literature. After a close analysis of the two episodes in question, the author concludes that, while Dante utilizes an Ovidian vocabulary to express a kindred view of the problematic relation of minds and bodies, his is a qualified one where the human condition is the malum damni, which is the evil of loss, or existential rift the soul suffers in its voluntary exile from grace. "As with his pagan models, Dante saves the fantasy of transformation from phantasmagoric triviality by exposing the philosophical nerve of the unease it generates." Contents: Introduction: The Problem and the Method; 1. Circe and Odysseus: Metamorphosis as Enchantment; 2. Ovid's Epic: Metamorphosis as Metaphysical Doubt; 3. The Golden Ass: Metamorphosis as Satire and Mystery; 4. The Werewolf of Marie de France: Metamorphosis, Alienation, and Grace; 5. Thieves and Suicides in the Inferno: Metamorphosis as the State of Sin; 6. Spenser's Malbecco: Metamorphosis, Monomania, and Abstraction; 7. Donne's "Sullen Writ": Metamorphosis as Satire and Metaphysics; 8. Lamia and the Sophist: Metamorphosis as the Inexplicable; 9. The Ordeal of Gregor Samsa: Metamorphosis as Alienation without Grace; 10. Virginia Woolf's Orlando: Metamorphosis as the Quest for Freedom; Notes; Index.

Stephany, William A. (Joint author). "The Capuan gate and Pier della Vigna." See Fengler, Christie K....

Sternheim, Arnold Ephraim. "Time and Narrative Construction." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XLI (March), 4027A. [1981]

Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1980. 222 p. (Examines how different concepts of time and meaning determine different ways of constructing narrative, with examples drawn from the Odyssey, Book of Exodus, Gospel of Mark, the Inferno, and Paradise Regained.

Toscano, Antonio. "Dante: Il discorso aristotelico nella Monarchia." In Forum Italicum, XV, Nos. 2-3 (Fall-Winter), 139-152. [1981]

Examines critically the essential theses of Dante's Monarchia, relating them to Aristotelian thought via Thomism while indicating where Dante differs from St. Thomas and St. Augustine. Only by evading a basic teleological and theological inconsistency can Dante separate the political from the ultimate end and focus with some originality on the means for achieving the perfection of our earthly life.

Valesio, Paolo. "Regretter: Genealogia della ripetizione nell'episodio di Paolo e Francesca." In From Linguistics to Literature: Romance Studies Offered to Francis M. Rogers, edited by Bernard H. Bichakjian (Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V.), pp. 121-135. [1981]

Reprint of the study, which previously appeared in Yearbook of Italian Studies, IV (1980), 87-104. (See Dante Studies, XCIX, 194.)

Vickers, Nancy J. "Claudel's Delectation in Dante." In Claudel Studies, VIII, No. 1, 28-41. [1981]

Contends that Paul Claudel's profound interest in Dante's poetry stemmed, according to evidence in his Journal, not from the didactic substance, but primarily the aesthetic délectation in the effect he sought to achieve in his own work of visibile parlare, seen as affecting the reader's paradis intérieur, which is exemplified in Dante's purgatorial bas-reliefs (Purg. X, 94-102).

Vickers, Nancy J. "Re-membering Dante: Petrarch's 'Chiare, fresche et dolci acque.'" In MLN, XCVI, No. 1 (Jan.), 1-11. [1981]

Finds specific Dantean echoes and parallels in Petrarch's canzone (Canzoniere, CXXVI), for example, "le belle membra" (V. 2)--Purgatorio XXXI, 50, and "sola a me par donna" (V. 3) -- a play on "donna m'apparve" (Purg. XXX, 32), along with the cloud of flowers common to both passages, not to mention the generally pastoral setting of earthly paradise and the purgatorial tension centered on the lady in both instances. The author contends that, read against the episode in Purgatorio XXX-XXXI, the canzone reveals Petrarch's knowledge in depth of the Commedia and his felt need to distinguish his own poetry from that of Dante, while also underscoring his well-known inability to abandon the human in favor of the divine.

Warkentin, Germaine. "The Form of Dante's 'Libello' and Its Challenge to Petrarch." In Quaderni d'italianistica, II, No. 2 (Autumn), 160-170. [1981]

Focuses on the differences between the Vita Nuova and the Canzoniere, particularly as to content and form. With an implied critique of its predecessor, Petrarch's lyric sequence reflects a whole lifetime, with the author focusing on the moral self in his lovesickness and making of fragmentation, or the book's varietas, its modus tractandi and implying resistance to an imposed form; it therefore reflects the limited human psyche in the world, whereas Dante's libello, unified and structured analogically upon God's Book, is a model of the cosmos. Contrasting with the continuity of Dante's itinerarium, Petrarch's Canzoniere exhibits a dissidio in presenting the fragmented moral self in its parts that constantly elude the author's upwardly striving endeavors towards reconciliation. Petrarch's model, which seems to have self-consciously departed from that of Dante's libello, became the cyclopedic exemplar of Renaissance lyric collections, because of its openendedness and greater possibilities of formal inventiveness.

Whitman, Jon. "From the Cosmographia to the Divine Comedy: An Allegorical Dilemma." In Allegory, Myth, and Symbol, Harvard English Studies, 9, edited by Morton W. Bloomfield (Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press), pp. 63-86. [1981]

Examines three seminal allegories of the philosophical tradition in the late Middle Ages: Bernard Silvestris' Cosmographia, based on the theory of opposites and focused on the natural world, Alain de Lille's De planctu naturae, centering on the correlation of opposites in the human mind, and Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose, which dramatizes the whole strategy. This development is traced from Platonic dualism, e.g., of light and darkness, good and evil, Being and Becoming, in the framework of the universe, and eventually between the One and all other things. The author concludes briefly with the transformation of the various allegorical approaches in the Divine Comedy, where the drama of the mind coincides with the panorama of the world.

Wingell, Albert E. "Dante, St. Augustine, and Astronomy." In Quaderni d'italianistica, II, No. 2,123-142. [1981]

Points out various ways in which the Commedia reflects St. Augustine's figurative astronomy and thereby, directly and indirectly, also the gifts of the Holy Spirit, long thought to be unrepresented in the poem. Particular exegetical attention is given to Dante's elaboration of the idea of pacem sine vespera (Par. II), to his figures of fire and wind (Par. I and Inf. XXXIV), and to his use of the sun, moon, and stars (esp. Inf. I and XX, Purg. XIII and XVIII), as well as correlation of the gifts of the Spirit, the virtues, and beatitudes. The author also addresses Dante's handling, in the light of Augustinian figurative astronomy, the distinction of sapientia and scientia and general symbolism of the sun and moon.

Wingell, Albert E. "The Forested Mountaintop in Augustine and Dante." In Dante Studies, XCIX, 9-48. [1981]

Recognizes that Dante read Augustine's Confessions as both theological tract and personal autobiography, and notes parallels between this account and Dante's own spiritual itinerary in elaboration of John Freccero's consideration of the poet's spiritual autobiography in the Commedia "as essentially Augustinian in structure." The author specifically elaborates the derivation of the three images of "the region of unlikeness" (as a state of alienation from God), the forested mountaintop (as mount of philosophical pride), and the image of the forest alone (as the vice of curiosity). The images are further associated with Dante's Ulysses as a figure of pride and curiosity, indeed the poet constructed the Inferno as an incarnation of curiosity, even to reflecting the transformation of the forest image into a sea image as found in the Confessions. Notably, however, Dante separated the mountain from the forest at the start of the Commedia, describing it in positive terms, in order to present it inverted at the end of the Purgatorio, suggesting the salvation of philosophy. In his reworking of Augustinian symbolism, as a poet Dante, unlike Augustine, is seen synthetically to achieve coherence between corporeal sign and spiritual meaning signified, thus producing a more consistent system of biblical symbols, by resolving instances of both negative and positive functions associated with them. In the end, through the creative medium of poetry and his programmatic concern for the literal sense, Dante succeeded in achieving fidelity to his art, to Scripture, and to St. Augustine through "a creative exercise of spatial imagination."

Woolever, Kristen Rae. "The Approach to the Still Point: The Parallel Journey of T.S. Eliot and Dante." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XLI, No. 12 (June), 5113A. [1981]

Doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 1980. 203 p. (Stresses Eliot's indebtedness to Dante's Comedy, especially in the Four Quartets.)

La Divina Commedia. A cura di Umberto Bosco e Giovanni Reggio. Firenze: Le Monnier, 1979. 3 v. Reviewed by:

Teodolinda Barolini, Italica, LVIII, No. 3 (Autumn), 214-216.

The Divine Comedy Translated, with a commentary, by Charles S. Singleton . . . Bollingen Series, LXXX. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1970-1975. 3 v. in 6. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIX, 107-108, XCII, 182, and XCIV, 155-156; extensively reviewed.) Reviewed by:

Hugh Kenner, in Harper's Magazine, CCLXII (June), 69-71.

The Divine Comedy. A new verse translation by C.H. Sisson. Manchester, England: Carcanet New Press Ltd., 1980. (For an American edition, see above, under Translations.) Reviewed by:

Hugh Kenner, in Harper's Magazine, CCLXII (June), 69-71.

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. [Inferno] A Verse translation, with introduction and commentary by Allen Mandelbaum. Drawings by Barry Moser. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1980. (See Dante Studies, XCIX, 173-174 and 196.) Reviewed by:

[Anon.] in Choice, XVIII (March), 959;

William Arrowsmith, in The Washington Post: Book World, 18 January, p. 5;

Peter Heinegg, in Christian Century, XCVIII (15 April), 427-428;

Hugh Kenner, in Harper's Magazine, CCLXII (June), 69-71;

Douglas Radcliff-Umstead, in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (formerly Ralph), VIII, No. 3 (October), 3-4.

Dante's Purgatory Translated with notes and commentary by Mark Musa. Illustrated by Richard M. Powers. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981. (See above, under Translations.) Reviewed by:

Hugh Kenner, in Harper's Magazine, CCLXII (June), 69-71;

Brian Swann, in Library Journal, CVI (1 June), 1225.

Rime. Translated by Patrick S. Diehl. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979. (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, 160.) Reviewed by:

Aldo Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXXIV, "Special Issue" (February), *32-*46.

Dante in Hell: The "De Vulgari Eloquentia." Introduction, text, translation, commentary, by Warman Welliver. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1981. (See above, under Translations.) Reviewed by:

Gabriele Muresu, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXXV, No. 3 (Sept.Dec.), 561-562;

Nigel Vincent, in Modern Language Review, LXXVI, Part 4 (October), 977-979.

Anderson, William. Dante the Maker. London, Boston, and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980. xii, 497 p. illus., charts, diagrs. 24 cm. Reviewed by:

[Anon.] in Choice, XVIII, No. 8 (April), 1106;

Donna Mancusi-Ungaro, in Italian Quarterly, XXII, No. 84 (Spring), 110-113.

Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Studi Danteschi. A cura del Comune di Ravenna e della Società Dantesca Italiana (Ravenna, 10-12 settembre 1971). Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1979. xi, 275 p. Contains articles by G. Contini, D. De Robertis, F. Brambilla Ageno, P.G. Ricci, A. Pézard, F. Mazzoni, G. Petrocchi, A. Vallone, C. Dionisotti, E. Chiarini, C. Vasoli, and R. Migliorini Fissi. Reviewed by:

Aldo S. Bernardo, in Renaissance Quarterly, XXXIV, No. 2 (Summer), 218-222;

Marguerite Waller, in Speculum, LVI, No. 1 (January), 213.

Blomme, Raoul. Studi per una triplice esperienza del Dante minore. Rijksuniversiteit te Gent, it . . . 164e. Gent, 1978. Reviewed by:

Teodolinda Barolini, in Romance Philology, XXXIV, "Special Issue" (February), *361-*363.

Casagrande, Gino, and Christopher Kleinhenz. "Inferno VII: Cariddi e l'avarizia." In Aevum, LIV (1980), 340-344. (See Dante Studies, XCIX, 176.) Reviewed by:

Gabriele Muresu, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXXV, No. 3 (Sept.Dec.), 562.

Cherchi, Paolo. Andrea Cappellano, i trovatori e altri temi romanzi. Roma: Bulzoni Editore, 1979. Contains a chapter, "Tre note dantesche" (pp. 194-209). (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, 163-164.) Reviewed by:

Rinaldina Russell, in Forum Italicum, XV, No. 1 (Spring), 83-84.

Chiavacci Leonardi, Anna M. La guerra de la pietate: Saggio per una interpretazione dell'lnferno di Dante. Napoli: Liguori, 1979. 215 p. (Nuovo Medioevo, 24.) Reviewed by:

Madison U. Sowell, in Speculum, LVI, No. 3 July), 632-634.

Dante Studies, XCVII (1979). Reviewed by:

Gabriele Muresu, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXXV, No. 3 (Sept.Dec.), 564-565.

Della Terza, Dante. Forma e memoria: Saggi e ricerche sulla tradizione letteraria italiana da Dante a Vico. Roma: Bulzoni, 1979. Contains four essays of Dantean interest. (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, 165.) Reviewed by:

Bruno Basile, in Lettere italiane, XXXIII, No. 2 (April-June), 284-290;

Glauco Cambon, in Italian Quarterly, XXII, No. 84 (Spring), 109-110;

Sergio Gilardino, in Quaderni d'italianistica, II, No. 1 (Spring), 93-95.

The Expansion and Transformation of Courtly Literature. Edited by Nathaniel B. Smith and Joseph T. Snow. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1980. Contains Sara Sturm-Maddox, "Transformations of Courtly Love: Vita Nuova and Canzoniere" (pp. 128-140). (See Dante Studies, XCIX, 193.) Reviewed by:

Douglas Kelly, in Speculum, LVI, No. 2 (April), 440-441.

Fallani, Giovanni. Dante moderno. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1979. 160 p. (L'interprete, No. 17.) Reviewed by:

Aldo S. Bernardo, in Renaissance Quarterly, XXXIV, No. 2 (Summer), 218-222.

Ferrucci, Franco. The Poetics of Disguise: The Autobiography of the Work in Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1980. (See Dante Studies, XCIX, 180-181.) Reviewed by:

Anne Paolucci, in Renaissance Quarterly, XXXIV, No. 2 (Summer), 223-226.

Fortin, E.L. Dissidence et philosophie au moyen âge: Dante et ses antécédents. Montreal: Les Editions Bellarmin, 1981. (See above, under Studies.) Reviewed by:

Donna Mancusi-Ungaro, in Italian Quarterly, XXII, No. 85 (Summer), 119-121.

Hollander, Robert. Studies in Dante. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 1980. (See Dante Studies, XCIX, 183-184.) Reviewed by:

Gabriele Muresu, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXXV, Nos. 1-2 Jan.-Aug.), 263-265.

Italica, LVI, No. 4 (Winter 1979). "Special Number: Dante." Contains six essays by A.K. Cassell, T.K. Seung, V.R. Giustiniani, W.R. Cook and R.B. Herzman, M.U. Sowell, and Z.G. Baranski; also several reviews. (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, "American Dante Bibliography for 1979," under individual authors.) Reviewed by:

Gabriele Muresu, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXXV, No. 3 (Sept.Dec.), 565-566.

Kay, Richard. Dante's Swift and Strong: Essays on Inferno" XV. Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1978. (See Dante Studies, XCVII, 171-172 and 180, and XCIX, 197.) Reviewed by:

Dino S. Cervigni, in Forum Italicum, xv, No. 1 (Spring), 85-87;

Aldo Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXXIV, "Special Issue" (February), *32-*46.

Kirkpatrick, Robin. Dante's "Paradiso" and the Limitations of Modern Criticism: A Study of Style and Poetic Theory. Cambridge, England; New York, etc.: Cambridge University Press, 1978. (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, 184-185, also 178 and 189.) Reviewed by:

Teodolinda Barolini, in Romance Philology, XXXV, No. 2 (November), 409-413.

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, XCVIII, 178, and XCIX, 198.) Reviewed by:

Gustavo Costa, in Romance Philology, XXXIV, No. 4 (May), 521-524.

Mazzotta, Giuseppe. Dante, Poet of the Desert: History and Allegory in the "Divine Comedy." Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979. (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, 168-169, and XCIX, 198 and 209.) Reviewed by:

Richard H. Lansing, in Speculum, XLVI, No. 1 (January), 181-184;

Aldo Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXXIV, "Special Issue" (February), *32-*46.

Montgomery, Robert L. The Reader's Eye: Studies in Didactic Literary Theory from Dante to Tasso. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1979. Contains a chapter on "Dante's Esthetic of Grace and the Reader's Imagination" (p. 50-92). (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, 169.) Reviewed by:

James V. Mirollo, in Renaissance Quarterly, XXXIV, No. 2 (Summer), 232-234;

Richard Morton, in Canadian Journal of Italian Studies, IV, Nos. 1-2 (Fall-Winter 1980-1981), 138-141;

Michael Murrin, in Modem Language Quarterly, XLII, No. 2 June), 192-194;

Aldo Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXXIV, "Special Issue" (February), *32-*46.

Perella, Nicolas J. Midday in Italian Literature: Variations on an Archetypal Theme. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979. (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, 171, and XCIX, 198.) Reviewed by:

N. Jonard, in Revue des études italiennes, XXVII, Nos. 2-3 (Apr.-Sept.), 269-270;

Albert N. Mancini, in Modern Philology, LXXVIII, No. 3 (February), 335-337.

Picone, Michelangelo. "I trovatori di Dante: Bertran de Born." In Studi e problemi di critica testuale, XIX (Oct. 1979), 71-94. (See Dante Studies, XCIX, 207.) Reviewed by:

Gabriele Muresu, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXXV, Nos. 1-2 Jan.Aug.), 265-266.

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

Gabriele Muresu, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXXV, Nos. 1-2 Jan.-Aug.), 266-267.

Scott, John A. Dante magnanimo: Studi sulla "Commedia." Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1977. Contains six studies -- five previously published and one new. (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, 178.) Reviewed by:

Aldo Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXXIV, "Special Issue" (February), *32-*46.

Steiner, George. On Difficulty and Other Essays. London: Oxford University Press, 1978. Contains "Dante Now: The Gossip of Eternity," a review-article on the Singleton translation of the Commedia. (See Dante Studies, XCVIII, 187.) Reviewed by:

Christopher Norris, in Modem Language Review, LXXVI, Part 1 (January), 138-139.

Studien zu Dante und zu anderen Themen der romanischen Literaturen. Festschrift für Rudolf Palgen zu seinem 75.Geburtstag. Herausgegeben von Klaus Lichem und Hans Joachim Simon. Graz: Universitäts-Büchdruckerei Styria, 1971. 235 p. port. 24 cm. (Veröffentlichungen der Hugo Schuchardtsche Malwinenstiftung Graz, Nr. 3.) Contains eleven essays of Dantean interest by various European scholars. Reviewed by:

Aldo Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXXIV, "Special Issue" (February), *32-*46.

Vanossi, L. Dante e il "Roman de la Rose": Saggio sul "Fiore." Firenze: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1979. 373 p. (Biblioteca dell' "Archivum Romanicum," 144.) Reviewed by:

Michelangelo Picone, in Romance Philology, XXXIV, "Special Issue" (February), *360-*361.

Waller, Marguerite R. Petrarch's Poetics and Literary History. Amherst, Massachusetts: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1980. Contains substantial reference to Dante, passim. (See Dante Studies, XCIX, 195.) Reviewed by:

Aldo S. Bernardo, in Renaissance Quarterly, XXXIV, No. 4 (Winter), 560-565;

Fredi Chiappelli, in Speculum, LVI, No. 3 July), 658-660.

Aronoff, Marcia. "Dream and Non-Dream in Dante's The Vita Nuova." In Cithara XVI (Nov. 1976), 18-32.

On the heels especially of J.E. Shaw, C.S. Singleton, and Jerome Mazzaro, the author further examines the various forms of dream, hallucination, and vision in the Vita Nuova in the light of Freudian psychology as reflected along the way of Dante's development from sensitive perception and memory to intellectual and spiritual, to the point where the dream device is no longer necessary for turning "the rationalization of the worldly into the intellectual."

Barber, Joseph A. "Petrarch's Use of the Metric Figures in the Canzoniere." In MLN, XCV, No. 1 (January 1980), 1-38.

Includes a comparison of Dante's practice in an examination of Petrarch's use of the metric figures of dialoepha, synaloepha, diaeresis, and synaeresis, transforming an as yet ill-defined Italian system of versification into the refined and sophisticated instrument that he bequeathed to later generations of poets.

Clurman, Harold. [Dante.] In The Nation, CCXXII (12 June 1976), p. 733. (Under "Theatre" criticism.)

Review of a play, Dante, presented by the Polish company, The Warsaw Teatr Studio, under the direction of Jozef Szajna, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The reviewer's mixed reaction stresses the phantasmagoria of surrealistic effects drawn from hell and purgatory: though not much of Dante comes through, the work illustrates what new explorative, suggestive and powerful trends in theatre can achieve.

Davidson, Arnold E. "The Dantean Perspective in Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms." In Journal of Narrative Technique, III (1973), 121-130.

Finds a Dantean parallel here in Hemingway's technique of establishing a chronological distinction between the protagonist experiencing and the narrator now experienced, thus showing that the novelist's craft is deliberately more complex than his simple style would indicate.

Dreyfus, Hubert (Joint author). "Landscape and Guide: Dante's Modifying of Meaning in the Inferno." See Pequigney, Joseph . . .

Eliot, Elizabeth Ann. The Crowned Knot of Fire: A Study of the Influence of Medieval Symbolism on Modern Poetry. New York [etc.]: Vantage Press, 1980. V, 153 p. 21 cm.

Considers Dante's imagery in the Divine Comedy according to principles of medieval iconography and seeks to understand the imagery of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Allen Tate as it is shaped according to the illuminative pattern of the series of dreams in the Purgatorio. "During the Middle Ages, as today, both the condition and the symbol of the imaginative act was the dream. But the medieval art of reading was more visual than ours...." Contents: Introduction; 1. The Medieval Art of Reading; 2. The Dance of Death; 3. The Dove Descending; 4. The Last Alternatives; 5. The Crowned Knot of Fire; four appendices with sample poems of John Crowe Ransom and Allen Tate; Notes; Bibliography.

Fowlie, Wallace. "Epiphanies in Proust and Dante." In The Art of the Proustian Novel Reconsidered (Winthrop Studies on Major Modern Writers [from the first Symposium . . . Winthrop College, 1978]), edited by Lawrence D. Joiner (Rock Hill, South Carolina: Winthrop College, 1979), pp. 1-9.

Reads in an epiphanic vein two representative sets of parallel episodes on the themes of love and ambition-in-art in Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu (at the end of Le Côté de Guermantes and at the beginning of Sodome et Gomorrhe) and in the cantos of Francesca-Paolo (Inf. V) and Ulysses (Inf. XXVI).

Giustiniani, Vito R. "Dante e la linguistica medievale e moderna." In Romanische Forschungen, XCI, Heft 4 (1979), 399-410.

Assembles the various remarks on language scattered in Dante's works, viz., the Convivio and De vulgari eloquentia, to determine Dante's linguistic thinking, pointing out where Dante anticipates and departs from modern linguistic thinking. Fundamental is Dante's distinction between Latin and the vernacular as artificial language (fixed, grammar, literary) and natural (mutable, spontaneous, colloquial), respectively. He intuited that Romance vernaculars derived from a generalized tertium ydioma, or preromanzo, distinct from classical Latin. But it is unjustified to conclude also that at a certain point the spoken vernacular was fixed in a grammar, i.e., in a literary form, and then the grammar remained stable while the vernacular continued to evolve. The author further comments variously on Dante's linguistic ideas. On why Dante did not dwell on the inventors of grammar, he cites the general practice of authorial anonymity peculiar to the Middle Ages. On the question of how Dante, while his linguistic formulations were acutely and surprisingly modern, nevertheless could not grasp the historical relationship between his tertium ydioma and grammar, the author contends the poet's understanding of the evolution of spoken language did not carry over into his vision of history as an essentially static process determined by inscrutable Providence. For Dante, grammar was an artificial construct as opposed to natural language, both of which obtained from time immemorial.

Goodheart, Eugene. The Failure of Criticism. Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: Harvard University Press, 1978. 203 p. 24 cm.

Contains a chapter on "The Blasphemy of Joycean Art" (pp. 158-174 and 194-196), which focuses on James Joyce's conceiving of his aesthetic as a rival to Catholic theology and dwells on his exilic condition likened to that of Dante, the pilgrim poet who was the touchstone for his artist-hero, Stephen Dedalus.

Larner, John. Italy in the Age of Dante and Petrarch, 1216-1380. London and New York: Longman, 1980. x, 278, 16 p. illus. 24 cm. (A Longman History of Italy, Vol. 2.)

Contains only occasional references to Dante, but generally provides a useful social-historical background to the writer and his works, along with Petrarch, as suggested by the title. There are sixteen plates of illustrations as well as maps and tables. Contents: 1. The idea of Italy and the sources of Italian history; 2. Frederick II; 3. Popes, emperors, and communes, 1250-1380; 4. The family; 5. The nobility; 6. Party conflict and the popolo; 7. Party-leaders and signori; 8. The Countryside; 9. Merchants, workers, and workless; 10. Food, war, and government; 11. Religious life; 12. The difficult years, 1340-80; Index.

Levine, Herbert J. "Yeats at the Crossroads: The Debate of Self and Anti-self in 'Ego dominus Tuus."' In Modern Language Quarterly, XXXIX, No. 2 (June 1978), 132-153.

Includes reference to the influence of Dante's inspirational relationship to Beatrice in an analysis of Yeats's struggle between his Hic and Ille, self and anti-self, while attempting to reconcile the mortal and immortal aspects of being as reflected in his poem, 'Ego Dominus Tuus."'

Lisca, Peter. "The Structure of Hemingway's Across the River and into the Trees." In Modern Fiction Studies, XII (1966), 232-250.

Finds allusions and parallels to Dante's poem and Christian mythology in the novel, which "is a kind of Divine Comedy of our time."

Manca, Marie Antoinette. Harmony and the Poet: The Creative Ordering of Reality. The Hague, Paris, and New York: Mouton Publishers, 1978. 197 p. 25 cm. (De proprietatibus litterarum: Series maior, 4.)

Contains a chapter on Dante (pp. 31-70), treating a number of representative episodes in the three cantiche of the Comedy, in which the poet is seen as seeking the complete reconciliation of opposites on a transcendental and mystical plane in a vision of absolute synthesis and unity. This is in the context of the book's general theme of "harmony" examined in six poets -- Dante, Shakespeare, Rimbaud, Walt Whitman, Rene Char, and Hart Crane -- according to two basic modes of Harmony, the "Platonic absolute mode and the Heraclitan relativistic mode" of considering reality. Contents: Introduction: Remarks on Critical method; Part One: Chapter I. Harmony: The Two Major Modes; Part Two: II. Justice, Piety, and the Dantean Quest, III. The Endless Jar; Part Three: IV. Whitman's "Fang'd and Glittering One," V. The Disinherited Quest: Arthur Rimbaud, VI. The Harmonious Vision of Song, VII. Hart Crane: The Bridge; Selected Bibliography; Index. (For a review, see below, under Reviews.)

Marcus, Millicent Joy. An Allegory of Form: Literary Self-Consciousness in the "Decameron." [Saratoga, California:] ANMA Libri, 1979, vi, 136 p. 23 cm. (Stanford French and Italian Studies, 18.)

Includes ample reference to Dante as a foil against which to measure Boccaccio's radical departure from the traditional moral, didactic orientation of literature. Whereas Dante kept constantly in mind the divine truth and allowed the possible transcendent meaning of the human word, Boccaccio, despite his respect and admiration for Dante, seriously questions man's pretensions to divine truth, warns against "the dangers of absolute faith in human utterance," and liberates narrative fiction as a legitimate form in itself, not subordinated to a rigid didacticism, but containing its own implicit moral edification/justification.

Nohrnberg, J.C. "The Inferno." In Homer to Brecht: The European Epic and Dramatic Tradition, edited by Michael A. Seichel and Edward Mendelson (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 76-104.

Offers a general introductory essay on the Inferno in the context of the whole poem but more especially in relation to the literature of quest, stressing Dante's analogies with life on earth and drawing parallels also with the literary tradition, e.g., the Odyssey, Aeneid, and Bible. Comes with a bibliographical note.

Pequiney, Joseph, and Hubert Dreyfus. "Landscape and Guide: Dante's Modifying of Meaning in the Inferno." In Publications in the Humanities, LXVI (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1964).

Reprinted from Italian Quarterly, V, No. 20-VI, No. 21 (Winter 1961-Spring 1962), 51-83. (See 81st Report, 26-27).

Pertile, Lino. "Dante e l'ingegno di Ulisse." In Stanford Italian Review, I, No. 1 (Spring 1979), 35-65.

Presents a reading of many aspects of the Ulysses episode (Inf. XXVI), offering fresh interpretations and resolutions of cruxes and relating the episode to the larger context of the Commedia. Some of the points addressed are the parallel between the "prologue" to the episode (vv. 19-24) and Ovid's Metamorphoses XIII, 135-139; the notion of furto (v. 41) of Ulysses' flame also associated with an Ovidian passage (Met. XIII, 14-15 and 31-32, 103-106, and 110-111) and the idea that Ulysses' sin is not so much fraud as an abuse of naturally endowed talent; the motif of silence in the episode imposed by enclosure in flames, to be broken only with increase of pain when prompted to speak (which explains vv. 23-24 of Inf. XXVII); the contrast between Ulysses' eloquence in abuse of talent (ingegno) in life and the painfully imposed muteness now in Hell, which in turn parallel the painful contrast between his unlimited search/quest for knowledge on earth and the eternal awareness of ignorance, with all kinds of harassing unanswered questions, now in Hell; the parallel between Dante-wayfarer in the poem (and humanity) and Ulysses in his last voyage, the latter exceeding prudent limits without grace and the former questing successfully with grace (though only in poetic imagination!); other allusive instances of ingegno used by Dante in the Commedia and their relation to the Ulysses episode such as to constitute a motif in the poem. The various complexities of the Ulysses canto addressed here, including the poet's evident identification of the Wayfarer (and humanity) with the Ulysses figure, explain the fascination of the much debated episode.

Radcliff-Umstead, Douglas. "Erotic Sin in the Divine Comedy." In Human Sexuality in the Middle Ages, University of Pittsburgh Publications on the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Vol. IV, edited by Douglas Radcliff-Umstead (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 1978), pp. 41-96.

Presents a reading of the Comedy from the perspective of the erotic element in its various manifestations and ramifications in diverse worldly attachments generally, as understood by the Middle Ages, from the perverted, reason-destroying passion of lustfulness (libido, cupiditas, concupiscentia, and luxuria) to the correction of carnal longings and ultimately the embracing of the highest form, "the glorious divine rapture of love fulfilled." The whole gamut is exemplified in a discussion of relevant illustrative episodes in the three cantiche of the poem, including the role of Beatrice in Dante's own spiritual development.

Rossi, Vinio. "Erato and Angele: The Beatrice Figure in the Early Works of Claudel and Gide." In Claudel Studies, IV, No. 1 (1977), 38-47.

While recognizing the opposition between the two French contemporaries, the author relates to Dante's Beatrice the female figure as Emmanuele/Angele, in Andre Gide's Les Cahiers d'Andre Walter and Les Paludes, where she reflects his own ego, and as the muse Erato, in Paul Claudel's Les Muses and other works, where she leads Claudel to "the trinity of Self, Other, and World" as he moves from Eros to Caritas.

Ruggiers, Paul G. "Words into Images in Chaucer's Hous of Fame: A Third Suggestion." In Modern Language Notes, LXIX (1954), 34-37.

Suggests a Dantean source, Paradiso IV, 37-48, as more likely than those proposed by Jerry T. Williams or Julian Ziegler for the curious passage at the end of Book II of Chaucer's Hous of Fame, in which the eagle states that, although no real bodies are there, the words spoken on earth will accommodate to Geffrey's sight by assuming the form of their utterer. Though differing in their use of the device, both poets apply it effectively at the same narrative turn--on the threshold, respectively, of Paradiso and the realm of Fame.

Vance, Eugene. "Désir, rhétorique et texte--Semences de différence: Brunet Latin chez Dante." In Poétique, No. 42 (April 1980), 137-155.

Elaborates on Andre Pézard's thesis and the ideological matrix established by it (Dante sous la pluie de feu) in examining Inferno XV as a brilliant poetic synthesis of amorous desire, rhetoric, and text--three notions commonly associated together in the Middle Ages. For their relevant bearing on the canto, the author (with citations from Augustine, Aquinas, Bernard Sylvestris, and Alain de Lille) specifically considers such matters as "exile" in its cultural and spiritual as well as political sense (of which the canto is seen as a meditation in all its aspects); language as the cement of human communication that maintains the political order; the critical role of analogy in medieval thinking; the recognized importance of music and poetry as aiding nature in its cosmic fulfillment of the divine plan against the corrupting factor of Chaos (figured in the image of silva, forest); the understanding of perversion as extending beyond sodomy to man's relation not so much to his own species as to his polis and culture, a relationship expressed particularly in the use man makes of his language; a text as the locus of social and cultural perversion; the historical Brunetto's choice of French as his language of expression while in exile, considered by Dante a political as well as moral choice, with Brunetto having voluntarily exiled himself from his own culture through that choice of language, much as, analogically, the sodomites exiled themselves (contra natura). The author goes on to note the poetic strategies employed by Dante, especially his metaphors used with three-fold analogical value on the principle of proportionalitas, constrastively pairing reason and passion, construction and flooding, and the creative force of God and the elements of Chaos. The flames raining downward (contrary to fire's nature to rise) are seen to reinforce the idea of perversion of natural principle. The very act of Brunetto's turning back to talk with Dante is suggestive of the dangerous art of trope (tropare). And Brunetto's dwelling upon his literary work as his most valued treasure reflects a further distortion of the true (heavenly) treasure, thus exhibiting authorial pride in idolatrous self-identification with the written word. In sum, representative of the potentially dangerous, self-destructive art of rhetoric (inter-associated with grammatica and litteratura), with the practitioner himself as the first victim of its deceiving ways, Brunetto incarnates all the vices associated with rhetoricians since Plato's time: love of money, opportunism, devotion to external things, self-adulation in the word, etc. The presence of Priscian too, apart from possible association with Julian the Apostate, may perhaps be explained as a figure of idolatry of the written sign, a sin commonly feared by the medieval Christian.

Viola, Pietro M. "Viaggio a Dante e a Beatrice con Charles S. Singleton." In Trimestre (Pescara), III (1969), 279-287.

Review-article on C.S. Singleton, Viaggio a Beatrice (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1968; see Dante Studies, LXXXVII, 171, and XC, 198), considered as "un importante documento di un indirizzo metodologico sempre più diffusamente e degnamente rappresentato nella critica dantesca contemporanea: quello che . . . è orientato a scavalcare il ben noto . . . programma di leggere Dante 'con Dante' proponendo una lettura di Dante con il Medioevo."

Wheelock, James T.S. "The Varying Semantics of Analogy in the Commedia." In Italian Culture, II (1980), 39-48.

Distinguishes Dante's use of analogy by metaphor and simile in the Paradiso as different from that in the Inferno and Purgatorio. While in the first two cantiche Dante exploits the poetic advantages of complex, this-worldly mimetic in competition with prior masters of the art, he employs elementally simple relationships to communicate his experience in the ineffable realm of the Paradiso for achieving his didactic purpose. His analogies here are based on predictability of common properties familiar to us all, based on obvious directional and formative principles. With the use of elemental terminology is combined the practice of concatenation of similes building to a single mimetic effect. Simplicity and multiplicity, in short, distinguish Dante's analogies in the Paradiso from those in the Inferno and the Purgatorio

The Divine Comedy. A New verse translation by C.H. Sisson. Manchester, England: Carcanet New Press Ltd., 1980. (For an American edition, see above, main section, under Translations.) Reviewed by:

[Anon.], in Times Literary Supplement, 26 Sept. 1980, p.1051;

Derek Stanford, in Books and Bookmen, XXV (July 1980),23-25.

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. [Inferno] A Verse translation with introduction and commentary by Allen Mandelbaum. Drawings by Barry Moser. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1980. (See Dante Studies, XCIX, 173-174 and 196.) Reviewed by:

Carolina Donadio Lawson, in Italian Culture, 11 (1980),103-109.

Cairns, Christopher. Italian Literature: The Dominant Themes. London and Vancouver: David and Charles; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1977. (See Dante Studies, XCVI, 216, and XCVIII, 176.) Reviewed by:

L.A. Richards, in Italian Studies, XXXIV (1979), 133-135.

Foster, Kenelm. The Two Dantes and Other Studies. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press; London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1977. (See Dante Studies, XCVI, 221-222, also XCVII, 157-165; extensively reviewed.) Reviewed by:

Philip McNair, in Italian Studies, XXXIV (1979),138-140.

Italian Literature, Roots and Branches: Essays in Honor of Thomas Goddard Bergin. Edited by Giose Rimanelli and Kenneth John Atchity. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976. Contains five essays of Dantean interest. (See Dante Studies, XCV, 167, XCVII,179-180, and xcviii 188.) Reviewed by:

Christopher Cairns, in Italian Studies, XXXIII (1978), 111-112.

Manca, Marie Antoinette. Harmony and the Poet: The Creative Ordering of Reality The Hague, Paris, and New York: Mouton Publishers, 1978. Contains a chapter, "Justice, Piety and the Dantean Quest" (pp. 31-70). (See above, Addenda, under Studies.) Reviewed by:

Peter Kivy, in Italian Quarterly, XXI, No. 80 (Spring 1980), 126-129.

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