This bibliography is intended to include the Dante translations published in this country in 1968, and all Dante studies and reviews published in 1968 that are in any sense American. The latter criterion is construed to include foreign reviews of Dante publications by Americans. The listing of reviews in general is selective, particularly in the case of studies bearing only peripherally on Dante.
Items not recorded in the bibliographies for previous years are
entered as addenda to the present list.
NOTE. 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 fully in its normal 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 Portable Dante . . . Edited, and with an introduction, by Paolo Milano. New York: Viking Press, 1969.
A new edition, available in cloth or paperback, incorporating
extensive Corrections by the late Laurence Binyon in his translation
of the Inferno and including a new bibliography by Sergio
Pacifici. Originally published by the Viking Press in 1947; there
have been several reprintings. The anthology contains the complete
Divine Comedy in the Binyon translation in terza rima,
with notes from C. H. Grandgent; the complete Vita Nuova translated
by D. G. Rossetti; selections from the Rime translated
by D. G. Rossetti and others; and excerpts from the Latin works
in the Ferrers Howell and Wicksteed versions. An "Editor's
Introduction and a table of "Some Dates in the Life of Dante"
complete the volume.
The Divine Comedy. Translated into blank verse by Louis Biancolli. Illustrated by Harry Bennett. New York: Washington Square Press. 469 p. illus. 18 cm. [1968]
Paperback reprint of the English translation only of the original
bi-lingual edition, 1966 (Washington Square Press). (See Dante
Studies, LXXXV, 96.)
Arany, Giovanni. "Dante." In Forum Italicum, II, No. 2 (June), 150-151. [1968]
A poetic tribute to Dante by the Hungarian epic poet Arany, awarded
the Florence poetry prize on the occasion of the 1865 Dante centenary.
This 32-line Italian version is by Cesare Sofianopulo and Kálmán
Ternay.
Asín Palacios, Miguel. Islam and the Divine Comedy. Translated and abridged by Harold Sutherland. London: Frank Cass and Company; New York: Barnes and Noble. xxv, 295 p. 22 cm. (Islam and the Muslim World, No. 4.) [1968]
Reprint of the first English edition, 1926 (London: John Murray).
Originally published in Spanish as La Escatología musulmana
en la Divina comedia (Madrid: Imprenta de Estanislao Maestre,
1919). The detailed chapters are arranged under the following
major parts: I. The Legend of the Nocturnal Journey and Ascension
of Mahomet Compared with the Divine Comedy; II. The Divine
Comedy Compared with Other Moslem Legends on the After-Life;
III. Moslem Features in the Christian Legends Precursory of the
Divine Comedy; IV. Probability of the Transmission of Islamic
Models to Christian Europe and Particularly to Dante. With bibliography
and index.
Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Translated from the German by Willard R. Trask. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press. 563 p. paperback, 23 cm. [1968]
Now available in this Princeton paperback, the well known work
was originally published in this English version in 1953 (Princeton
University Press). Another paperback edition, now out of print,
appeared in 1957 in the "Anchor Book" series (New York:
Doubleday). Contains chapters on "Farinata and Cavalcante"
(pp. 174-202) and "Frate Alberto" (pp. 203-231)
(See 68th-72nd Report, 43-44, and 76th Report,
41.)
Bernardo, Aldo S., and Anthony L. Pellegrini. A Critical Study Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy. Totowa, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams and Co., in association with Educational Research Associates, Inc. of America, Philadelphia. 178 p. illus., charts, diagrs. 21 cm. (Pennant Key-Indexed Study Guides, PQ 130.) [1968]
Revised and enlarged edition of Key-Indexed Study Guide
to Dante's Divine Comedy (Philadelphia: Educational Research
Associates, etc., 1967; see Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 140.)
Incorporating several new features, the material is arranged under
the following general sections: Visual Aids (Dante's Universe,
Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso, Dante's Journey to God, Biograph,
Chronolog, Levels of Meaning); Dante Alighieri--Life and Works;
Background; Capsule Summary; Comprehensive Summary, Canto-by-Canto,
with Integrated Commentary; Critical Analysis; Character Analysis;
Study Questions; Research Areas; Bibliography; Glossary-Index.
Blake, William. Illustrations to the Divine Comedy. New York: Da Capo Press. 5 p., 109 plates. folio. [1968]
Reprint of the 1922 edition (London: Privately printed for the
National Art-Collections Fund), of which only 250 sets, in portfolio,
were printed.
Boccaccio, Giovanni. Leonardo Bruni. The Earliest Lives of Dante. Translated from the Italian of Giovanni Boccaccio, Leonardo Bruni Aretino, by James Robinson Smith. New York: Russell and Russell. 103 p. [1968]
Reprint of the 1901 edition (Yale Studies in English . . . x;
New York: H. Holt and Company). Includes "The Embassy to
Venice" (pp. 97-100), a passage from the life of Dante
by Filippo Villani. For another reprint (1963) of this work, see
82nd Report, 49.
Boynton, Henry W. The World's Leading Poets: Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press. 346 p. illus., ports. 22 cm. (Essay Index Reprint Series.) [1968]
Reprint of the 1912 edition in "The World's Leaders"
series (New York: Henry Holt and Company). The biographical portrait
of Dante is on pp. 45-107.
Bruni, Leonardo. The Earliest Lives of Dante. See Boccaccio,
Giovanni....
Carozza, Davy. "Dante in France." In Forum Italicum, II, No. 3 (Sept.), 214-233. [1968]
Discusses briefly the paucity of Dantean interest and influence
in France up to the 19th century, which then saw a marked quickening
in translation and criticism of the poet's work. This scholarly
activity has grown to significant proportions in more recent decades.
But, according to the author, the French still lack a truly faithful
version of the Commedia. Includes "A Selected Bibliography
of Studies on Dante in France from 1921 to 1965," pp. 224-233.
Clough, Rosa Trillo. "Gli studi intorno alle fonti islamiche in Dante e nelle poesie della scuola del Dolce Stil Nuovo." In Alighieri, IX, No. 2 (luglio-dicembre), 66-73. [1968]
Surveys briefly the findings and conjectures put forth by various
20th-century scholars--Blochet, Asín Palacios, Sendino,
Sánchez-Albornoz, Cerulli, Pelosi, Gabrieli, Corbin,
Montano--regarding possible Islamic and other Oriental influences
and analogies in the Divina Commedia and in stil novo
poetry. Observing that thinking men separated in time and
space have frequently had similar thoughts about similar things,
the author concludes that ". . . Dante, ispiratosi a fonti
di tradizioni letterarie, filosofiche e scientifiche occidentali
ed orientali, potè creare una visione dei regni d'oltretomba
che rimane e rimarrà poema sacro, ricco d'efficacia umana,
di vera e grande poesia d'Occidente."
Colish, Marcia L. The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory Of Knowledge. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. xxiii, 404 p. 24 cm. (Yale Historical Publications. Miscellany, 88.) [1968]
Seeking an explanation of why and how the middle ages thought
in terms of symbolism, the author presents the thesis that many
Western medieval thinkers from the patristic period to the 14th
century were greatly influenced by a certain theory of signs,
fundamentally verbal in nature, resulting from a combination of
Christian and classical (esp. Aristotelian) ideas that provided
medieval thinkers with confidence that there existed a world of
spiritual reality prior to the material world. The latter was
considered to resemble the spiritual world, whose non-sensible
realities were accessible through empirically perceptible signs,
particularly the creation itself. Christianity prompted medieval
thinkers to conceive a sign theory in expressly verbal terms as
a result of the Incarnation--Christ the Word, or God's perfect
expression of Himself to man. Emphasizing the structures and methods
of thought provided by the trivium, the author focuses on Augustine,
Anselm, Aquinas, and Dante, who, despite differences in intellectual
milieu and orientation, share a common verbal epistemology first
formulated by Augustine. She determines that Augustine displays
it in the mode of rhetoric; Anselm in the mode of grammar; Aquinas
in the mode of dialectic; and Dante in a poetics re-integrated
in rhetoric. In a substantive chapter on Dante (pp. 224-341),
the author treats of the poet's application of Augustinian sign
theory to literature by analyzing the chronological development
of Dante's poetic theory in the light of the classical-medieval
tradition and the manner in which he expresses and uses it in
the Comedy. Contents: . . . Introduction; I. St. Augustine:
The Expression of the Word; II. St. Anselm: The Definition of
the Word; III. St. Thomas Aquinas: The Conception of the Word;
IV. Dante: Poet of Rectitude; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
Coulton, George Gordon. From St. Francis to Dante. Translations from the Chronicle of the Franciscan Salimbene (1221-1288). With notes and illustrations from other medieval sources. Second edition, revised and enlarged. New York: Russell and Russell. xiv, 446 p. 22 cm. [1968]
Reprint of the 1907 edition (London: David Nutt). Includes colorful
historical and anecdotal accounts of the Italian scene in the
period before and during Dante's early years. Indexed.
Dante: Essays in Commemoration, 1321-1921. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press. vii, 255 p. illus., port. 22 cm. (Essay Index Reprint Series.) [1968]
This reprint of the work "Edited for the Dante Sexcentenary
Committee by Antonio Cippico [and others]" was first published
in 1921 (London: University of London Press). The essays are as
follows: Viscount Bryce, "Some Thoughts on Dante in His Relation
to Our Own Time"; Benedetto Croce, "Carattere e unità
della poesia di Dante"; W. P. Ker, "Allegory and Myth";
Paget Toynbee, "Oxford and Dante"; Laurence Binyon,
trans., "The Last Voyage of Ulysses [Inf. XXVI, 52-142];
E. G. Gardner, "Dante as Literary Critic"; J. W. MacKail,
"The Italy of Dante and the Italy of Virgil"; H. E.
Goad trans., "Farinata" [Inf. X]; Cesare Foligno,
"Notes on the Date of Composition of the De Monarchia";
P. H. Wicksteed, "Dante and the Latin Poets"; A.
G. Ferrers Howell, "Dante and the Troubadours"; C. L.
Ragg, "Humour of Dante"; Antonio Cippico, "`A quel
modo che ditta dentro'."
De Gaetano, Armand L. "Dante and the Florentine Academy: The Commentary of Giambattista Gelli as a Work of Popularization and Textual Criticism." In Italica, XLV (June), 140-170. [1968]
Discusses the role of the 16th-century Accademia Fiorentina
in reviving the study of Dante through public lectures and the
importance of Gelli's Letture. In his commentary, Gelli
emphasizes the Aristotelian in Dante, shows a concern for textual
accuracy, and regards aesthetic qualities as a means to conveying
knowledge effectively. Despite the hostility of the Bembists to
Dante's realism, Gelli favors the poet's stylistic variation,
along with use of the vernacular, for purposeful communication.
He is not unresponsive to the beauties of the Commedia, but
his over-riding concern is for its didactic aspect.
De Sanctis, Francesco. History of Italian Literature. Translated by Joan Redfern. New York: Barnes and Noble. 2 v. (ix, 972 p., contin.) 22 cm. [1968]
Reprint of the 1931 edition (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company).
"Translated . . . from the edition of Benedetto Croce."
Volume I contains several chapters pertaining to Dante. (For another
recent reprint of this classic, see 79th Report, 57.)
Fergusson Francis. Dante's Drama of the Mind: A Modern Reading of the "Purgatorio." Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. x, 232 p. 21 cm. (Princeton Paperbacks in Language and Literature.) [1968]
First published in hardcover in 1953 (Princeton University Press).
(See 68th-72nd Reports, 45-46.) The original edition
has been extensively reviewed.
Fergusson Francis. "Trope and Allegory: Some Themes Common to Dante and Shakespeare." In Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 113-26. [1968]
On the basis of his thesis that "Dante and Shakespeare used
essentially the same traditional vision of human life,
to give order and meaning to their poetry, and similar principles
of art, derived from the venerable habit of . . . fourfold
allegory," the author suggests that much work could be done
on parallels between the two poets. By way of illustration, he
compares Purgatorio XVI and Measure for Measure, two
texts analogously concerned with the true nature of government.
While acknowledging the differences between the two poets in terms
of "their publicly available resources, and therefore their
poetic tactics," Professor Fergusson stresses the striking
similarity of the two texts here in their "properties of
government" and principles of realistic-allegorical
dramaturgy. Other themes basic in both poets suggested as areas
of investigation are romantic love and treachery.
Figurito, Joseph. Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy. New York: Barnes and Noble. 93 p. illus., diagrs. 21 cm. (Barnes and Noble Book Notes, 862.) [1968]
A study guide consisting of the following: Introduction [on Dante's
life, times, and work]; Brief Summary of the Poem; [Canto by canto]
Summaries and Discussions; Critical Analysis--Subject, Setting,
Sources, Time Element Geography and The Divine Comedy, Dante's
Style, Themes; Character Sketches, Critical Opinions [excerpts
from Petrarch to Eliot]; Study Questions and Bibliography.
Fogle, Richard Harter. "John Taaffe's Annotated Copy of Adonais." In Keats-Shelley Journal, XVII, 31-52. [1968]
Presents Taaffe's hitherto unpublished commentary (1822) to the
first edition (Pisa, 1821) of Shelley's Adonais. In these
hand-written annotations in the margins and fly leaves of
his personal copy, Taaffe, a Dante scholar in his own right, points
out significant parallels between Shelley and the Italian poet.
Freccero, John. "Paradiso X: The Dance of the Stars." In Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 85-111. [1968]
Drawing upon recent work of Jourdain, Rahner, Daniélou,
and Bousset, as well as his own, Professor Freccero focuses upon
Par. X to explore Dante's translation of beatitude into
astronomical terms. Pointing out that the Paradiso is an
ad hoc reality which depends, not on a principle of mimesis,
but on a metaphorical tour de force, he examines certain
components (especially the Heaven of the Sun) of the canto that
constitute in turn the metaphoric structure of the cantica
and relates them to the spiritual reality they are made to
represent. In the accommodation of Heaven to the senses of the
pilgrim, which stands also for the accommodation of the poet's
experience per verba to us, Dante was following the pattern
of the Bible, the eternal witness of God's accommodation--his
Word--to man. "The extended metaphor of the Paradiso,
established by the command performance of the elect for the
benefit of the pilgrim, is in fact a poetic reconciliation of
the Platonic myth of the stellar souls with the Christian conception
of Heaven." The stellar dance of the "spiriti sapienti
who have descended to the Heaven of the Sun for the pilgrim's
edification has ancient Zodiacal origins: it occurs, for example
in a passage adduced from the apocryphal Acts of John (confirmed
by Apoc. 12:1) and is related also to a sketch in the pavement
of the Baptistery in Florence. "As the twelve constellations
[of the Zodiac] surround what Dante calls the `sole sensibile,'
so the twelve disciples turn about Christ." Regarding the
Sun as symbol of divinity and the association of Beatrice with
the Moon, just as the twelve Apostles are the Zodiac of Sol
Christi, so the twelve philosophers and theologians
are the "corona" of Luna Ecclesiae; while the
ancient view of the Sun and Moon as lovers neatly fits the Pauline
teaching about the Heavenly Bridegroom [Christ] and His Bride
[the Church]. Later, in Par. XXIII, 25-30, we find
a shift in metaphor wherein the transcendental Sol Christi
beheld then directly by the pilgrim is compared with the Moon
(Diana-Trivia), because the mysterium Lunae, the Church,
is all we have in material reality to foreshadow the Triumph of
Christ. ". . . The traditional image of the Apostles and
the Zodiac may be taken as the background for the controlling
theme of Paradiso X and . . . the shift from the Apostles
to theologians and philosophers finds its counterpart in a shifting
of the center from the Sun to Beatrice and the pilgrim or, according
to one of the comparisons, the Moon." In the triumph of theologians
and philosophers in Canto X can be seen a Triumph of the Church,
foreshadowing the Triumph of Sol Christi in Canto XXIII,
with Beatrice functioning as a figura Ecclesiae. Professor
Freccero closes by presenting further metaphorical associations
between Par. X and the Platonic tradition--for example,
the dance of the "spiriti sapienti" and the circular
dance of the stars in the Timaeus; the concept of the Anima
Mundi associated with the Sun, as echoed in the address to
the reader, vv. 7-12; the astronomical motif of the Zodiac
as traditional emblem of the Creator's mark on the world; the
Platonic idea of relating the circular movement of rationality
and the heavens to the circularity of divinity (Timaeus); and
the rich associations between the "Platonic X" and the
intersection of celestial movements that Dante asks the reader
to contemplate, suggesting again the emblem of Christ, the Cross,
and other aspects of the Christian mysteries.
[Fucilla, Joseph G., and Remigio Pane, compilers.] "Italian Literature." [Section of the "1967 MLA International Bibliography . . ."] In PMLA, LXXXIII, No. 3 (June), 790-812. [1968]
The Dante items are recorded in entries 13189-13483.
Gardner, Edmund G. Dante and the Mystics: A Study of the Mystical Aspects of the Divina Commedia and Its Relations with Some of its Mediaeval Sources. New York: Octagon Books. xiii, 357 p. illus. 23 cm. [1968]
Reprint of the 1913 edition (London: J. M. Dent and Sons; New
York: E. P. Dutton and Co.). The author's stated purpose was to
stress "the mystical aspect of the Divina Commedia, to
trace the influence upon Dante of the earlier mystics from St.
Augustine onwards, and to illustrate the mystical tendency of
the sacred poem by its analogies with the writings of other, contemporary
or even later, masters in the same `science of love.' Contents:
I. The Mysticism of Dante; II. Dante and St. Augustine; III.
Dante and Dionysius; IV. Dante and St. Bernard; V. Dante and the
Victorines; VI. Dante and the Franciscan Movement; VII. Dante,
St. Francis, and St. Bonaventura; VIII. Dante and the Two Mechthilds;
IX. The Science of Love. Appendix: I. Dante and St. Peter Celestine;
2. Dante, Joachim, and Siger; List of Works and Editions Cited;
Table of Some Parallel Passages in the Works of Dante and the
Mystical Writers Quoted; Index.
Gilson, Etienne. Dante and Philosophy. Translated by David Moore. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith. xii, 338 p. 20.5 cm. [1968]
Reprint of the 1948 edition published under the title Dante,
the Philosopher (London: Sheed and Ward). The same English
translation appeared in 1963 as a Harper Torchbook (New York:
Harper and Row). Originally published in French as Dante et
la philosophie (Paris: Vrin, 1939; reprinted 1954). (See 82nd
Report, 51.)
Gilson, Etienne. "Dante's Mirabil Visione." In Cornell Library Journal, No. 5 (Spring), 1-17. [1968]
Discusses the wondrous vision reported by Dante in the last chapter
of the Vita Nuova in relation to that work and to the Commedia
as its ultimate poetic fulfillment. In his literary creation,
Dante remains first and foremost a real man and poet, but his
masterpiece is inconceivable without the preparation in study
also referred to at the end of the Vita Nuova and further
evinced by the unfinished Convivio. This article is an
edited version of a lecture delivered at Cornell University in
1965 on the occasion of the Dante septicentennial and the centennial
of the founding of Cornell. An Italian version appeared in Quaderni
del Veltro, IV (1966). (See Dante Studies, LXXXV, 103.)
Glickman, Enrica. "Human dignity in Dante's Inferno." In Laurentian University Review, II (June), 33-44. [1968]
Examines the theme of human dignity in the Inferno through
the figures of Paolo and Francesca, Farinata, Pier delle Vigne,
Brunetto Latini, and Ulysses, treating the episodes as a general
whole rather than individually.
Gollin, Rita. "Pierre's Metamorphosis of Dante's Inferno." In American Literature, XXXlX, No. 4 (Jan.), 542-545. [1968]
Contends that, while Pierre incorporates many details of
the Inferno, Melville, unlike Dante for whom knowledge
of sin was the means of overcoming it, uses these Dantean elements
to engulf Pierre in guilt and despair.
Hardie, Colin. "The Date of the Comedy and the `Argomento barberiniano'." In Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 1-16. [1968]
Differs with the time-scheme presented in a recent paper
by G. Petrocchi, who dates the beginning of the Comedy to
1304 and the Barberino gloss to March, 1315, at the latest. From
his own reading of the gloss and other evidence in Dante's works,
along with certain of Professor Petrocchi's own well founded arguments,
the author agrees with those favoring a late date for the poem,
e.g., B. Nardi who placed the Monarchia (1307-1308)
after Convivio IV and before the Comedy, the latter
reflecting Dante's maturer political doctrine. On the basis of
other instances of Dante's self-condemnation by identifying
with his characters in the poem, the apparent inconsistency between
his attitude toward Curio in Inferno XXVIII and in Epistola
VII, presumably written in the same period, is resolved with
particular reference to the poet's self-denunciation, through
Beatrice's words, in Purg. XXXI, 61-63. The author
concludes by dating the poem's inception after Epistola VII
(April 17, 1311) and "in time for Francesco da Barberino
to have heard of the first canto of Inferno perhaps in
the autumn of 1314."
Hatcher, Anna, and Mark Musa. "The Kiss: Inferno V and the Old French Prose Lancelot." In Comparative Literature, xx (Spring), 97-109. [1968]
Raise several questions, focusing on the discrepancy of Francesca's
allusion to Lancelot kissing Guinevere, whereas the latter takes
the initiative in the Old French version. Against the romantically
inspired favorable treatment of Francesca from Foscolo and De
Sanctis down to recent scholars, the authors suggest that she
once seduced Paolo into their sinful love and "now attempts,
successfully again, to seduce the pilgrim into believing her words
and pitying her deeply." Presumably the poet's strategy was
to trap Francesca, or let her trap herself into a self-indictment,
by attempting to cover up her own sinful advances to Paolo with
the far from adequate excuse of the Lancelot reading. According
to the authors, the question remains why Dante used the pilgrim's
pity and had Francesca give herself away in this episode.
Hays, Peter L. "Dante, Tobit, and The Artificial Nigger." In Studies in Short Fiction, V (Spring), 263-268. [1968]
Draws a parallel in O'Connor's story between Mr. Head guiding
his grandson on a moral mission "from the darkness of pride
to the light of humility" and Virgil guiding Dante in the
Divine Comedy.
Hillis, Newell Dwight. Great Men as Prophets of a New Era. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press. 221 p. 22 cm. (Essay Index Reprint Series.) [1968]
Reprint of the 1922 edition (New York, Chicago, [etc.]: Fleming
H. Revell Company). Contains an initial chapter on "Dante
and the Dawn After the Dark Ages," pp. 9-33.
Hollander, Robert. "Dante's Use of Aeneid I in Inferno I and II." In Comparative Literature, XX (Spring), 142-156. [1968]
Contends that, along with other already documented sources and
analogues of the Commedia, more attention should also be
paid to the Virgilian analogue and cites five verbal or situational
instances in Inf. I and II as reflections of Book I of
the Aeneid. The author also notes at the beginning of Inf.
I the figural presence of Genesis, particularly an analogue
of Adam in the Pilgrim. These echoes of the "inceptions of
two great records: that of the earthly Rome beside that of the
Rome of which Christ is Roman" are in keeping with Dante's
extensive mingling of the Christian world and the Pagan in his
poem.
Kaulbach, Ernest N. "Inferno XIX, 45: The `Zanca' of Temporal Power." In Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 127-135. [1968]
Examines the literal meaning of "zanca" from the fourth
to the fourteenth century within the papal and imperial context,
as background for its fuller interpretation in Dante's Inferno.
Clearly of different origin from gamba, the zanca,
from Greek "Tzagga" (Latin, "zanca"),
was a kind of footgear, originally symbolizing political authority
in ancient Rome, but later worn by the Prefect of Rome only when
retained for pay by the Pope on specified occasion. The discrepancy
between the traditional power of the Roman Prefect and his humble
role in the ritual service of the Pope indicates a possible ironic
use of the term by Dante in the simoniacal canto.
Kennard, Joseph Spencer. The Friar in Fiction, Sincerity in Art, and Other Essays. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press. 388 p. 22 cm. (Essay Index Reprint Series.) [1968]
First published in 1923 (New York: Brentano's). Contains a chapter
on "The Friars of Dante, Boccaccio, and Machiavelli"
(pp. 67-92) and a chapter on "The Fallen God" (pp.
345-379), that is, on Milton's and Dante's Lucifer.
Ker, William Paton. Collected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Charles Whibley. New York: Russell and Russell. 2 V. port. 22 cm. [1968]
Reprint of the 1925 edition (2 V.; London: Macmillian). Contains
"Divina Commedia" (I, pp. 305-320), a lecture given
at Oxford from the Chair of Poetry, 1923, generally concerned
with Dante's achievement in relation to the poetic tradition.
Koffler, Richard. "The Last Wound: Purgatorio XXVI." In Italian Quarterly, XII, No. 45 (Summer), 27-43. [1968]
Opposing the common judgment of this canto as structurally anticlimactic,
the author contends that it is highly dramatic, when considered
according to the criteria in effect at this stage of the poem.
The piaga da sezzo (last wound), or carnal love, purged
here is related to the pilgrim's own piaga and, in its
future implications as exemplified by the shades singled out,
involves the very poetic art so greatly admired by Dante. Three
clues to the canto's moto spiritale are cited: (I) the
reference to purification by fire at the end of Purg. XXV,
serving as prelude to Canto XXVI; (2) the recall (e.g., in the
gru simile) of the similar moto spiritale of Inf.
V and XV; and (3) the play on courtesy and fin' amor,
both Provençal and stilnovistic, underlying the whole
of Purg. XXVI. The repentance of these masters will become
a desire for the realm in which no art will matter but a Franciscan
love of God.
Lanapoppi, Aleramo P. "La Divina Commedia: allegoria `dei poeti' o allegoria `dei teologi'?" In Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 17-39. [1968]
While paying tribute to C. S. Singleton's work on the nature of
Dante's allegory, the author points out the inevitable ambiguity
and inherent contradiction in the claim of "allegory of theologians"
for the Divina Commedia, which patently does not recount
a journey that is literally true. Professor Singleton himself
admits this, but insists on relating the poem to Scriptural writing,
because the events in the Commedia are fictively intended
to be taken as true. Mr. Lanapoppi cites several texts to show
that medieval readers do not seem to distinguish between poetic
and theological allegory; that their interpretation of classical
poetry was fairly generic, while allegorizing was limited to Scripture,
particularly as relating to Christ; that there is no evidence
to support a case based on the greater or less autonomy of the
literal sense; and that Dante himself in the much cited passage,
Convivio II, I, 2-4, suggests a distinction between poets
and theologians, if anything, with respect to the allegorical
sense, not the literal. The fact that there is a fiction in the
Commedia (even though it be the "fiction that the
journey is not a fiction") is enough to distinguish the poem
from Scriptural allegory, concludes Mr. Lanapoppi. On the other
hand, because its kind of myth-making, based on the "figural"
mode, puts it closer to Scriptural writing than to that of the
poets, the Commedia must be classified as a thing apart.
Dante's allegory is on a far higher level than any other poetic
work of his time. For one thing, his characters are real historical
persons who retain in the poem the same function and meaning they
had in life, and the order of reality constantly referred to in
the poem is a profoundly Christian universe. In contrast to the
Latin poets, moreover, Dante had at his disposal a vast and universally
recognized patrimony of symbols and "figures," and,
above all, a method perfected by the biblical exegetes. In sum,
Dante's was a new kind of allegory (yet to be properly defined),
accessible only to a Christian poet treating of Christian things.
Lowell, Robert. [Intervento: "Dante's actuality and fecundity in the Anglo-Saxon world."] In L'Italia e il mondo per Dante . . . (Firenze: Le Monnier), pp. 27-31. [1968]
Generally minimizes Dante's influence before the 19th century,
finds American writers closer to Dante than the British, and sees
Dante's influence most marked in Browning, Pound, and Eliot.
Mathews, J. Chesley. "Richard Furman and Dante: A Postscript." In Furman Studies, XV, No. 4 (May), 39. [1968]
Adds briefly to his study of "Richard Furman, Reader of Dante,"
which appeared in Furman Studies, XIII, No. 3 (May 1966),
11-14. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 160.)
Mathews, J. Chesley. "Richard Henry Wilde's Knowledge of Dante. In Italica, XLV (March), 28-46. [1968]
Documents the knowledge of Dante of Wilde (1789-1847) who
evinces a familiarity with almost all of Dante's works and echoes
those works extensively in his own writings.
Mazzeo, Joseph Anthony. Medieval Cultural Tradition in Dante's "Comedy." New York: Greenwood Press. xi, 260 p. 22 cm. [1968]
Reprint of the 1960 edition (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University
Press). (See 79th Report, 45)
Mazzeo, Joseph Anthony. Structure and Thought in the "Paradiso." New York: Greenwood Press. xi, 220 p. 23 cm. [1968]
Reprint of the 1958 edition (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University
Press). (See 77th Report, 49.)
Montgomery, Marion. "The Poet as Odysseus: Dante's Long Shadow." In Discourse, XI (Winter), 3-9. [1968]
Discusses Dante's artistic achievement of turning his personal
life into a poetry of epic proportions as seen in the Vita
Nuova and Divina Commedia. Maintaining the distinction
between Dante the Poet of full awareness and Dante the
Pilgrim in a state of becoming, the poet achieves a relation
to his work analogous to that between God and His creation. Similarly,
it is important to note that Dante is not disengaged from
his artifact.
Moore, Edward. Studies in Dante . . . New York: Haskell House. 4 vols. [1968]
Reprint of studies by the recognized master in the heyday of British Dante scholarship, originally issued as follows: I, 1896; II, 1899; III, 1903; IV, 1917 (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
First Series. Scripture and Classical Authors in Dante . . . Contents: Introductory. --Dante and Scripture. --Dante and Aristotle. --Plato. --Homer. --Virgil. --Horace. --Ovid. --Lucan. --Statius. --Juvenal. --Cicero. --Livy. --Orosius. --Boethius. --Seneca. --St. Augustine. --Minor Authors [Aesop, Lucretius, Valerius Maximus, Galen, Vegetius]. --Supplementary Notes. --On the Translations of Aristotle Used by Dante. --Index to Quotations.
Second Series. Miscellaneous Essays . . . Contents: Dante as a Religious Teacher, Especially in Relation to Catholic Doctrine. --Beatrice. --The Classification of Sins in the "Inferno" and "Purgatorio." --Dante's Personal Attitude towards Different Kinds of Sin. --Unity and Symmetry of Design in the "Purgatorio." --Dante and Sicily. --The Genuineness of the "Quaestio de aqua et terra" [with an Appendix on Ristoro d'Arezzo, the Author of "La composizione del mondo," 1282]. --Corrigenda and addenda to First Series of Studies.
Third Series. Miscellaneous Essays . . . Contents: The Astronomy of Dante. -The Geography of Dante. --The Date Assumed by Dante for the Vision of the Divina Commedia. --Symbolism and Prophecy in Purg. XXVII-XXXIII: pt. I. The Apocalyptic Vision; pt. II. The Reproaches of Beatrice; pt. III. The DXV Prophecy. --The Genuineness of the Dedicatory Epistle to Can Grande. -- Additional Notes. --Addenda to Studies, Series I. --Corrigenda to Series II. -- List of Principal Passages Discussed or Explained.
Fourth Series. Textual Criticism of the "Convivium"
and Miscellaneous Essays . . . Contents: List of Editions,
Editors, and Commentators of the Convivio. -- Textual Criticism
of the Convivio. --Dante s Theory of Creation. --The Tomb
of Dante. --Introduction to the Study of the Paradiso.
--Sta. Lucia in the Divina Commedia. --The "Battifolle"
Letters Attributed to Dante. --Miscellaneous Notes: The Almanac
of Jacob ben Machir ben Tibbon (Latiné Profacius) c.1300;
Two Proposed Emendations in Dante's Epistola VI, §6; Dante
in Northern Latitudes. --Supplementary Notes. --List of Emended
Passages in the Convivio Discussed in "Textual Criticism
of the Convivio." . . . The revision of the proof-sheets,
including additional notes, and the compilation of the list of
editions, editors, and commentators of the Convivio, the
list of emended passages in the text of the Convivio, and
the index, was completed after the author's death by Paget Toynbee.
(See preface, p. v.)
Mordell, Albert. Dante and Other Waning Classics. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press. 127 p. 21 cm. [1968]
Reprint, first published in 1915 (Philadelphia: Acropolis Publishing
Company). In the lead essay on Dante, except for a few episodes
of pathos, sorrow, or tragedy possessing some genuine human interest
and artistic value, the author finds the Commedia of undeserved
reputation for greatness, because it was intellectually behind
its time and literarily in bad taste with all its horrors and
tortures, vindictiveness, false moral principles and false theology,
and medieval bigotry and fatuity. In a brief section on Dante
in the appendix are cited adverse statements on Dante from Landor,
Emerson, Goldsmith, Strindberg, Voltaire, Goethe, Leigh Hunt,
Lamartine, Horace Walpole, Nietzsche, and Howard Candler. Contents:
Dante: The Divine Comedy; Milton: Paradise Lost;
Bunyan: Pilgrim's Progress; A Kempis: The Imitation
of Christ; St. Augustine: Confessions; Pascal: Thoughts:
Appendix: Adverse Views on Dante, . . . Milton, . . . Bunyan.
Musa, Mark. (Joint author) "The Kiss: Inferno V
and the Old French Prose Lancelot." See Hatcher, Anna....
Noakes, Susan. "Dino Compagni and the Vow in San Giovanni: Inferno XIX, . In Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 41-63. [1968]
Attempts to resolve the crux of Inf. XIX, 16-21, by interpreting
Dante's action in terms of his participation, as a Florentine
citizen, in the "breaking" of the vow chronicled by
Dino Compagni in his Cronica, II, viii, which entailed
a pledge of peace and unity solemnly taken by leading citizens
and partisan leaders in anticipation of Charles of Valois's arrival
as emissary of Boniface VIII. As keys to the figural relationship
between this vow and the Dantean tercet the author discusses the
multiform dimensions, literal and figurative, of rompere, sgannare,
and suggel in the verses, particularly in the light
of recent glosses by L. Spitzer and M. Musa. The communal nature
of the vow arranged by Dino Compagni at the font of common baptism,
where Florentines assumed their identity as citizens and Christians,
implied the commitment of all members of the city-state.
Dante must have considered himself to have broken this vow as
a White opposing the Blacks in the current factionalism and then
later in his change of heart by becoming an Imperialist along
the way of his evolving political persuasion from Civitas to
Imperium to Ecclesia. When he arrives finally at
the latter political viewpoint, Dante understands fully the spiritual
meaning of the vow of San Giovanni, and thus preaches "to
his fellow citizens that they must seek earthly, as well as spiritual,
guidance in an uncorrupted Church." It is here in Inf.
XIX, where in the poem Dante first manifests his sense of
political and spiritual mission, that he invites the reader to
share his political illumination--that, in a narrow sense, Florence
herself was being suffocated by wrong-headed interpretation
of the vow made to defend her, and in a larger, universal sense,
the drowning one is man as a political being of any political
community. In the serious matter of vows, although Dante realizes
that he has violated the vow of San Giovanni, he now fulfills
his commitment by working for the larger goal of the best
possible world political order, and he probably felt justified
in changing the content of that vow without Church sanction
because the latter's leader, Boniface VIII, practiced an art of
"ingannamento," while the poet's intention was "sgannamento."
The author's interpretation rests on an assumption of political
allegory in the Comedy which seems to be borne out, for
example, by the similarity of structure between her reading of
Inferno XIX and Pirandello's reading of Canto XXI, where
in both cases "(1) a bitterly comic fiction which represents
(2) the personal experiences of the poet reveals (3) an aspect
of God's universal plan for and judgment upon man.
Oerter, Herbert L. "Campaldino, 1289." In Speculum, XLIII (July), 429-450. [1968]
Historical account of the battle, in which Dante took part at
age 24.
Pane, Remigio. (Joint compiler) "Italian Literature."
[Section of the MLA International Bibliography ...]. See Fucilla,
Joseph G....
Pellegrini, Anthony L. "American Dante Bibliography for 1967." In Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 137-163. [1968]
With brief analyses.
Pellegrini, Anthony L. (Joint author). A Critical Study
Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy. See Bernardo, Aldo S....
Pellegrini, Anthony L. "Index to the Journal of the Dante Society, 1882-1967." In Dante studies, LXXXVI, 165-178. [1968]
An index, with cross-references, of the professional papers
published in the Annual Report of the Dante Society (Cambridge,
Massachusetts) and its continuation as Dante Studies beginning
with 1966.
Penner, Allen R. "Dantesque Allegory in Sillitoe's Key to the Door." In Renascence, XX (Winter), 79-85 and 103. [1968]
Discusses this "Dantesque novel," showing that Sillitoe's
method is to introduce Dante's allegory only to reject his philosophy,
for here Dante's conception of man is displaced by "a conception
of man as guiltless, a product of his environment and social class,
a rational being whose choices and actions will determine his
fitness, not for heaven, but for the society of man."
Pickens, Rupert T., and James D. Tedder. "Liberation in Suicide: Meursault in the Light of Dante." In French Review, XLI (Feb.), 524-531. [1968]
Cite allusions and parallels in Camus's L'Etranger as evidence
that the Divine Comedy provides a significant element in
the novel's aesthetic structure. In particular, the imagery of
the beach scene is related to the Seventh Circle of the Inferno
and the protagonist Meursault to Dante's Cato, both of whom
are presented as "heroic suicides" passionately committed
to the absolute and to truth.
Pipa, Arshi. Montale and Dante. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. X, 217 p. 22 cm. (Minnesota Monographs in the Humanities, 4.) [1968]
Considering Eugenio Montale as "probably the most influential
contemporary Italian poet," the author attempts "to
define the extent and depth of Dante's influence on Montale as
well as to interpret Montale's poetry with reference to Dante."
He finds that Montale's temperament is remarkably akin to Dante's
and concludes that the Florentine poet's influence, "as example
and model," spans virtually the whole of Montale's work.
Contents: Preface, pp. vii-viii; Reading Montale through
the Lens of Dante, 3-15; Montale's "Descensus ad inferos,"
16-42; Politics and Love, 43-81; The Struggle with Christ,
82-127; A Case of Emulation, 128-146; Appendix [of six
key texts from Montale, with English trans.], 149-196; Bibliography,
199-209; Index, 210-217.
Pirrotta, Nino. "Dante Musicus: Gothicism, Scholasticism, and Music." In Speculum, XLIII (April), 245-257. [1968]
Discusses the position, practice, and development of music in
the Middle Ages, conceived under the threefold aspect of musica
mundana (music of the universe), musica humana (music
of human nature), and musica instrumentalis or organica
(music as an art), and notes Dante's high esteem for music as
evinced by the wealth and variety of imagery he derived from it.
Professor Pirrotta relates the modus operandi (and essendi)
of the Gothic musicians to Panofsky's similar coupling of
Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism in a common forma
mentis. All of this can be seen in the Divine Comedy, where
Dante seeks to reflect in the poetic structure itself the ideal
harmony of the divine conception of the universe, not as expressed
by musical sound, but by spiritual proportions and by the fitness
(or coaptatio, of the musica mundana) of all its
infinite components. Moreover, Dante's knowledge and understanding
of music as art, particularly polyphony, is reflected in
images employed especially in the Paradiso, such as in
XXIII, 97-100, X (with its threefold circular dance of singing
lights), XXIV, 13-18, XXVIII, 118-120, and XII, 7-9.
Professor Pirrotta also submits, in passing, that Par. I,
82, usually interpreted as a reference to the sound of
"the harmony of the spheres," actually refers to the
"realm of fire," through which Dante and Beatrice are
swiftly rising. (This article is a revised version of a paper
read for the Dante centennial celebration held by the Dante Society
of America in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 15, 1965.)
Potter, Murray Anthony. Four Essays. New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation. 139 p. (Harvard Studies in Romance Languages, III.) [1968]
Originally published in 1917 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press). The second essay on "Petrarch the Man" (pp.
39-76) includes a discussion of Petrarch's attitude towards
Dante.
Pound, Ezra. The Spirit of Romance. [New York:] New Directions. 248 p. 21 cm. (New Directions Paperback, NDP 266.) [1968]
Paperback reprint of the 1952 edition (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions;
London: Peter Owen), with an added "Post-Postscriptum,"
dated 1968, on p. [9]. Contains a chapter on "Dante"
(pp. 118-165) and a chapter on Arnaut Daniel "Il Miglior
Fabbro" (pp. 22-38) with further reference to Dante.
(For an Italian version [1959] and further information, see 78th
Report, 34.)
Quinones, Ricardo Joseph. "Time in Dante and Shakespeare." In Symposium, XXII (Fall), 261-284. [1968]
Finds certain similarities in the treatment of Time in Dante and
Shakespeare, with the fundamental difference that the Florentine
in his theocentric world was oriented beyond Time, while the English
poet seems to be bound to Time without end. However, grappling
with the problems of Time which involved them in the order of
Being, both "were united in a common faith that man had the
capacity and possibility of participating in some continuing spiritual
order."
Radcliff-Umstead, Douglas. "Dante's Influence on The Great Dream of Gerhart Hauptmann." In Forum Italicum, II, No. 1 (March), 23-33. [1968]
Discusses the strong Dantesque elements in The Great Dream,
most obviously the terza rima which helps to stabilize the
formlessness of the work and to hold together the fragmented experiences
recounted. Dante's influence on Hauptmann's dream-poem is
further evidenced in the personages, strange modes of transportation,
the device of guides (including Dante himself), and the possibility
of fourfold interpretation, though the resultant work, in contrast
to the Commedia, "seems to hold mere nightmarish hallucinations
or idyllic fantasies," expressing as it does Hauptmann's
anguish amidst the turmoil of the 20th century.
Ramacciotti, Mary Dominic, Sister. The Syntax of "Il Fiore" and of Dante's "Inferno" as Evidence in the Question of the Authorship of "Il Fiore." . . . New York: AMS Press. x, 179 p. 22 cm. (The Catholic University of America. The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures Publications, 12.) [1968]
Reprint of the 1936 edition (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University
of America). Contents: I. The Controversy Concerning the
Authorship of Il Fiore [including a "Critical Bibliography
of the Controversy," pp. 5-19]; II. Comparison of the
Syntax of Il Fiore and Inferno; III. Summary and
Conclusion (Table of Relative Frequencies; General Summary; Conclusion);
Bibliography of Works Consulted; Index to Syntax. The author concludes:
"On the basis, therefore, of equal working norms and pure
mathematical computation, the results of the comparison seem to
indicate that the Italian revision of the Romance of the Rose
[i.e., Il Fiore] was probably not written by Dante"
(p. 170).
Rand, Edward Kennard, and Ernest Hatch Wilkins, eds. Dantis Alagherii Operum Latinorum Concordantiae, curante Societate Dantea quae est Cantabrigiae in Nova Anglia . . . New York: Russell and Russell, 1970. viii, 577 p. [1968]
Reprint of the 1912 edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press). The concordance
was based on Edward Moore's text of Dante's works (Third edition;
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904).
Reynolds, Mary T. "Joyce's Planetary Music: His Debt to Dante." In Sewanee Review, LXXVI (July-Sept.), 450-477. [1968]
Cites a number of Dantean parallels in Joyce's great "epic"
of his time, Ulysses. The author also draws much evidence
from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Joyce's
correspondence, as well as testimony of his brother Stanislaus
and other acquaintances, to support Joyce's express avowal that
Dante was, next to the Bible, his great source of inspiration.
Yet Joyce and Dante remain quite distinct, even as did Dante and
Virgil, despite the profound indebtedness involved in each case.
Saner, Reginald A. "`Gemless Rings' in Purgatorio XXIII and Lear." In Romance Notes, X, No. 1 (Autumn), 163-167. [1968]
Submits that Shakespeare's Lear, v, iii, 189-190,
constitutes a genuine parallel with Dante's Purg. XXIII,
31, in both verbal imagery and emotional context. The author allows
of the possibility of Shakespeare's knowing passages or episodes
from Dante.
Santayana George. Selected Critical Writings of George Santayana. Edited by Norman Henfrey. Cambridge: At the University Press. 2 V. 22 cm. [1968]
Of Dantean interest, Vol. I contains "Platonic Love in Some
Italian Poets," pp. 41-59, and [selections from the
Introduction and Conclusion of] Three Philosophical Poets [Lucretius,
Dante, Goethe], pp. 146-156. The first essay is reprinted
from the 1900 edition of Interpretations of Poetry and Religion
(New York: Scribner); Three Philosophical Poets . . . was
first published in 1910 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press). These essays have been previously reprinted, wholly or
in part, from time to time. (See, for example 74th Report,
61, 75th Report, 27-28, 76th Report, 51-52,
77th Report, 52, and 81st Report, 28.)
Simonelli, Maria. "Bonagiunta Orbicciani e la problematica dello stil nuovo (Purg. XXIV)." In Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 65-83. [1968]
Contends that the encounter with Bonagiunta is not intended to
define an historical concept or to offer a chapter in literary
history, but to define further Dante's own particular understanding
of poetry vis-à-vis his times. To answer the
question why Dante chose specifically this minor poet of Lucca
to epitomize a whole cultural world as a foil in his attempt at
self-definition, Professor Simonelli carefully re-examines
the chronology of Bonagiunta's life and literary development and
does a comparative analysis of the themes and style of his few
extant poems, and finds that Dante must have chosen him for the
present role in his poem because of a like-mindedness on the relation
of Nature and Art, evinced by his association of "donna-luce,
amore-gioia-canto" in his Italian poems, in a continuation
in Italian of the manner of the Provençal Bernart de Ventadorn,
such as to lead Dante to consider Bonagiunta a leader of Luccan
poetry. In the famous tercet, Purg. XXIV, 52-54, moreover,
the key-word is seen to be Amore in the universal
sense of "amore-vita" central to the whole Commedia,
while the personal experience on which this auto-definition
is based assumes a meaning of exemplarity open to all men. Moreover,
only now, undergoing purification in Purgatory, does Bonagiunta
comprehend the essential love through which man can realize true
happiness. In sum, according to the author's conclusions: (1)
Dante chose Bonagiunta for the present role to declare the "dolce
stil novo" because he reputed him more highly than we
can at this distance and because he detected in his poetry a concern
for the problem of art as a human activity and love as source
of poetry; and (2) the theory of the dolce stil novo pertains
to Dante's own poetry exclusively and the keyword in the expression
of this poetic theory is amore.
Singleton, Charles S. "Dante: Within Courtly Love and Beyond." In The Meaning of Courtly Love; Papers of the First Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, March 17-18, 1967; edited by F. X. Newman (Albany: State University of New York Press), pp. 43-54. [1968]
Contends that courtly love could indeed exist within the Christian
scheme as part of man's serious play, in the Huizingan
sense (Homo ludens), and that as a lyric convention its
existence may be documented in Dante's circle. Illustrating from
Dante's works, Professor Singleton shows how Dante began within
the context of courtly love as a poet in the mode of amoris
accensio, but then went on to become a poet in the mode of
directio voluntatis, without entirely forsaking the first.
This is most clearly exemplified not only by the Vita Nuova,
but also by the Commedia, where love of the lady patently
leads to love of God.
Singleton, Charles S. "Italian Literature: Three Masters, Three Epochs." In World Literatures . . . by Joseph Remenyi [and others] (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press), pp. 154-169. [1968]
Distinguishes three major epochs in Italian literature as exemplified
by Dante's Comedy, Boccaccio's Decameron, and Leopardi's
Infinito. This is a reprint of the volume, first published
in 1956 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press). (See 75th
Report, 28.)
Singleton, Charles S. Saggio sulla "Vita nuova." [Bologna:] Il Mulino. 165 p. 22 cm. (Saggi, 79.) [1968]
This classic of interpretation, widely recognized as lending a
new direction to Dante studies, here appears in Italian translation
(by Gaetano Prampolini). The original English edition was published
in 1949 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press) and reprinted
in paperback in 1958. Extensively reviewed in the English version.
Singleton, Charles S. Viaggio a Beatrice. [Bologna:] Il Mulino. 325 p. 22 cm. (Saggi, 67.) [1968]
Italian version (by Gaetano Prampolini) of the second volume of
Professor Singleton's series of "Dante Studies": Journey
to Beatrice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958).
(See 77th Report, 52-53; extensively reviewed in the
original English.)
Smith, James Robinson, translator. The Earliest Lives
of Dante. See Boccaccio, Giovanni....
Stanford, William Bedell. The Ulysses Theme: A Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero. Second edition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. X, 340 p. 20.5 cm. (Ann Arbor Paperbacks, AA 143.) [1968]
Reprint of the second edition, 1964 (Oxford: B. Blackwell; New York: Barnes and Noble). Originally published in 1954. (See 75th Report, 36-37, and Dante Studies, LXXXV, 122.) Contains a thoughtful discussion of Dante's treatment of Ulysses. Indexed.
Stefanini, Ruggero. "Ciò che m'incontra nella mente more (V. N. XV)." In Italica, XLV (Dec.), 421-427. [1968]
Seeking a better reading of this initial verse than offered heretofore,
the author on a hint of Barbi's, considers the sonnet first in
itself, then in the Context of the Vita Nuova, and submits
the following paraphrase: "Ogni pensiero (ossia, ogni brutto
ricordo) che si opponga al desiderio di vedervi vien meno nella
mia memoria."
Symonds, John Addington. An Introduction to the Study of Dante. New York: AMS Press. xiv, 288 p. 20 cm. [1968]
Reprint of the 4th edition, 1899 (London: Adam and Charles Black,
New York: Macmillan Company). Contents: Early Italian History;
Dante's Life before Exile; Dante's Life in Exile; The Subject
and Scheme of the Divine Comedy; The Human Interest of the Divine
Comedy; The Qualities of Dante's Genius; The Poetry of Chivalrous
Love.
Tedder, James D. (Joint author). "Liberation in Suicide:
Meursault in the Light of Dante." See Pickens, Rupert
T....
Tigerstedt, E. N. "The Poet as Creator: Origins of a Metaphor. In Comparative Literature Studies, V (Dec.), 455-488. [1968]
Traces the idea of the poet as creator, found in A. A. Cooper's
Characteristicks where it influenced many Romantics, to
its earliest occurrence in Christoforo Landino's commentary to
the Divine Comedy (1481), though the idea was probably
derived in turn from Marsilio Ficino.
Toynbee, Paget. Concise Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante. New York: Phaeton Press. viii, 568 p. geneal. tables. 22 cm. [1968]
Reprint of the 1914 edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press). According
to Toynbee's preface, the articles of the original Dante dictionary
(1898) "have been carefully revised and . . . brought up
to date throughout. A certain number of new articles have been
added, comprising the names of persons and places mentioned in
the tenzone, or poetical correspondence, between Dante
and Forese Donati . . . and in the Latin poems addressed to Dante
by Giovanni Del Virgilio." The concise Dante dictionary was
designed as a convenient handbook and companion to the Oxford
edition (Moore) of Dante's works.
Toynbee, Paget. Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321: His Life and Works. Edited with an Introduction, Notes, and Bibliography by Charles S. Singleton. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith, Publisher. xxiii, 316 p. illus. [1968]
This revised edition (from the fourth edition, 1910) first appeared
in paperback in 1965 (New York: Harper and Row, "Harper Torchbooks").
(See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 103.)
Toynbee, Paget. A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante. Revised by Charles S. Singleton. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. xxv, 722 p. illus., tables, plates, maps. 25 cm. [1968]
This standard reference work has been thoroughly revised from
the original edition of 1898 (Oxford: Clarendon Press). The present
edition has been prepared in the light of over sixty years of
Dante scholarship and all references to, and quotations from,
Dante's works are now based on the critical edition of the Opere
di Dante of the Società Dantesca Italiana (Firenze,
1921 and 1960). Added features are a general bibliography and
maps of Italy, Tuscany, and Florence.
Triolo, Alfred A. "`Matta Bestialità' in Dante's Inferno: Theory and Image." In Traditio, XXIV, 247-292. [1968]
In this probing study, the author takes issue with the established
consensus among commentators regarding the category of "matta
bestialità" and, construing the references to malizia
in Inf. XI, 22 and 82, as coextensive, he closely examines
the background in Aristotle, St. Thomas, and others. Rejecting
its association with violence (Circle 7), Professor Triolo identifies
bestial malice with the last, or ninth, circle, where it is manifested
as excessive malice and supported in turn by the very imagery
of excess. He contends "that `matta bestialità' is
simultaneously a distinct category or disposition and the
expression of an ulterior form of malice." Bestiality is
related to injustice and also to iniuria in the civic
framework of Aristotle's polis. Delineating in the Inferno
a gradation of bestiality and of the virtues violated, the
author points out an inverse gradation in the animal-form
of the guardians as human bestiality increases. The giants are
especially significant, because "the connection and interpretation
of demon, giant, and damned human is very evident in several passages
of the Old Testament and in medieval commentaries." Organized
cosmopolitically as the reverse image of God's city for the pilgrim
to experience, the Inferno presents "matta bestialità"
as the lowest range of the "human capability for going toward
and merging with the Satanic in a continuous ontological order,
conceived as a historical sacro-political entity." Thus,
against the usually accepted pattern (I. Incontinence, II. Violence--
Circle 7, and III. Fraud simple and complex--Circles 8 and 9),
the author submits a new tripartite division of Inferno: I.
Incontinence--above Styx-- guardians are animals; II. Malicious
violence and simple fraud--Circles 7 and 8--guardians have human
head and animal body; and III. Bestial malice (fraud complex,
treachery)--Circle 9--guardians have human form. The Ugolino episode,
for example, is read as Aristotelian tragedy and construed to
reflect excessive punishment (viz. Ruggieri's condemning the innocent
to the tower too). The idea of excess, moreover, is borne out
by the imagery, behavior, geography, and demography of the infernal
pit. In a closing section, Professor Triolo outlines the traditional
or "processional" link between pride and matta bestialità
through avaritia-cupiditas, or excessive turning toward
earthly goods. The "offspring" of avarice (filiae
avaritiae), Thomistically understood in terms of vis and
dolus, with the vices resembling prudence or the vices
of false prudence (astutia, dolus, fraus) in a gradation
from the general to the particular, provide the pattern fleshed
out poetically in Dante's Inferno.
Valesio, Paolo. "Vocabulorum constructio." In Studi danteschi, XLV, 167-177. [1968]
Noting that his study, co-authored with Roman Jakobson, "Vocabulorum
constructio in Dante's Sonnet Se vedi li occhi miei"
(in Studi danteschi, XLIII [1966], 7-33; see Dante
Studies, LXXXV, 105-106) has met an exceptionally hypercritical,
polemical attack by Bruno Porcelli ("Per un esempio d'analisi
strutturale," in Problemi, VII [1968], 310-314),
Professor Valesio selects a number of points for detailed answer
and clarification, stressing a gross lack of informed understanding
on the part of their critic.
Vergani, Gian Angelo. "Lo studio di Dante negli Stati Uniti d'America." In Filologia e letteratura (Napoli), XIV, Fasc. III, No. 55, 225-232. [1968]
Brief historical sketch of Dante studies in the United States,
citing particularly the work of more recent scholars.
Dante. Dante's Inferno. Bilingual edition. With translations broadcast in the BBC Third Programme. Edited by Terence Tiller. New York: Schocken Books, 1967. Also, London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1966. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 137-138.) Reviewed by:
D. G. Rees, in Italian Studies, XXII, 119-121.
Dante. The Odes of Dante. Translated by H. S. Vere-Hodge. New York: Oxford University Press; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963. (See 83rd Report, 60-61, and Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 105.) Reviewed by:
T. Gwynfor Griffith, in Modern Language Review, LXIII,
265-268.
Bahner, Wemer. Dantes Bemühungen um die Geltung und Formung der italienischen Literatursprache. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1966. 39 p. (Sitz.-ber. der Deutschen Ak. der Wiss. zu Berlin: Klasse für Sprachen, Literatur und Kunst, Jg. 1966, No. 5.) Reviewed by:
Aldo D. Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXII (Aug.), 124.
Baron, Hans. The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny. Revised one-volume edition, with an epilogue. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1966. Includes important references to Dante. (See Dante Studies, LXXXV, 97 and 114.) Reviewed by:
Guido A. Guarino, in Modern Language Journal, LII (Jan.), 43-44;
Aldo Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXI (Feb.), 358.
Bergin, Thomas G. Perspectives on the Divine Comedy. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1967. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 139-140.) Reviewed by:
John Mahoney, in Italica, XLV (Sept.), 384-385.
Branca, Vittore, and Ettore Caccia, eds. Dante nel mondo. Raccolta di studi promossa dall'Associazione Internazionale per gli Studi di Lingua e di Letteratura Italiana . . . Firenze: Olschki, 1965. vi, 666 p. 24 cm. (Comitato Nazionale per le Celebrazioni del VII Centenario della Nascita di Dante. Vol. III.) Reviewed by:
J. Chesley Mathews, in Italica, XLV (June); 264-271.
Buck, August. Der Einfluss des Platonismus auf die volkssprachliche Literatur im florentiner Quattrocento. Krefeld: Scherpe Verlag, 1965. 40 p. (Schriften und Vorträge des Petrarca-Instituts Köln, XIX.) Contains references to Dante. Reviewed by:
Aldo D. Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXII, 124-125.
Caretti, Lanfranco. Il canto V dell'Inferno. Firenze: Le Monnier, 1967. 38 p. Reviewed by:
Luigi Borelli, in Forum Italicum, II, No. 2 (June), 169-170.
Centenary Essays on Dante. By members of the Oxford Dante Society. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1965. 147 p. 23 cm. Reviewed by:
Thomas G. Bergin, in Speculum, XLIII (Jan.), 134-136.
Ceva, Bianca. Brunetto Latini: l'uomo e l'opera. Milano-Napoli: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1965. 229 p. 23 cm. Concludes with a general discussion of the relationship between Brunetto and Dante, stressing the latter's respect for Brunetto the citizen and rhetorician. Reviewed by:
Charles T. Davis, in Speculum, XLIII (April), 336-337.
Chandler, S. Bernard, and J. A. Molinaro, eds. The World of Dante: Six Studies in Language and Thought. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966. (See Dante Studies, LXXXV, 98-99, and LXXXVI, 155, and see below, Addenda, under Reviews.) Reviewed by:
Patrick Boyde, in Modern Language Review, LXIII (Jan.), 268-269;
Ferdinando D. Maurino, in Forum Italicum, II (Sept.), 276-278;
Aldo D. Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXII, 232-235;
J. A. Scott, in Medium Aevum, XXXVII, 200-202.
Clements, Robert J., ed. American Critical Essays on the Divine Comedy. New York: New York University Press; London: University of London Press, 1967. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 141.) Reviewed by:
Aldo D. Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXII, 232-235.
Cunningham, Gilbert F. The Divine Comedy in English: A Critical Bibliography, 1782-1900. Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd: New York: Barnes and Noble, 1965. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 82 and 107, LXXXV, 115, and LXXXVI, 155 and 163.) Reviewed by:
Glauco Cambon, in Modern Language Journal, LII (Jan), 49-50.
Cunningham, Gilbert F. The Divine Comedy in English: A Critical Bibliography, 1901-1966 Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1967. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 142.) Reviewed by:
Glauco Cambon, in Modern Language Journal, LII (Jan.), 49-50;
D. G. Rees, in Italian Studies, XXIII, 162-163.
De Sua, William, and Gino Rizzo, eds. A Dante Symposium in Commemoration of the 700th Anniversary of the Poet's Birth (1265-1965) . . . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 83, LXXXV, 116, LXXXVI, 156, and see below, Addenda, under Reviews.) Reviewed by:
Ferdinando D. Maurino, in Forum Italicum, II (Sept.), 276-278;
J. A. Scott, in Modern Language Review, LXIII (April),
488-489.
Ideen und Formen. Festschrift für Hugo Friedrich zum 24.XII.1964. Herausgegeben von Fritz Schalk. Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1965. (viii), 346 p. illus. 24 cm. Contains a Dantean piece: Oscar Büdel, "Das Publikum der Stilnovisti," pp. 23-39. (See below, under Addenda.) Reviewed by:
Peter F. Dembowski, in Romance Philology, XXII (Aug.), 117-118.
Lawlor, John, ed. Patterns of Love and Courtesy: Essays in Memory of C. S. Lewis. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press; London: Arnold, 1966. Contains an essay on "Dante and the Tradition of Courtly Love," by Colin Hardie. (See Dante Studies, LXXXV, 104.) Reviewed by:
John Hurt Fisher, in Modern Language Review, LXIII (Jan.),
162-163.
Leo, Ulrich. Romanistische Aufsätze aus drei Jahrzehnten. Herausgegeben von Fritz Schalk. Köln-Graz: Böhlau Verlag, 1966. Contains his "Vorrede zu einer `Lectura Dantis'," pp. 164-193. (See Dante Studies, LXXXV, 106.) Reviewed by:
Herbert Frenzel, in Romanische Forschungen, LXXX, 561-563.
Lewis, C. S. Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Collected by Walter Hooper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966. Contains three essays on Dante. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 157.) Reviewed by:
Lionel J. Friedman, in Romance Philology, XXII (August),
119-120.
Medieval Miscellany Presented to Eugene Vinaver by Pupils, Colleagues and Friends. Edited by F. Whitehead, A. H. Diverres, and F. E. Sutcliffe. Manchester: Manchester University Press; New York: Barnes and Noble, 1965. Contains a Dantean piece: E. F. Jacob, "The Giants (Inferno XXXI)," pp. 167-185. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 89-90.) Reviewed by:
Uda Ebel, in Romanische Forschungen, LXXX, 566-570.
Melzi, Robert C. Castelvetro's Annotations to the Inferno: A New Perspective in Sixteenth-Century Criticism. The Hague-Paris: Mouton, 1966. (See Dante Studies, LXXXV, 108.) Reviewed by:
Manfred Lentzen, in Romanische Forschungen, LXXX, 595-597.
Miscellanea di studi danteschi, a cura dell'Istituto di Letteratura Italiana dell'Università degli Studi di Genova. Genova: Libreria Editrice Mario Bozzi, 1966. 309 p. Contains a piece by C. S. Singleton, "Campi semantici dei canti XII dell'Inferno e XIII del Purgatorio," pp. 11-22. (See below, under Addenda.) Reviewed by:
M[ario] P[ozzi], in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana,
CXLV, 157-158.
Poggioli, Renato. The Spirit of the Letter: Essays in European Literature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1965. Contains his essay on Paolo and Francesca . . . ," pp. 50-102. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 97 and 107, and LXXXV, 117.) Reviewed by:
Jean Seznec, in Modern Language Review, LXIII (Jan.), 140-141.
Ruggiers, Paul G. Florence in the Age of Dante. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964. (See 83rd Report, 57, and Dante Studies, LXXXV, 117.) Reviewed by:
Charles T. Davis, in Speculum, XLIII (April), 384-385.
Samuel, Irene. Dante and Milton: The Commedia and Paradise Lost. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1966. (See Dante Studies, LXXXV, 111 and 117, and LXXXVI, 157.) Reviewed by:
William J. Grace, in Modern Philology, LXV (May), 379-381;
F. T. Prince, in Italian Studies, XXIII, 180-181.
Sandkühler, Bruno. Die frühen Dantekommentare und ihr Verhältnis zur mittelalterlichen Kommentartradition. München: Hueber, 1967. 291 p. 24 cm. (Münchner romanistische Arbeiten, Heft 19.) Reviewed by:
William Jackson, in Renaissance Quarterly, XXI (Summer),
212-214.
Studia Romanica et Anglica Zagrabiensia, XIX-XX (Jul.-Dec. 1965). Dante Alighieri Centennial Issue. (Zagreb: Filosofski Fakultet.) 219 p. Reviewed by:
Aldo D. Scaglione, in Romance Philology, XXII, 232-235.
Torre, Augusto. I Polentani: fino al tempo di Dante. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1966. viii, 250 p. geneal. table. (VII Centenario della Nascita di Dante. Collana di studi storici, a cura del Comitato Ravennate, IV.) Reviewed by:
William M. Bowsky, in Speculum, XLIII (Jan.), 193-194.
Vasina, Augusto. I Romagnoli fra autonomie cittadine e accentramento papale nell'età di Dante. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1964. XXV, 472 p. folded tables, map. 24.5 cm. (VII Centenario della Nascita di Dante. Collana di studi storici, a cura del Comitato Ravennate, III.) Reviewed by:
Helene Wieruszowski, in Speculum, XLIII (Oct.), 756-758.
Wenzel, Siegfried. The Sin of Sloth: Acedia in Medieval Thought and Literature. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1967. Contains important references to Dante. (See Dante Studies, LXXXVI, 153.) Reviewed by:
E[ttore] B[onora], in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana,
CXLV, 155-156.
Wilkins, Ernest Hatch, and Thomas G. Bergin, eds. A Concordance to the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri . . . Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1965. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 104 and 108, LXXXV, 118 and 122, and LXXXVI, 158.) Reviewed by:
T. Gwynfor Griffith, in Modern Language Review, LXIII (Jan),
265-268.
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. New York: AMS Press, 1966. 3 v. front., illus., plates, ports., facsims. 21 cm. (The Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 14 Vols.)
The volumes of the translation are IX-XI of this reprint
of the 1886 "Standard Library Edition" (Boston and New
York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company) of "The Works of Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow, with bibliographical and critical notes
and his life, with extracts from his journal and correspondence,
edited by Samuel Longfellow." (For another recent reprint
of Longfellow's version of the Inferno, see 81st Report,
19-20.)
The Inferno. A verse rendering for the modern reader, by John Ciardi. Historical introduction by A. R. MacAllister. [New York:] New American Library; London: The New English Library Limited, [1966]. 288 p. illus., diagrs. 18 cm. (Mentor Books, MS 113.)
Reprint; originally published in 1954. (See 73rd Report, 53-54.)
"Paolo e Francesca" [Inferno V, 121-142]. Translated by Mark Musa. In Forum Italicum, I, No. 2 (April 1967), 100.
Done in blank verse.
Arthos, John. Dante, Michelangelo and Milton. New York: Hillary House, 1963. xi, 124 p. 23 cm.
Identical with the original British edition which appeared in
the same year (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul). (See 82nd
Report, 47-48.)
B., C. D. "Il nome di Dante Alighieri nella geografia degli Stati Uniti." In Il Progresso italo-americano (New York), 2 May, 1965.
Reports that, while Shakespeare is singularly absent from place-names
in North America, Dante appears in several names of springs, towns,
a railroad station, and a cave, found in California, Colorado,
South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia.
Baker, Susan. "The Analogy of a Poem: Dante's Dream." In Sewanee Review, LXXIV (1966), 438-449.
Discusses the background of Dante's patterning his poem on the fourfold method of Biblical exegesis and emphasizes analogy, based on the Incarnation and thus recognizing the figure of Christ in historical persons, as the key to
communicating something of the transcendent reality of the Beatific
Vision. Noting that the medieval symbol of the imaginative act
was the dream, the author stresses the importance of Dante's dream
in Purg. IX and the image of the Eagle, whose symbolism
is revealed completely only later in the Paradiso.
Berenson, Bernard. "Botticelli's Illustrations to the Divina Commedia." In One Hundred Years of the Nation: A Centennial Anthology, ed. by Henry M. Christman . . . (New York: Macmillan, 1965), pp. 91-95.
Contends that Botticelli fails to convey the chill despair of Inferno, the hope and convalescence of Purgatorio, and the sublimity of the Paradiso, because his genius was not Dantesque and Dante's poem, being more lyrical than epic or dramatic, does not lend itself to satisfactory illustration. This review-article on Friedrich Lippman's English edition of Drawings by Sandro Botticelli for Dante's Divina Commedia (London: Lawrence and Bullen, 1896) is reprinted from The Nation, LXIII (Nov. 12, 1896), 363-364.
Berenson, Bernard. "Dante's Visual Images and His Early Illustrators." In One Hundred Years of the Nation: A Centennial Anthology, ed. Henry M. Christman . . . (New York: Macmillan, 1965), pp. 95-98.
Contends that, lacking our present knowledge of ancient art, Dante
could only be conditioned by contemporary medieval artists in
his own visual representation of scenes of Rome, Greece, or Judea.
It is Giotto, Duccio, Simone Martini, Lorenzetti, also Luca Signorelli
(and later perhaps Michelangelo as a kindred spirit) who can help
us conceptualize Dante's images. An illustrated edition of the
Commedia would therefore best contain a judicious selection
from works of the finest 14th- and 15th-century artists and
from miniatures in Dantean manuscripts. Reprinted from The
Nation, LVIII (Feb. 1, 1894), 82-83. The essay was also
reprinted in Berenson's Study and Criticism of Italian Art,
First series (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1901), pp. 13-19.
Berenson, Bernard. "Imágenes visuales de Dante." In Ars (Buenos Aires), Año XVII, No. 78 (1957), [53-57].
Spanish translation (by Delia E. Checchi) of the previous item.
This version was reprinted from Dante (Buenos Aires), IV,
No. 2 (1954), 1-4.
Büdel, Oscar. "Das Publikum der Stilnovisti." In Ideen und Formen. Festschrift für Hugo Friedrich zum 24.XII.1964, edited by Fritz Schalk (Frankfurt am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1965), pp. 23-39.
Investigating the readership of dolce stil novo poetry
and the choice of Tuscan as its medium, Professor Büdel questions
Dante's claim that the vernacular was used for ladies untutored
in Latin and Auerbach's contention that a large public educated
in Tuscan existed by 1300. He submits that the stilnovistic milieu
reveals an élite consciously striving to produce poetry,
not popular, but for an élite. The vernacular was chosen
to create an exclusive "new" poetry for a "new"
bourgeois élite of fedeli d'amore. Hence the dolce
stil novo differs from aristocratic and feudal poetry of Provençal
tradition.
Buxton, Charles Roden. Prophets of Heaven and Hell: Virgil, Dante, Milton, Goethe. An Introductory Essay. New York: Haskell House, 1966. XV, 114 p. 23 cm.
Reprint of the 1945 edition (Cambridge: At the University Press).
The author considers Virgil, Dante, Milton, and Goethe as the
best spokesmen of Western civilization and sees in their poems
a common unity and completeness of scope, embodying a connected
view of life as a whole. The Aeneid, the Divine Comedy,
Paradise Lost, and Faust are incomparable in beauty,
important in the development of human civilization, and enduring
in significance and value, but they must be read in their entirety,
not in snippets. Contents: I. The Subject; II. Poets or
Prophets?; III. The Significance of the Myth; IV. The Poet's Use
of the Myth; V. The Poems as Works of Art; VI. The Historical
Value of the Poems; VII. The Moral and Intellectual Effect of
the Poems; VIII. The Basic Ideas of Western Civilisation.
Dana, H. W. L. "The Six Centuries since Dante." In Essays in Memory of Barrett Wendell, by His Assistants (New York: Russell and Russell, 1967), pp- 43-60.
Meditates on changes that have occurred from Dante's world, especially
in the things he held most dear: his idealized love of woman,
his twofold world government, his threefold conception of the
Other World, his faith in the existence of the soul apart from
the body, his belief in free will. All these have been called
into question, but Dante's poetry remains. This is a reprint of
the volume, originally published in 1926 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press).
Della Penta, Joseph C., O.P. "On Dante `Cantabile'." In Chicago Studies, V (Winter 1966), 211-225.
Examines briefly the qualities which make for Dante's abiding
relevance, such as the transcendent efficacy of his poetry, certain
of his political ideals (e.g. "one world," separation
of Church and State), a modern concern with philosophical problems.
Dole, Nathan Haskell. A Teacher of Dante and Other Studies in Italian Literature. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1967. 341 p. 19 cm.
Reprint of the 1908 edition (New York: Moffat, Yard and Company).
The first two studies are on "A Teacher of Dante" (pp.
3-42), concerning Brunetto Latini, and "Dante and the
Picturesque" (pp. 43-88), focussing on the pictorial
and plastic qualities of the poet's art.
Fisher, Lizette Andrews. The Mystic Vision in the Grail Legend and in the Divine Comedy. New York: AMS Press, 1966. xi, 148 p. illus., front., facsims. 22 cm.
Reprint of the original 1917 edition (Columbia University Studies
in English and Comparative Literature; New York: Columbia University
Press). Contents: Introduction; Transubstantiation in History,
Theology and Devotion; The Mystic Vision in the Legend of the
Grail; The Mystic Vision in the Divine Comedy; Appendices
[The Eucharist as a Means to the Vision of God; The Ritual Theory;
etc.]; Bibliography; Index. "A comparison of the Corpus Christi
procession with that of the close of Dante's Purgatory cannot
fail to bring out striking resemblances between them.... They
may therefore be considered carefully in the hope of finding in
them the clew to a really convincing interpretation of the last
six cantos of the Purgatory" (p. 100).
Fletcher, Jefferson B. "The Crux of Dante's Comedy." In Essays in Memory of Barrett Wendell, by His Assistants (New York: Russell and Russell, 1967), pp. 63-92.
Invoking Dante's insistence that his allegory is multiple, the
author here offers a synopsis of the Comedy presenting
Dante as the hero of a primarily political drama, for at
the beginning of the poem Dante's spiritual crisis is already
past, while his human plight, specifically vis-à-vis
his own city-state, remains unresolved. According to Fletcher's
interpretation, the political redeemer prophesied by Beatrice
as the DXV (Purg. XXXIII, 43) is Can Grande, who will restore
order and make it possible for the poet to return to Florence
with authority to train her in the service of justice. This is
a reprint of the volume, originally published in 1926 (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press). Fletcher's essay was reprinted
from Romanic Review, XVI (Jan-March 1925), 1-42.
Gilson, Etienne. "Dante's Notion of a Shade: Purgatorio XXV." In Mediaeval Studies, XXIX (1967), 124-142.
Expatiates on the nature of Dante's shades, which the poet is
seen to conceive and explain (as in Purg. XXV) strictly
"scientifically." The proximate literary source of Dante's
shades, which are poetic creations, lies in Virgil's Aeneid
VI, but Dante went further and provided a Scholastic and Aristotelian
explanation for them. According to Aristotle's embryogeny, perfected
by Thomistic theology, an element of the blood contains a formative
power that enables it to shape all the limbs of the future body.
While the shades in Hell represent but one case of the embryogeny
of human beings in general, Dante elaborates upon Aristotle by
assuming that the soul's virtute formativa or plastic power,
continues in effect. Thus Dante accounted for the condition of
the soul between death and the resurrection of the body, to enable
us to "see," at least in imagination, the souls populating
his poem as shades. Virgil was more helpful than the Old and New
Testaments for visualizing the after life; however, Dante's shades
are much more solidly established than Virgil's. In terms of medieval
science and Aristotle's embryogeny, Dante has conferred on the
ombre of the Commedia a scientifically justified
status, in accordance with his dual genius for teaching truth
as well as creating beauty.
Giovannini, Giovanni. Ezra Pound and Dante. Rede uitgesproken ter gelegenheid van de aanvang der werkzaamheden aan de Katholieke Universiteit te Nijmegen als Fulbright-hoogleraar in de Amerikaanse Letterkunde voor het studiejaar 1961-1962 op vrijdag 1 December 1961. Nijmegen-Utrecht: Dekker & Van de Vegt, [1961]. 18 p. 25 cm.
Assesses Dante's influence upon Era Pound against his earlier
presence on the American literary scene. In both his critical
and poetic work, Pound evinces an appreciation of the technical
and moral dimensions of Dante's art, which he implicitly relates
to his interest in Imagism. Considering Dante a valuable key to
the elucidation of Pound, Professor Giovannini cites some general
aspects and several specific passages of the unfinished Cantos
to show how this modern epic interprets the secular side of
the Commedia, while also exhibiting an affinity with Dante's
God as love.
Girard, René. "De La Divine Comédie à la sociologie du roman." In Revue de l'Institut de Sociologie (Brussels), 1963, No. 2, pp. 263-269.
Against the error of a romantic interpretation of Paolo and Francesca,
whose apparently absolute passion may seem a solipsistic triumph
over Hell, the author contends that the genesis of their love
affair is definitely based on their reading of Lancelot and Guinevere,
in whom they see themselves mirrored. Actually, theirs is only
a derivative desire and the diabolical intermediary stimulating
it is the literary work, which Dante's Comedy expressly
denounces as a malignant influence: "Galeotto fu il libro
e chi lo scrisse." The archetypal pattern of Dante's poem,
first set by St. Augustine's Confessions, in both of which
the genesis of the hero's experience is inscribed in the form
of the work itself, recurs in the modern novel where the hero's
"conversion" is a transposition of the fundamental experience
of the writer, who has undergone the "romantic" experience
before retelling it on the fictive level. The conclusion which
is a death to the world constitutes a birth in the
fictive creation. The whole process is clarified only by the end,
as in the Divine Comedy, and there is the same pattern
of descent eventually becoming ascent. Professor Girard cites
the fundamental unity of Western thought evinced by the analogous
vision of the world intrinsic in the various modes of thought
and domains of being from patristic meditation and Christian allegory
to the Marxist and Freudian modes to present-day reflection
and the fictive world of mediated desire in the modern novel.
Holbrook, Richard Thayer. Dante and the Animal Kingdom. New York: AMS Press, 1966. xviii, (I), 376 p. illus. 23 cm. (Columbia University. Studies in Romance Philology and Literature, 4.)
Reprint of the 1902 edition (New York: The Columbia University
Press; The Macmillan Company, Agents). According to the preface,
"this book aims to set forth Dante Alighieri's whole philosophy
of the animal kingdom, to show from what sources he derives his
knowledge, and to what ends his knowledge is employed." The
presentation consists of an introduction on nature study and treatment
of animals in medieval art and Dante's sources, and separate chapters
on man, the angels, the devil and his brood, mythological creatures,
and the various individual kinds of animals treated or used by
Dante in his works. Indexed.
Koonce, Benjamin G. Chaucer and the Tradition of Fame: Symbolism in "The House of Fame." Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1966. 293 p. 21 cm.
Presents an analysis of Chaucer's House of Fame, relating
it to the tradition of Fame and vision literature in general and
to Dante's Comedy in particular. The author stresses Chaucer's
indebtedness to the Divine Comedy for his threefold structure,
invocations, patterns of imagery, and verbal echoes throughout
the poem, which go beyond obvious surface differences in subject
matter, style, tone, and general artistic complexity. The similarities
evince a common ground of Christian doctrine which relates the
two poems on the deeper level of allegory. In its three parts,
Chaucer's poem may be considered parallel to the three cantiche
of Dante's poem, respectively. Contents: Introduction;
I. The Tradition of Fame: I. The Scriptural Tradition, 2. The
Tradition of Boethius, 3. The Literary Tradition; II. The Prophetic
Tradition: I. The Dream Symbolism, 2. The Symbolic Date, 3. "Dante
in Inglish"; III. The House of Fame-- Hell; IV....--Purgatory;
V....--Paradise. Index. (For a review, see below.)
Luciani, Vincent. A Brief History of Italian Literature. New York: S. F. Vanni [1967]. V, 297 p. 22 cm.
Contains chapters on "Dante Alighieri" (pp. 10-20)
and "Dante's Contemporaries (pp. 21-24).
[Montano, Rocco] "Sapegno, la genesi della Commedia e il presunto passatismo di Dante." In Umanesimo, I, No. 5 (sett. 1967), 81-83.
Disagrees with N. Sapegno's essay on "How the Commedia
was Born" (From Time to Eternity, ed. T. G. Bergin
[New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967], Pp. 1-18;
see Dante Studies LXXXVI, 148). Professor Montano considers
it wrong to attribute the genesis of the Commedia merely
to external biographical events, e.g., the poet's exile, without
consideration of his profound subsequent intellectual and spiritual
development. The Commedia, for example, plainly differs
from the positions of the Convivio and De Monarchia.
Far from seeking a restoration of a past socio-political
ideal, Dante who actually espoused revolutionary ideas for his
time, sought new solutions in terms of the present and abiding
institutions of Church and State.
Patch, Howard R. The Goddess Fortuna in Mediaeval Literature. New York Octagon Books, 1967. (Also, London: Frank Cass and Company, 1967.) xii. 215 p. illus. 13 plates., 21 cm.
Reprint of the 1927 edition (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press). Contains references to Dante, who, according to the author,
united the pagan and Christian tradition in his representation
of Fortune in Inf. VII. Contents: Introduction;
I. The Philosophy of Fortune; II. Traditional Themes of Fortune
in Mediaeval Literature; III. Functions and Cults; IV. The Dwelling-Place
of Fortune; V. Fortune's Wheel; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
Pirrotta, Nino. "Ars nova e stil novo." In Rivista italiana di musicologia, I (1966), 3-19.
Discussing the problem of written and un-written music, the
parallel manifestation of the ars nova in France and Italy,
and the possible relationship between the ars nova and
the earlier dolce stil novo, the author explains why the
latter are not intimately related, although the ballata form
is an element common to both. While Dante himself had a substantial
interest in music, this cannot be precisely documented from his
works. The ars nova was much associated with the universities,
such as Paris, Padova, and Bologna, as were, correspondingly,
many stilnovistic poets; the Florentines Dante and Cavalcanti,
moreover, doubtless frequented the Franciscan or Dominican studia,
which reflected the Parisian curriculum. In sum, Professor
Pirrotta conjectures there may be a connection between the creative
impulse of the dolce stil novo and the intensified polyphonic
activity of the ars nova. Also, as evidence of Dante's
wide impact, he cites a parallel with the De vulgari eloquentia
in French writings on the seconde rhétorique stemming
from Philippe de Vitry as initiator and an analogy with Dante's
proclamation of the dolce stil novo (Purg. XXIV, 57) found
in a French motet by Pierre de la Croix, a precursor of the ars
nova. (This is an Italian version of a lecture given by Professor
Pirrotta on Jan. 7, 1965, at a Dante symposium sponsored by The
Johns Hopkins University and repeated in various other American
universities during the Dante centenary.)
Pisanti, Tommaso. "Ezra Pound e Dante." In Dante e l'Italia meridionale a cura del Seminario di Studi Danteschi di Caserta (Firenze: Olschki, 1966), pp. 329-336.
Refers briefly to the flourishing of Dante studies at Harvard
in the 19th century, along with the influence of French Symbolistes,
as necessary preparation for the critical impact of Pound (and
Eliot) in enhancing modern interest in the Florentine poet. References
are made to several particular Dantean influences in Pound's critical
writings and in his Cantos.
Shaw, James Eustace. Essays on the Vita Nuova. New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation, 1965. [X], 236 p. 24 cm. (Elliott Monographs in the Romance Languages and Literatures, 25.)
This well known work was first published in 1929 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press; Paris: Les Presses Universitaires de France).
Contents: I. The Date of the Vita Nuova; II. Incipit
Vita Nova; III. Ego tanquam centrum circuli; IV. E
che dirà ne lo inferno; V. Morràti, morràti;
VI. Non è del presente proposito; VII. The Character
of the Vita Nuova; List of Works Cited.
Singleton, Charles S. "Campi semantici dei canti XII dell'Inferno e XIII del Purgatorio." In Miscellanea di studi danteschi, a cura dell'Istituto di Letteratura Italiana (Università degli Studi, Genova; Genova: Bozzi, 1966), pp. 11-22.
Contends that these are instances of "semantic fields"
in which a dominant or guiding idea determines, as in a magnetic
field, the lines of action and expressive imagery of an episode.
In the circle of Violence, visual attention is fixed on that point
in the centaur Chiron where the two natures (man-beast) meet,
thus emphasizing the idea "violenza-bestialità."
With the blinded souls on the terrace of Envy are stressed, in
similar fashion, both the image and the idea of "vedere-non
vedere" traditionally and etymologically associated with
invidia (cf. Latin "invideo"). Such examples
illustrate how Dante's imagery, being invariably saturated with
the idea to be conveyed, is supremely functional.
Stambler, Bernard. "Trois rêves: Essai d'interprétation structurale de trois rêves dans le Purgatoire." In Tel quel, No. 23 (1965), 52-68.
French version (trans. by Denis Roche) of his "Three Dreams,"
which appeared in Books Abroad, Dante Issue (May 1965),
81-93. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 102.)
Tusiani, Joseph. Dal Cielo "inviato speciale." Roma: Edizioni Presenza, [1966]. 310 p. 21 cm. (I narratori contemporanei.)
Italian version (by Adriana Valente) of the Dantean novel, first
published in English as Envoy from Heaven (New York: Obolensky-World,
1965). (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 103.)
Verbillion, June. "Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Prologue, 175." In Explicator, XXIV, No. 7 (March 1966), Item 58.
Notes a possible Dantean parallel in this line where the Wife
refers to herself as "the whippe," recalling the "goad"
(or example of virtue) placed at the entrance to each cornice
of the Purgatorio. At the same time, she acts as a "rein"
similar to Dante's co-ordinate examples of checks on sin.
Wilcox, Earl. "Warren's All the King's Men, Epigraph." In Explicator, XXVI, No. 4 (Dec. 1967), Item 29.
Contends that the epigraph on hope taken from Purg. III,
135 is more functional than previously observed: it is the key
to Jack Burden's optimism at the end of the novel, indeed Burden's
problem is similar to that of Manfred, speaker of Dante's line.
Dante. The Inferno. A verse rendering for the modern reader by John Ciardi. Historical introduction by A. T. MacAllister. New York: New American Library, 1954, etc. (See above, Addenda, under Translations.) Reviewed by:
Janitor, ["Dante e l'America"], in Il Tempo (Roma),
22 May, 1965.
Chandler, S. Bernard, and J. A. Molinaro, eds. The World of Dante: Six Studies in Language and Thought. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1966. (See Dante Studies, LXXXV, 85-94 and 98-99, LXXXVI, 155, and see above, main section, under Reviews.) Reviewed by:
Riccardo] S[crivano], in Rassegna della letteratura italiana,
LXXI (1967), 475-476.
Dante Studies, with the Annual Report of the Dante Society, LXXXIV (1966). 131 p. Reviewed by:
R[iccardo] S[crivano], in Rassegna della letteratura italiana,
LXXI (1967), 476.
De Sua, William, and Gino Rizzo, eds. A Dante Symposium in Commemoration of the 700th Anniversary of the Poet's Birth (1265-1965) . . . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1965. (See Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 83, LXXXV, 116, LXXXVI, 156, and see above, main section, under Reviews.) Reviewed by:
R[iccardo] S[crivano], in Rassegna della letteratura italiana,
LXXI (1967), 475.
Friedrich, Hugo. Epochen der italianischen Lyrik. Frankfurt-am-Main: Vittorio Klostermann, [1964]. xvi, 784 p. Contains chapters on the dolce stil novo and on Dante. Reviewed by:
Dante Della Terza, in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana,
CXLII (1965), 266-273.
Hatzfeld, Helmut. Estudios sobre el barroco. Madrid: Gredos, 1964. Contains references to Dante in Chapter VI, especially pp. 165-175. (On the 1966 edition, see Dante Studies, LXXXV, 105, and LXXXVI, 156.) Reviewed by:
Carlo A. Madrignani, in Giornale storico della letteratura
italiana, CXLIII (1966), 443-449
Koonce, Benjamin G. Chaucer and the Tradition of Fame: Symbolism in " The House of Fame." Princeton, NJ.: Princeton University Press, 1966. 293 p. (See above, Addenda, under Studies.) Reviewed by:
H. M. Smyser, in Speculum, XLII (July 1967), 536-539.
Toynbee, Paget. A Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante. Revised by Charles S. Singleton. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1968. (See above, main section, under Studies.) Reviewed by:
R[iccardo] S[crivano], in Rassegna della letteratura italiana,
LXXI (1967), 477.
Vittorini, Domenico. The Age of Dante. A Concise History of Italian Culture in the Years of the Early Renaissance. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1957. (See 76th Report, 54, 77th Report, 59, and 78th Report, 41.) Reviewed by:
R[iccardo] S[crivano], in Rassegna della letteratura italiana,
LXXI (1967), 458-459.
Weinberg, Bernard. A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961. (See 80th Report, 33, 81st Report, 33, 82nd Report, 58 and 59 [Corrigendum].) Reviewed by:
Gian Angelo Vergani, in Filologia e letteratura (Napoli),
XIII, Fasc. IV, No. 52 (1967), 461-463.
State University of New York
Binghamton, New York