This bibliography is intended to include the Dante translations published in this country in 1962, and all Dante studies and reviews published in 1962 that are in any sense American. The latter criterion is construed to include foreign reviews of Dante publications by Americans. Systematic search for such foreign reviews has been restricted to the following Italian and British periodicals: Aevum, Convivium, Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, Studi Danteschi, Italian Studies, and Modern Language Review; some random reviews from other foreign periodicals are also included.
The listing of reviews in general is selective, particularly in the case of studies bearing only peripherally on Dante. The determining factor here is w ether ene reviewer deals in some measure with the Dantean element in the study being reviewed.
Items not recorded in the bibliographies for previous years appear
as addenda to the present list.
Dante's Divine Poem. Written down Freely into English by Clara Stillman Reed. Privately Printed. Wilbraham, Mass. [1962]
A handsome limited edition of 300 copies, printed at the Stinehour
Press. The translation is in a readable prose, designed to make
Dante's universal message accessible to the general reader. There
are three diagrams, one for each cantica, and brief notes
(pp. 308-312) of orientation to each cantica, along with
a preface "To My Readers," and "Acknowledgments."
Inferno. Canticle I of the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Revised and Edited, and with a New Introduction by Bernard Stambler. New York, Collier Books. ("Collier Books," AS 378.) [1962]
This is another paperback edition of Longfellow's translation
and notes (See 79th Report, 39), in this instance
"retouched, corrected, or amplified, wherever such changes
seemed called for." Professor Stambler's general introduction
and canto synopses are designed to facilitate the reading of Dante's
poem. Included also are Longfellow's sonnets on the Inferno,
"A Note on this Edition," and a useful selected
bibliography.
The Comedy of Dante Alighieri the Florentine. Cantica III: Paradise (Il Paradiso.) Translated by Dorothy L. Sayers and Barbara Reynolds. Baltimore, Penguin Books. Also, a simultaneous British edition. [1962]
Of the Paradise, Miss Sayers completed the first twenty
cantos before her death, while the remainder was done by Miss
Reynolds. Also by Miss Reynolds, are the present foreword, introduction,
commentaries, notes, and appendix. Included are a "Glossary
of Proper Names," a selected bibliography of "Books
to Read," four genealogical tables (Descent of Dante from
Cacciaguida; Kings of France, 1223-1350; Kings of
Aragon and Sicily, 1196-1337; and the Della Scala
Family), a diagram and chart of the organization of Dante's Paradise,
and eleven diagrams of detail. The format generally follows that
of Miss Sayers' Hell and Purgatory, which appeared
in 1949 and 1955, respectively. (For the Purgatory,
see 74th Report, 45-46 and 57, 75th
Report, 30 and 38, 76th Report, 56 and 61, and
77th Report, 56. For reviews of the Paradise,
see below.)
La Vita Nuova of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Mark Musa. Bloomington, Indiana University Press. ("Midland Books," MB 38. [1962]
For this new, paperback edition, slightly revised, of his translation
Professor Musa has written an introductory essay on "Dante's
Three Movements in Love" (pp. vii-xxii). The translation
first appeared in 1957. (See 76th Report, 40 and
56, and 77th Report, 56 and 62.)
H. P. Avegno. "Notes on Great Books." In Xavier University Studies, I, 215-220. [1962]
Includes a brief critical appreciation of Dante's Comedy.
D. C. Baker. "Chaucer's Clerk and the Wife of Bath on the Subject of Gentilesse." In Studies in Philology, LIX, 631-640. [1962]
Includes discussion of Chaucer's debt to Dante's Convivio,
IV, for his concept of gentilesse and his description
of Griselda.
Michele Barbi. Life of Dante. Edited and Translated by Paul Ruggiers. Gloucester, Mass., Peter Smith. [1962]
Another edition of this translation, originally published in 1954.
(See 73rd Report, 55, 74th Report, 58 and 62, and
79th Report, 40-41.)
Irma Brandeis. The Ladder of Vision. A Study of Dante's Comedy. Garden City, New York, Doubleday Anchor Books. ("Anchor Books," A 320.) [1962]
Paperback edition of the work, originally published in 1960. (See
79th Report, 41 and 52, 80th Report, 24 and 34-35,
and see below, under Reviews.)
J. J. Bullaro. "The Dantean Image of Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, and Hart Crane." In Dissertation Abstracts, XXII, 4012. (Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1962.) [1962]
Studies the interest of these poets in Dante and their experimentation
with Dantean techniques and themes, particularly in The Cantos,
Ash Wednesday, Four Quartets, and The Bridge. All
three often reinterpreted Dante's poetry in their own manner,
seeking a workable form for their symbolist art.
Joseph Chierici. L'aquila d'oro nel cielo di Giove (Canti XVIII-XX del Paradiso). Rome, Istituto Grafico Tiberino di Stefano De Luca. [1962]
Published form of a dissertation originally entitled, "I
a M e l'Aquila: Due simboli cristiani nel Paradiso di
Dante." (See 79th Report, 41-42.)
D. M. Foerster. The Fortune of Epic Poetry. A Study in English and American Criticism, 1750-1950. Washington, Catholic University of America Press. [1962]
Includes a representative survey of critical estimates of Dante,
along with Homer, Virgil, and Milton, through seven periods: Neo-classicism,
Romanticism, Age of Wordsworth, American theory, 1812-1860,
Victorian Era, turn of the century, and our own times. Opinion
cited is concerned more with content than with form. Indexed.
John Freccero. "Dante's per se Angel: The Middle Ground in Nature and in Grace." In Studi Danteschi, XXXIX, 5-38. [1962]
Examines the legend of the "neutral" angels and the
larger historical context of philosophical and theological thinking,
from Plato to Dante's time, on the problem of defining good and
evil and their gradations, and stresses again (see 79th Report,
43-44: Freccero, "Dante and the Neutral Angels")
the Scholastic distinction between the two ontological moments
of sin--aversion, or refusal to convert to God, and an act of
rebellion, which together constitute sin. The angels who did not
confirm their aversion by rebellious action are devoid of moral
existence and are therefore presented isolated, by themselves
( per se), in Dante's symbolic cosmos.
J. G. Fucilla and R. U. Pane. "Annual Bibliography for 1961. Italian Language and Literature." In PMLA, LXXVII, 2 (May). [1962]
Contains a section on Dante, entries 8028-8157, listing significant
studies that appeared both here and abroad.
Allan Gilbert. "The Interpretation of Dante's New Life." In Renaissance Papers 1961. Durham, N. C., The Southeastern Renaissance Conference. Pp. 11-18. [1962]
Contends that in recognition of the importance of storytelling
Dante has artistically mixed three kinds of matter in the Vita
Nuova--lyric verse, prose narrative, and exposition, to make
the poetry of emotion more accessible to his reader. The resultant
work is to be regarded as an integer, not as it has often been
treated, a "bizarre assemblage."
J. E. Grant. "Dante's Mirrors and Apocalypse." In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, IV, 289-313. [1962]
Analyzes three less obvious yet major instances of mirror imagery
in the Comedy, particularly in its effects of qualifying
and complicating the doctrinal assertions: (1) in the infernal
pit itself, where the King of Hell is fixed in a distorted image
of the trinal King of the Universe; (2) in the sphere of the temporal
Sun (Par. X-XIV), interpreted as a mesothesis
between the antithesis of the dark pit and the thesis of the Empyrean,
or source of everlasting light, and in the sphere of Jupiter (Par.
XVIII-XX), where the Eagle's exposition of justice is
considered "a mesothesis between hate and love, between Satan
and God"; and (3) in the ninth and tenth spheres, where the
two ways of approach, love and vision, are harmonized and fulfilled.
The study includes interpretations of related matters, such as
the rings of light, the number and form of the blessed, a possible
heretical notion in the poem, and a critical appraisal of Allen
Tate's well-known study of Dante's mirrors (see 74th Report,
55-56).
Baxter Hathaway. The Age of Criticism: The Late Renaissance in Italy. Ithaca, Cornell University Press. [1962]
Two chapters on "Mazzoni and Bulgarini" (pp. 355-374)
and "Mazzoni on Dreams" (pp. 375-389) are especially
concerned with the interpretation of Dante's fantasia and
the nature of the Divine Comedy in general in the context
of the sixteenth-century literary controversy. The ideas
of two major critical opponents, Giacopo Mazzoni and Bellisario
Bulgarini, are examined in detail by the author, who considers
Mazzoni's Della difesa della Comedia di Dante (1587) a
monument to the importance of the poetic imagination in human
history. There is further reference to Dante passim. Indexed.
(For reviews, see below.)
Donald Heiney. "Intelletto and the Theory of Love in the Dolce Stil Nuovo." In Italica, XXXIX, 173-181. [1962]
Examines the different shades of meaning of intelletto as used
in early Italian and concludes that the sense of the tenn in the
first canzone of the Vita Nuova, Donne ch'avete intelletto
d'amore, is not the commonly accepted meaning of "understanding,"
but quite specifically a non-rational, superior sensibility
of love, which can be grasped only intuitively. The philosophical
sophistication of this stilnovistic concept suggests a connection
with philosophical sources, e.g., the Scholastic distinction between
intellectus possibilis and intellectus agens, along
with the process of dijudicatio. According to the author,
the possible Averroist influence on the concept merits further
investigation.
Winifred Hunt. "On Even Ground: A Note on the Extra-mundane Location of Hell in Paradise Lost." In Modern Language Quarterly, XXIII, 17-19. [1962]
Compares the conception of Hell in Dante's Inferno and
Milton's Paradise Lost and notes especially the rejection
of Dante's cosmology in Milton's locating Hell as well as Heaven
extra-mundanely, thus harmonizing the accessibility/remoteness
of both realms, in further support of his theme of the original
and recoverable freedom of man.
Maurice Kelley. "Milton's Dante-Della Casa-Varchi Volume." In Bulletin of the New York Public Library, LXVI, 499-504. [1962]
Gives a better description than hitherto available of Milton's
annotations in this volume, marked *KB 1529 in the NYPL, for those
interested in the Italian influence on Milton's verse. The annotations
appear to be of 1637-51/52. L'amoroso Convivio di Dante
(Venice 1529) is one of the three works contained in the volume.
G. W. Knight. The Christian Renaissance, with Interpretations of Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe, and New Discussions of Oscar Wilde and the Gospel of Thomas. [Revised Edition.] New York, W. W. Norton and Company. (Also: London, Methuen.) [1962]
The author is committed to a method of "poetic interpretation"
based on a theory of imagination as creative and prophetic; his
subject is concerned with the great visionary literature of the
West; his theme of the Christian Renaissance heralds the New Incarnation,
which is suggested to replace the notion of the Holy Spirit as
the Third Person of the Trinity; his purpose seems to be to gain
recognition of "the Sacred Life alike in poetry, and Christianity,
and human love." Within this general context, there are three
substantial references to Dante: in a chapter on "Creative
Newness," Dante's frequent discussions of creation are invoked
(pp. 60-65); in a chapter on "Renaissance Prophets: Dante,
Goethe, Shakespeare," Dante's Comedy is discussed
in terms of its meaning-laden, symbolical images, of which
fire is found to predominate (pp. 95-105); and in a chapter
on "The Eternal Triangle," Dante's poem is viewed as
a supreme statement of (circular) harmony, in contrast to Goethe's
"chaotic poem" (pp. 229-235). Further references to
Dante occur passim. Indexed. The original edition appeared
as The Christian Renaissance, with Interpretations of Dante,
Shakespeare and Goethe, and a Note on T. S. Eliot in 1933
(Macmillan Company).
N. M. Larkin. "Another Look at Dante's Frog and Mouse [Inf. XXIII, 4-9]." In Modern Language Notes, LXXVII, 94-99. [1962]
Contends that the opening of Inferno XXIII with the reference
to the frog and mouse fable, as it pertains to the preceding episode
of Ciampolo and the demons, must be interpreted in terms of all
stages of the fable in order to be seen perfectly consistent with
the episode, as Dante claims. Satisfying all requirements, both
on the literal level and in the moral significance, is the interpretation
submitted--Dante and Virgil: mouse:: Demons: frog. Like the mouse
in the fable, Dante and Virgil carne to a barrier that must be
crossed; they sought help of the Demons who, like the frog, plotted
treachery against the former, but became embroiled in their own
evil because of them.
Ulrich Leo. "Zum 'Rifacimento' der Vita Nuova." In Romanische Forschungen, LXXIV, 281-317. [1962]
Takes issue both with Barbi, who denies the possibility of later
changes or revisions by Dante in the Vita Nuova, and with
Pietrobono and Nardi, who consider the last four chapters additions
to serve as transition to the Convivio. Ignoring the frequently
held assumption of an intention by Dante from the beginning to
write a trilogy, Professor Leo limits his analysis to the textual
evidence alone and finds, on the basis of style and structure,
that Chapter XXV, Section 17 of XII, Chapter XL, and portions
of XLI may be considered probable later additions. From these
findings, the Beatrice of the Divine Comedy appears more
consistent with Dante's original image of her as his donna
angelicata in the earlier work.
P. R. Olson. "Theme and Structure in the Exordium of the Paradiso." In Italica, XXXIX, 89-104. [1962]
In this close analysis of Paradiso I, 1-12, the author
finds that there is perfect parallelism among the conceptual and
formal details and that, far from being merely discursive in quality,
the passage is in fact highly successful poetically, thanks both
to the aesthetic values intrinsic to the hierarchical conception
of the Great Chain of Being here invoked and to the formal details
that artistically reflect in syntax and sound this structural
concept of the universe. The motif of the pilgrim's heavenward
journey is significantly enhanced, moreover, while at the same
time provision already is subtly being made by the poet for his
return.
A. L. Pellegrini. "American Dante Bibliography for 1961." In 80th Annual Report of the Dante Society, 21-38. [1962]
With brief analyses.
Joseph Pequigney and Hubert Dreyfus. "Landscape and Guide: Dante's Modifying of Meaning in the Inferno." In Italian Quarterly, V, No. 20--VI, No. 21 (Winter, 1961--Spring, 1962), 51-83. [1962]
Attempt to determine the full significance of the wall separating
the City of Dis from the rest of Inferno, by bringing to bear
fuller Christian correctives to Virgil's own limited ken. Dante's
scheme of Hell is Christian, based on religious categories, which
exceed the strictly moral terms of Virgil's guidance that can
distinguish between the two large classes of sin only ethically
and in degree. The authors' analysis takes them over the whole
infernal topography and penal system, in light of which the wall
is seen to divide the natural landscape of the Incontinent without,
where the punishments are but a continuation or extension of the
respective sins themselves, from the unnatural, distorted landscape
of the Fraudulent within, where the principle of retribution or
contrapasso actually obtains. In contrast to the Incontinent,
who in their sinfulness loved the finite things of God's creation
naturally, but too well, i.e. idolatrously, the denizens of Dis
sinned in a manner rejecting God and His creation, thus closing
themselves off in unresponsive autonomy (in Dante's language,
pride) within the isolating bastion of their own will. The isolating
walls of Malebolge, shutting the sinners up into groups, repeat
and re-emphasize the meaning of the outer wall of Dis, while
the inner citadel demarcated by the giants serves to emphasize
even further the idea of rejection and isolation. The interpretation
clarifies the orderly transformations in the infernal landscape
and the parallelism with the increasing gravity of the sinfulness,
in terms of the definition of sin, unarticulated yet implicit
in Dante's Comedy as a whole: self-exclusion from
total fulfillment, possible only in God.
Renato Poggioli. "Dante Poco Tempo Silvano: Or a 'Pastoral Oasis' in the Commedia." In 80th Annual Report of the Dante Society, 1-20. [1962]
Interprets the pilgrim's brief stay in the Earthly Paradise (Purg.
XXIII-XXXIII) as a "pastoral oasis" conceived
in terms of the pastoral of happiness. Merging pagan and Christian
elements, it is related within the poem both to the "nobile
castello" of Limbo (Inf. IV, 106) and to the Eternal
Paradise. Consistent with Dante's view of the dual blessedness
expressed in the De Monarchia, III, 16, the Earthly Paradise
is a place of temporary bliss, figuring a perfectly happy
worldly life, while prefiguring at the same time the blissful
immortality of a soul restored to justice and innocence. Eden,
as defined by Matelda, who represents Leah in the fulfillment
of the prophetic dream (Purg. XXVII, 100-108), is
a garden of delights where the pilgrim, or Man, is but "a
little while a forester" on the way to the Heavenly City
or celestial Rome, for which it is a preparation.
Gino Rizzo. "The Composite Picture of Sicily in Dante and Gongora: Secularization of a Literary Theme." In Symposium, XVI, 193-205. [1962]
Dante uses mythic references drawn from Ovid and Virgil to create
a composite picture of Sicily (Par. VII, 67-70) in which
he establishes a structural analogy between the realm of Nature
and that of Man's moral conduct. In this depiction of the island
are contained two structurally articulated contrasts: the beauty
of the island vs. impending volcanic disaster; and a replacing
of the myth (Typhoeus) with a naturalistic explanation of physical
phenomenon (volcanic action of Etna). In the Renaissance, for
example, in the poetic references to Sicily by Ariosto and Juan
de Mena, the literary conventions are found much secularized and
elaborated merely for their decorative value. An exception in
this later development is Gongora's picture of Sicily in his Polifemo,
IV, where the three myths of Typhoeus, Vulcan, and Polyphemus
are again combined in a structural analogy integrating the myths
with the stream of narrative, although without the moral connotations
that Dante conveys analogically through references to natural
phenomenon.
George Santayana. "Dante." In The Proper Study: Essays on Western Classics. Edited by Quentin Anderson and Joseph A. Mazzeo. New York, St. Martin's Press. Pp. 255-284. [1962]
From Santayana's Three Philosophical Poets: Lucretius, Dante,
Goethe, originally published in 1910 (Harvard University Press).
(See also 74th Report, 61, 75th Report, 27-28,
and 77th Report, 52.)
J. A. Scott. "Inferno, X: Farinata as Magnanimo." In Romance Philology, XV, 395-411. [1962]
Examines the history of the term, magnanimo, in its varying
favorable and unfavorable meanings and, against the over-simplified
traditional view of Farinata, brings to bear these findings upon
Dante's presentation of the character in the light, furthermore,
of the contextual preparation for the episode (Inf. VI
and IX), linking pride and heresy. The word magnanimo,
as used by the poet in Inf. X, 73, is seen as
a microcosm reflecting Dante's complex attitude towards Farinata:
admiration for the savior of Florence and condemnation of Farinata's
ambition and pride, his clannish and partisan spirit. The episode
underscores the vanity of Epicurean concepts evinced in both Farinata's
and Cavalcante's obsession with the clan or material actions,
the only means of immortality conceivable to these Epicurean heretics.
K. L. Selig. "Una nota su Dante nella Spagna del secolo diciassettesimo." In Convivium, N.S., XXX, 478-479. [1962]
Cites Dantean allusions in Baltasar de Vitoria's Theatro de
los dioses de la gentilidad in further evidence of the poet's
renown in seventeenth-century Spain.
C. S. Singleton. "Inferno X: Guido's Disdain." In Modern Language Notes, LXXVII, 49-65. [1962]
After some general remarks on the allegorical dimension of the
Comedy, stressing "revelation" and "retrospective
illumination" as the pattern of Dante's special way of writing,
Professor Singleton focuses on the episode in question as an example
of how the poem opens up to allegory, without excluding
the first, or literal, sense. In the verse, forse cui Guido
vostro ebbe a disdegno (Inf. X, 63), specifically,
he contends that the verb has the value here of a passato prossimo
(cf. also dicesti, in line 68 of the immediate
context) and suggests that ebbe is the equivalent of non
volle venire -- i.e., just now, but nine hours ago, at the
beginning of the journey. In this way, the poem suggests, allegorically,
the same choice is open to us, the reader, here and now of taking
such a spiritual journey with Virgil as guide. The study closes
with a bibliography of studies devoted to the much disputed passage.
T. K. Swing. The Fragile Leaves of the Sybil. Dante's Master Plan. Westminster, Maryland, The Newman Press. [1962]
Treating Dante as a "poetical philosopher," the author
analyzes the Divine Comedy as a structural and philosophical
whole combining the two principles of (1) uniformity of the three
realms and (2) diversity of material. As keys to the poem's unity,
he finds that "the Saint's [Bernard's] three works, De
Gradibus humilitatis, De diligendo Deo, and Sermones in
Cantica Canticorum, jointly constitute the chief model for
the architectonic construction of Dante's Cantica of divine
love," and that "Dante's notion of the soul is one of
the most consistent resolutions of a long struggle to articulate
the nature of man as conceived in the Judeo-Christian tradition
through the conceptual framework developed in the Greco-Roman
tradition." Focusing on the last cantica, while contrasting
it simultaneously with the other two, the interpretation is executed
in terms of the ladder (cf. Jacob's Ladder and St. Benedict's
Rule of the ladder) as the informing image in each case: in the
Inferno, the ladder of pride; in the Purgatorio, of
humility; in the Paradiso, of joy. The fourteen chapters
are arranged in three parts: I. The Presentation of the Problem,
with a chapter (1) on The Quest for the Unity of the Divina
Commedia; II. The Formulation of a Solution, with chapters
on (2) The Principle of Uniformity and (3) . . . of Diversity;
and III. The Elucidation of a Solution, with chapters on (4) Lesson
on the Rung of Humility and Pride, (5) . . . Mercy and Envy, (6)
. . . Meekness and Wrath, (7) . . . Fortitude and Sloth, (8) .
. . Liberality and Avarice, (9) . . . Temperance and Gluttony,
(10) . . . Spiritual and Carnal Love, (11) Retrospect and Prospect
on Jacob's Ladder, (12) Vision on the Rung of Faith and Revelation,
(13) . . . Hope and Sanctification, (14) . . . Charity and Beatification.
The volume comes with a preface by Professor T. G. Bergin, a section
of "Acknowledgments," "Notes," "Bibliography,"
and index.
John Van Erde. "The Imagery in Gautier's Dantesque Nightmare." In Studies in Romanticism, I, 230-240. [1962]
Without claiming the Inferno as a direct source of inspiration
for Gautier's Cauchemar, the author cites suggestive instances
of Dantesque imagery in the poem, which reflects the concern with
the grotesque and the horrible typical of the French Romantic
period when interest in Dante's Inferno especially was
great.
Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Translated by J. D. Sinclair. 3 vols. (See 80th Report, 21.) Reviewed by:
Vernon Hall, Jr., in Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature,
XI, 43-44.
Dante Alighieri. The Inferno. Translated by Warwick Chipman. (See 80th Report, 21-22.) Reviewed by:
[Anon.], in Times Literary Supplement, 8 Jan., 1;
R. J. Clements, in Saturday Review, 10 Feb., 26-27;
N. J. Perella, in Romance Philology, XVI, 259-260.
Dante Alighieri. The Purgatorio. Translated by John Ciardi. (See 80th Report, 22 and 34.) Reviewed by:
Hayden Carruth, in Poetry, C, 198-200;
R. J. Clements, in Saturday Review, 10 Feb., 26-27;
Vernon Hall, Jr., in Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature,
43-44.
Dante Alighieri. Paradise. Translated by Dorothy L. Sayers and Barbara Reynolds. (See above.) Reviewed by:
[Anon.], in Times Literary Supplement, 27 July, 544.
Dante Alighieri. Dante's "Vita Nuova." Translated by R. W. Emerson. (See 79th Report, 40 and 51.) Reviewed by:
C L. Johnson, in Comparative Literature, XIV, 314-315.
Erich Auerbach. Dante, Poet of the Secular World. (See 80th Report, 23.) Reviewed by:
T. G. Bergin, in Yale Review, LI, 459-463;
R. J. Clements, in Saturday Review, 10 Feb., 26-27.
Irma Brandeis, ed. Discussions of the Divine Comedy. (See 80th Report, 23-24.) Reviewed by:
T. G. Bergin, in Italian Quarterly, VI, 22 (Summer),
94-101.
The Ladder of vision. (See 79th Report, 41 and 52, 80th Report, 24 and 34-35, and see above.) Reviewed by:
T. G. Bergin, in Italian Quarterly, VI, 22 (Summer), 94-101;
Colin Hardie, in Modern Language Review, LVII, 113-114.
John Freccero. "Dante's Firm Foot and the Journey without a Guide." (See 78th Report, 29-30.) Reviewed by:
F. Mz. [Francesco Mazzoni], in Studi Danteschi, XXXIX,
233-235.
Baxter Hathaway. The Age of Criticism. (See above.) Reviewed by:
Andrew Bongiorno, in Renaissance News, XV, 217-219.
J. A. Mazzeo. Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante's Comedy. (See 79th Report, 45, and 80th Report, 35.) Reviewed by:
T. G. Bergin, in Italian Quarterly, VI, 22 (Summer), 94-101;
Vincenzo Cioffari, in Italica, XXXIX, 299-301;
C. T. Davis, in Comparative Literature, XIV, 388-391;
John Freccero, in Symposium, XVI, 63-67;
Edward Williamson, in Romanic Review, LIII, 285-286.
J. A. Mazzeo. Structure and Thought in the "Paradiso." (See 77th Report, 49, 78th Report, 39, 43, and 44, 79th Report, 53, and 80th Report, 35.) Reviewed by:
Rocco Montano, in Comparative Literature, XIV, 294-298.
Bruno Migliorini. Storia della lingua italiana. (See 80th Report, 35-36.) Reviewed by:
Carlo Dionisotti, in Romance Philology, XVI, 41-58.
Rocco Montano. La Poesia di Dante. Published in Delta (Naples), N.S., Nos. 15-21 (1958-59). (See 78th Report, 33 and 43, and 79th Report, 58.) Reviewed by:
T. G. Bergin, in Italian Quarterly, VI, 22 (Summer), 94-101,
Andrea Ciotti, in Convivium, N. S., XXX, 264-292 and 399-415;
Donato Gagliardi, in Italica, XXXIX, 63-65.
Friedrich Schneider. Dante, Leben und Werk. 5. Neubearbeitete Auflage. Weimar. Boehlau, 1960. Reviewed by:
Ulrich Leo, in Romanische Forschungen, LXXIV, 216-223.
C. S. Singleton. Dante Studies 2. Journey to Beatrice. (See 77th Report, 52-53, 78th Report, 35 and 40, 79th Report, 54, 80th Report, 36, and see below, under Addenda -- Reviews.) Reviewed by:
Andrea Ciotti, in Convivium, N. S., XXX, 233-238.
Giulio Vallese. Da Dante ad Erasmo. Studi di letteratura umanistica. Naples, G. Scalabrini, 1962. (The first three chapters are concerned in part with Dante.) Reviewed by:
Danilo Aguzzi-Barbagli, in Renaissance News, XV,
306-308.
Bernard Weinberg. A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance. (See 80th Report, 33.) Reviewed by:
Carmelo Gariano in Modern Language Journal, XLVI, 93-194;
J. H. Hagstrum, in Italica, XXXIX, 140-142;
M. T. Herrick, in Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, XI, 59-62;
D. M. White, in Renaissance News, XV, 215-217.
E. H. Wilkins. The Invention of the Sonnet and Other Studies in Italian Literature. (See 78th Report, 37 and 41, 79th Report, 55, and 80th Report, 37.) Reviewed by:
D. D. R. [Domenico De Robertis], in Studi Danteschi, XXXIX,
223-225.
La Vita Nuova. Translated by Mark Musa. London, M. Paterson. [1957]
British edition identical with the American. (See 76th Report,
40.)
Phillip Damon. Modes of Analogy in Ancient and Medieval Verse. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Publications in Classical Philology, XV, 6, pp. 261-334. [1961]
Contains a final essay (of six), on "Dante and the Verace
Intendimento of the Nature Introduction," presenting
an elaborate exegesis of lo son venuto al punto della rota
as the poet's most concerted endeavor toward "an intellectual
validation of the troubadour nature introduction." The suggestive
astronomic figure with which the canzone opens is taken
to set in relief a state of mind tending to a "morbid psychic
helplessness." The author stresses the widely held view of
the rime petrose as a transitional, experimental stage
in Dante's art.
Dante Della Terza. "Studi danteschi in America." In Rassegna della Letteratura Italiana, LXIV, 218-230. [1960]
Discusses the current state of Dante studies in America, with
specific reference to the more prominent scholars in the field.
G. W. Knight. The Starlit Dome: Studies m the Poetry of Vision. New York, Barnes and Noble. [1960]
Contains an essay on "Coleridge's Divine Comedy." (See
79th Report, 45.) The Starlit Dome first appeared
in 1941 (London, Oxford University Press).
Ulrich Leo. "Vorrede zu einer Lectura Dantis." In Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch, XXXVIII, 18-50. [1960]
Pleads strongly for treating the Commedia as a poem
and charges certain current interpreters with seeking to thrust
their own allegorizing schemata upon the work. A number of key
questions are discussed, indicating where Dante criticism has
erred, for example, the nature of the poem, the problem of sources,
the meaning of Beatrice and Virgil. Professor Leo contends that
the Commedia is not a "dream" (Traum), but
a "vision," religiously and philosophically based,
to be sure, but essentially a poetical vision of transcendental
reality; that the Letter to Can Grande supports a dual, not a
fourfold, meaning in Dante's poem, which he sides with Barbi in
terming a "symbolist poem" symbolische Gedicht);
that Beatrice and Virgil are not allegories, but "poetic
figures," "created of and for poetry," without
prejudice to their historical basis. Against the Roman de la
rose, deemed the last truly medieval poem by its allegorical
design and execution Dante's Commedia is considered
a departure from systematic allegory and therefore the first great
modern poem.
Seán Lucy. T. S. Eliot and the Idea of Tradition. New York, Barnes and Noble. [1961]
Contains considerable discussion, passim, of the progressive
influence of Dante on Eliot's critical ideas as well as his poetry.
Indexed. Original British edition: London, Cohen and West, 1960.
Sheila Ralphs. Etterno Spiro: A Study in the Nature of Dante's Paradiso. New York, Barnes and Noble. [1959]
"The purpose of this essay is to consider something of the
significance and interrelationship of a number of words and images
which appear to be very important in Dante's presentation of Paradise."
The author focuses especially on Dante's words and imagery for
expressing the movement to, and enjoyment of, blessedness; the
function of the Son and the Holy Spirit in making and perfecting
the created order; the process of growth in vision, and consequently
in love, on the way to Paradise; and Paradise as a participating
in the Divine nature by the gift of the spirit. The four short
chapters are: I. "L'intenzione dell'arte"; II. "Il
pan delli angeli"; III. Lumen gloriae; and IV. Etterno spiro.
Original edition: Manchester (England), Manchester University
Press, 1959. ("Publications of the Faculty of Arts of the
University of Manchester, No. 10.")
John Saly. "Introduction to a Modern Reading of Dante's Paradiso." (In Main Currents in Modern Thought, XVII, No. 5, May-June), 104-108. [1961]
This is a pre-printing of the introduction to a book in preparation
to be entitled, Meditations on Dante's Paradiso. On the
persuasion that each poem is, in its fragmentary way, a path to
reality, the author maintains that "the Divine Comedy
is the poem of poems" and the Paradiso, in particular,
opens for us a direct path toward being. He holds, further,
that it is "legitimate to try to formulate the new meaning
which a poem like the Comedy has for ourselves."
Erich Auerbach. Dante, Poet of the Secular World. (See 80th Report, 23, and see above, p. 31.) Reviewed by:
L. H. Gordon, in Brown Daily Herald. Supplement, V,
9, 10-11.
Erich Auerbach. Scenes from the Drama of European Literature. (See 78th Report, 26.) Reviewed by:
B. R. McE[lderry, Jr.], in Personalist, XLI [1960], 410-411.
J. C. Nelson. Renaissance Theory of Love. (See 79th Report, 58). Reviewed by:
R. O. Johann, S. J., in New Scholasticism, XXXIV [1960],
363-364.
Barbara Seward. The Symbolic Rose. (See 79th Report, 48.) Reviewed by:
Sister M. Cleophas, R. S. M., in Renascence, XIII, 207-209.
C. S. Singleton. Dante Studies 2. Journey to Beatrice. (See 77th Report, 52-53, 78th Report, 35 and 40, 79th Report, 54, 80th Report, 36, and see above, p. 33.) Reviewed by:
August Ruegg, in Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie,
LXXVII, 423-427.
Bernard Weinberg. A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance. (See 80th Report, 33, and see above, p. 33.) Reviewed by:
C[harles]. S[peroni]., in Italian Quarterly, V, No.
19 (Fall), 70-72.