This bibliography is intended to include the Dante translations published in this country in 1977 and all Dante studies and reviews published in 1977 that are in any sense American. The latter criterion is construed to include foreign reviews of American publications pertaining to Dante. The listing of reviews in general is selective, particularly in the case of studies bearing only peripherally on Dante.

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

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

The Divine Comedy. Translated by John Ciardi. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. xvii, 602 p. illus. 22 cm. [1977]

A new edition in one volume of Ciardi's well-known version preserving the original tercet-division, with the first and third verses in rhyme or approximate rhyme. His Inferno originally appeared in 1954 (see 73rd Report, 53-54), his Purgatorio in 1961 (see 80th Report, 22), and his Paradiso in 1970 (see Dante Studies LXXXIX, 108). Each canto is preceded by a brief summary and followed by substantial notes. This edition bears a new general introduction by Mr. Ciardi, "The Method of The Divine Comedy" (pp. ix-xvii), which treats of Dante's poetic achievement in the work and of what it demands of the reader, particularly the twentieth-century reader. A few accompanying diagrams illustrate some key topographical features in the poem. The translation has been extensively reviewed.

Literary Criticism of Dante Alighieri. Translated and edited by Robert S. Haller. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. xlix, 192 p. (Regents Critics Series.) [1977]

Paperback edition of the hard cover original of 1973 (see Dante Studies, XCII, 182-183). Contains excerpts, in English translation, from Dante's works (viz., the Vita Nuova, De vulgari eloquentia, Convivio, Divina Commedia, Letter to Can Grande, and Eclogues) bearing in any way upon matters of literary criticism.

Ahern, John Joseph. "The New Life of the Book: Oral and Written Communication in the Age of Dante." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXVII, 5106A. [1977]

Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 1976.

Al-Sabah, Rasha. "Inferno XXVIII: The Figure of Muhammad." In Yale Italian Studies, I, 147-161. [1977]

Reviews a number of medieval legends and other statement about Muhammad possibly available to Dante, which considered the Islamic prophet a schismatic and apostate, even prefigurement of the Antichrist, and emphasizing details of his violent death, with mutilation and dismemberment of his body. This close association of schismatic discord and bodily mutilation is appropriately reflected in Dante's own presentation of Muhammad in Inferno XXVIII, which thus recaptures the essential condition of physical and spiritual disequilibrium peculiar to the schismatic. By his words and posture in the canto, Muhammad is allowed to reveal dramatically and figuratively his own instability and in a sense act out the nature of his sin. The author cites a possible direct source for Dante's text in Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica (XXXII) which recapitulates traditional commentaries on Proverbs 6: 12-19 (regarding apostasy and its effects) and underscores the inherent spiritual and physical confusion of the apostate and sower of discord. Particularly significant is Aquinas' assertion that apostasy as a loss of faith and alienation from God spells both spiritual and physical decay and confusion and engenders schism.

Baglivi, Giuseppe, and Garrett McCutchan. "Dante, Christ, and the Fallen Bridges." In Italica, LIV, 250-262. [1977]

The authors contend that the terzina, Inferno XXI, 112-114, significantly pulls together the earlier political prophecies of Dante's coming exile (X, 79-81, and XV, 64, 88-89, 94) and references to the infernal ruine (V, 34-36, and XII, 31-45) in order to show that Dante's exile is providential, leading to his role of scriba Dei in the writing of the Commedia, and that his mission is by analogy to be equated with Christ's mission of rebuilding the bridge between earthly justice and heaven itself.

Baldassaro, Lawrence. "Dante pellegrino: l'uomo come peccatore." In Segni: selezione intellettuale, [no vol. no.], aprile, pp. 19-26. [1977]

Italian version of the English original, "Dante the Pilgrim: Everyman as Sinner," which appeared in Dante Studies, XCII, (1974), 63-76 (see Dante Studies, XCIII, 226). The essay is preceded by a critical foreword by Rocco Montano who stresses his own priority in time (1951) for making the important distinction between Dante-poet and Dante-protagonist in the Commedia-a distinction appropriated and exploited by many since-and many significant points of interpretation determined by that distinction for a proper and consistent global reading of Dante's poem.

Bonadeo, Alfredo. "Punizione e sofferenza nell' Inferno dantesco." In Proceedings, Pacific Northwest Council on Foreign Languages, XXVIII, Part 1 (April 21-23, 1977), 74-77. [1977]

Briefly reviews the varying posture of the suffering sinners in Dante's Inferno, noting that some do not appear tormented so much by the specific punishment assigned them as by some memory of their earthly existence, that indeed a few ''noble sinners," like Farinata, seem to rise above the penal system to which they are subject. The author contends that such cases, by implying a privileged condition beyond the reach of divine Providence, evince a certain heterodoxy on Dante's part with respect to strict Christian dogma regarding sin and retribution.

Cairns, Christopher. Italian Literature: The Dominant Themes. Newton Abbot, London, Vancouver: David and Charles; New York: Barnes and Noble (Harper and Row). 189 p. 22 cm. (Comparative Literature Series.) [1977]

In the context of what are taken as the main themes of Italian literature--political conscience, social change, and religion--the author devotes two short general sections (pp. 15-28 and 132-134) to Dante's works, which he characterizes by "political sensibility, religious conscience and a tremendous creative instinct for the language of art. . . . "

Cambon, Glauco. "Dante on Galway Kinnell's 'Last River.' " In Dante's Influence on American Writers 1776-1976 (see The Dante Society of America . . .), pp. 31-39. [1977]

Focuses on some general and specific Dantean parallels of concept and imagery in the post-World War II American poet Galway Kinnell's "Last River" (from the collection, Body Rags, 1968), pointing out his special affinity for Dante's severe eloquence and his Dantesque combination of autobiographical elements with a criticism of the contemporary American industrialized wasteland from the standpoint of ethical values.

Cassell, Anthony K. "Dante's Farinata and the Image of the Arca." In Yale Italian Studies, I, 335-370. [1977]

Resolves a number of questions about Inferno X by probing the essential nature of the Farinata episode and its relation to Dante's penal system in general by exploring the theological, historical, and artistic bases underlying the poet's conception of the state of souls after death. The city of Dis as a whole is seen as the Augustinian Earthly City divided against itself by pride and presumption exemplified by Farinata and Cavalcante in their self-centredness. Farinata, far from a positive figure, in his haughty posture, personifies stiff-necked pride (of Scripture and later exegesis), and this presumption, in turn, along with other traits of Farinata find their exact portrait in Saint Gregory the Great's description of the heresiarchs. Even Farinata's persuasive speech to the Wayfarer is seen as the words of a teacher and leader of heresy, reflecting "the unrepentant obstinacy of overheated, overweaning and obdurate unbelief." While possibly inspired by Scripture and liturgy, artistic convention, and patristic doctrine, the fire to which Dante condemns the heretics also actually mirrors the customary burning alive of heretics observable by Dante in his own time. The sarcophagi as abodes for the heretics in the Inferno are a parodical counterpart of Christ's open tomb (symbol of resurrection and eternal life) which, furthermore, had early become fused in imagery and function with the Church altar. The very appearance of Farinata and Cavalcante, with their bared torsos showing above the edge of the open sarcophagus is attested iconographically in many sculptures and paintings picturing the Imago pietatis, or Christ, as Man of Sorrows in a similar pose. This is confirmed further by depictions of Noah as a prefiguration of Christ, both dead and arisen, in his ark, stylized as an arca, or chest, which Augustine (De Catechezandis rudibus) took as both symbol of the Heavenly City and prefiguration of the Church. Hence Dante gives us another inversion, that of the Ark, but sunken here in Hell amid the flames. In the same work Augustine also cites the figure of Ham (Cham), his very name meaning "hot" (calidus), as progenitor of the Earthly City of the damned and forefather of the "hot breed of heretics." Thus Farinata and Cavalcante in a fiery arca can be seen as the sons of Ham. Other symbols of deliverance and redemption parodically surround the sinners here, and further passages from Gregory the Great illuminate Dante's placement of sinners in a common tomba, as the whole of the Inferno can be seen to constitute. In sum, "Content in life with the senses' perception of the immediate present and scorning that of the soul, now after death the heresiarchs find themselves entombed amid flames, tortured by the soul's ignorance, cut off from knowledge of the present, having only the anguish of dimly foreseeing an inevitable future and the pain of recalling an unchangeable past. Having rejected imitatio Christi in life as men, they ape the Dead Christ in their death."

Cervigni, Dino S. "Demonic and Angelic Forces in Dante's Second Dream." In L'Alighieri, XVIII (gennaio-giugno), 29-40. [1977]

Considers the Wayfarer's second dream in the Purgatorio (Canto XIX) in the contextual pattern of other parallel instances (e.g., Inf. VIII-IX and Purg. VI) of demonic danger or opposition countered by divine, i.e., angelic, intervention, and identifies the donna santa as an angelic manifestation (rather than mere symbol of virtue, as usually proposed) sent to counter the demonic manifestation of the siren/witch in a further purification of the Wayfarer on his way up the mount. This provides for a fuller poetic correspondence between the symbolic significance of the siren and that of the donna santa, since the latter thereby anticipates the purificatory rites performed by the successive angels on the upper terraces. Furthermore, the interpretation of the holy woman as angel is consistent with iconographical evidence of the increasing feminization of angels as depicted in Trecento art. In better accord, logically and poetically, with the dramatic development of the episode, the author also proposes referring the speech of verses 28-29, not to the donna santa, but to Dante-Wayfarer himself viewed as having temporarily fallen and therefore become bestialized (cf. "fieramente") under the demonic influence of the siren. In sum, the Wayfarer's second dream in Purgatory re-enacts the eternal confrontation between good and evil, with God's power ever at hand to rescue His creature.

Dante Commentaries: Eight Studies of the "Divine Comedy." Edited by David Nolan.... Dublin: Irish Academic Press; Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield. 184 p. 22 cm. [1977]

A brief introduction gives an account of the four seasons of lecturae Dantis at Dublin University, 1972-1976, which are selectively represented by these eight studies, and an index completes the volume. Contents: David Nolan, "Inferno XIX"; G. Singh, Inferno XXVI: A Personal Appreciation"; C. S. Lonergan, "The Context of Inferno XXXIII: Bocca, Ugolino, Fra Alberigo"; W. B. Stanford, "The 'Maggior Fortuna' and the Siren in Purgatorio XIX", Piero Calì, "Purgatorio XXVII"; Peter Armour, "Purgatorio XXVIII"; J. H. Whitfield, "'Paradiso VI"; J. A. Scott, Paradiso XXX." Among these essays, which are primarily canto lectures of the lectura Dantis type, some emphasize a particular aspect; for example, Nolan stresses the comedy, along with Dante's disgust at the state of the contemporary Church, expressed in Inferno XIX, Lonergan elaborates the political theme found in the pit of Dante's Hell, Whitfield develops the theme of justice pervading Paradiso VI against the background of the Monarchia. Stanford's piece, however, is a brief note in which he interprets the Maggior Fortuna of Purgatorio XIX, 4, as a symbol of the Pythagorean Y or Herculean bivium, anticipating the siren and donna santa, or choice between the paths of good and evil. The volume was "published for University College, Dublin, and the Italian Cultural Institute, Dublin." (Also available in paperback.)

The Dante Society of America. Dante's Influence on American Writers 1776-1976. [Essays by] J. Chesley Mathews, James J. Wilhelm, Glauco Cambon. With foreword by Dr. Alessandro Cortese De Bosis, Consul General of Italy; Congressman Lester Wolff, Congressman Mario Biaggi. Edited with an introduction by Anne Paolucci. New York: Published for the Dante Society of America by Griffon House Publications. 40 p. 21.5 cm. [1977]

The three essays are separately listed by author in this bibliography.

Donno, Daniel J. "Moral Hydrography: Dante's Rivers." In MLN, XCII, 130-139. [1977]

Seeks to clarify some well-known obscurities and lacunae in the system of rivers in the Commedia's topography, which is obviously intended to be unified. Although not directly an instrument of punishment like all other such topographical features in Dante's Hell, the "presente rio" of Inferno XIV, 76-90, by conferring immunity from the rain of fire, is seen to punish ironically as it reminds the sinners of their willfully despising God's benison, while the fire itself raining down in the manner of snow or manna is an antithetical reminder of divine beneficence. The simile of the Bulicame of Inferno XIV, 79-81, with its suggested contamination by passing through the houses of sin in Viterbo, anticipates the like contamination which must be understood pertaining to the rivers of Hell in Virgil's subsequent explanation of them, with all of them draining ultimately into Lucifer's great cesspool and source of all moral pollution, Cocytus. Furthermore, the inclusion of Lethe in Dante's question to Virgil regarding Flegetonte serves to prepare us for associating that river too with the unified drainage system when it is reached by the Pilgrim in Purgatorio XXVIII. The link here is no doubt provided by the "ruscelletto" of the "natural burella" (Inf. XXXIV, 98). Dante's "hydraulic system" is thus further clarified, but certain linkages between rivers are left to be surmised from other allusions provided by the poet. Functionally, moreover, the unified system of Dante's rivers fittingly carries the evil generated by the "vermo reo" (Inf. XXXIV, 108) back to him as its source and ultimate destination at the earth's center--from both sides of the globe. The sixth and last of Dante's rivers, the purgatorial Eunoe, also springs from the same divine source as Lethe, but it is only physically part of the hydraulic system, for it revivifies memory of good deeds and thus initiates a new, paradisal order of experience.

Fengler, Christie K., and William A. Stephany. "The Visual Arts: A Basis for Dante's Imagery in Purgatory and Paradise." In Michigan Academician, X, 127-141. [1977]

Relate Dante's realistic representations on the sculptured terraces of the Purgatorio and such images as Eagle, Cross, and River of Light in the Paradiso to various kinds of medieval art, the naturalistic representations in contemporary painting and sculpture in the case of the former and the earlier non-naturalistic mosaic technique in the case of the latter. Dante as poet is seen to exhibit an intimate sensitivity to the visual arts that seem to have inspired so much of his imagery. Worthy of special comment is Dante's use of mosaic analogy in the Paradiso images composed of discrete lights of individual souls to form them, much as the tesserae used in composing mosaics. The article comes with five illustrations .

Fergusson Francis. Trope and Allegory: Themes Common to Dante and Shakespeare. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. p. 22.5 cm. [1977]

Contends, without minimizing the differences between the two writers, that Shakespeare wrote out of the same Christian-classical context, and explores a number of themes in some of Shakespeare's plays which are analogous to like elements in Dante's Divine Comedy. Included are similarities of allegory and realism in both. The book represents a more detailed elaboration of Fergusson's previous studies on the Shakespeare-Dante kinship: "Trope and Allegory: Some Themes Common to Dante and Shakespeare," in Dante Studies, LXXXVI (1968), 113-126 (see Dante Studies, LXXXVII, 157-158); "Romantic Love in Dante and Shakespeare in Sewanee Review, LXXXIII (1975), 253-266 (see Dante Studies XCIV, 163-164); and contributions to the Gauss Seminars at Princeton University. Contents: I. The Common Heritage of Dante and Shakespeare; II. Romantic Love as Lost: Paolo and Francesca and Romeo and Juliet; III. "Killing the Bond of Love": Ugolino and Macbeth; IV. Human Government: Purgatorio 16 and Measure for Measure; V. Redeeming the Time: The Monarch as "Figura"; VI. The Faith in Romantic Love: Dante's Beatrice and Shakespeare's Comedies and The Winter's Tale; VII. Belief and Make-Believe: Poetry as Evidence of Things Not Seen; Notes; Index.

Foster, Kenelm, O.P. The Two Dantes and Other Studies. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. viii, 260 p. 22.5 cm, [1977]

Gathers together mostly previously published Dantean studies, the three-part essay on "The Two Dantes" being the major exception. Contents: Preface; 1. An Introduction to the Inferno; 2. Courtly Love and Christianity; 3. Dante and Eros; 4. St. Thomas and Dante; 5. Dante's Vision of God; 6. The Canto of the Damned Popes: Inferno XIX; 7. The Human Spirit in Action: Purgatorio XVII; 8. The Celebration of Order: Paradiso XIX; 9. The Son's Eagle: Paradiso XIX; 10. The Two Dantes (I): Limbo and Implicit Faith; II. The Two Dantes (II): The Goodness of Virgil; 12. The Two Dantes (III): The Pagans and Grace l: With the last two essays containing four sub-sections--(II): 1. The Immortality of the Soul, 2. The Human Good, 3. Virtue as a Human Product, and (III): 4. Religion as a Part of Virtue]; Index of Themes and Topics, and Index of Authors. The places of previous publication of all but essays 5 and 10-12 are duly given in the preface. Essay 5 was written "18 years ago"; essays 10-12 on the two Dantes (the pagan and the Christian and the relationship between his Aristotelianism and his faith) were written expressly for this volume. (For essays 6-9, with slightly varying titles, see Dante Studies, LXXXVII, 47-68, LXXXVIII, 17-29, XC, 109-124, and XCIV, 71-90, abstracted in LXXXVIII, 184, LXXXIX, 112, XCI, 168-169, and XCV, 163-164, respectively.) The final essay concludes that, guided by the insight of the natural virtues being themselves divinely "infused" when ordered under Charity, "St Thomas could take over the whole achievement of Aristotle, as a philosophical moralist, while giving it an entirely new setting and direction. In Dantean terms this means the difference between Limbo and the Purgatorio; in which we see repentant man recovering, under grace, the lost or diminished natural virtues, but only in preparation for something that is utterly beyond their own range, a love-union with the Infinite. In the Purgatorio Aristotelianism is integrated into Christianity; in the Dantean Limbo it is not."

Freccero, John. "Bestial Sign and Bread of Angels (Inferno 32-33)." In Yale Italian Studies, I, 53-66. [1977]

Contends that the Ugolino episode contains a paradigm of death and salvation epitomizing the theme of the entire Commedia, that it is also a political paradigm narrowing down man's relationship to his fellow man to the two alternatives of either communion or cannibalism, and that the significance of Ugolino's story, especially his final words, is revealed by the interpreting critics struggle to penetrate the meaning. The episode as political tragedy is reflected in the poet's projection of the Thebes image upon the city of Pisa, in the staging of the two protagonists, Archbishop Ruggieri and Count Ugolino, as opposing representatives of Church and Empire, in their exemplification of the law of hatred, vengeance, and violence then affecting society, and in many other overtones of imagery and allusion. Professor Freccero goes on to elaborate in depth upon the recent notice of Christological language and allusion in the episode, particularly associated with children. Crucial to the whole tragic story is Ugolino's failure to interpret correctly the redemptive possibilities in his children's words and suffering, recalling the typologically significant instance of Abrahamic sacrifice in connection with the pattern of salvation history. Thus, besides as a traitor, Ugolino is seen condemned by Dante for his unwillingness to surrender to God's will, his inability therefore to comprehend the spiritual significance of his children's words. He exemplifies the interpretive obtuseness of non-believers, and a potentially Abrahamic situation only leads to the unspeakable ending of Theban horror. Finally, the interpretive obtuseness of Ugolino is reflected in the critics before his horrendous closing words (XXXIII, 75). The key here, contends Freccero, is not the theme of death as such, but the how of Ugolino's death (V. 19) with its contrapuntal theme of bestiality echoed throughout the episode. Critics are invited to consider Ugolino's dream, seen to prefigure the form of his damnation, as serving also as Dante's allegory for reading the text. In a context of eating, Ugolino's failure to understand the children's offer, which is sacramental and suggestive of the redemption on an analogy with the Eucharist, leads him further from humanity to strictly biological animality and ultimately towards utter reification. His crux of interpretation is exactly that of the obtuse critic standing before Ugolino's horrible last words. The problem reduces itself to the opposition between significance and non-significance, between the human and the bestial, between language and biology, between the spirit and the letter, whose resolution can only be predicated upon the mystical presence of Christ, as in the Eucharist (Gospel of John).

Ginsburg, Michal Peled. "Literary Convention and Poetic Technique: The Poetry of Cavalcanti and Dante." In Italica, LIV, 485-501. [1977]

Explores how Cavalcanti and Dante achieve originality and individuality within the thematic and lexical convention of the dolce stil novo. Through an analysis of selected, representative poems, it is found that Cavalcanti asserts his freedom of the convention by syntactic and metrical innovation on the level of complex syntax and versification, while Dante asserts his unconventional posture thematically and semantically even as he maintains regularity of syntax and versification. In the rime petrose, however, Dante breaks the high thematical and lexical predictability in a manner similar to Cavalcanti's, i.e., metrically and syntactically, but in so doing Dante manages to force a limited vocabulary to yield constantly new meanings.

Heilbronn, Denise. "The Prophetic Role of Statius in Dante's Purgatory." In Dante Studies, XCV, 53-67. [1977]

Submits that the suspenseful appearance of Statius in Purgatorio XXI prophetically anticipates the appearance of Beatrice in Canto XXX. The Christological overtones of Dante's fictional figure of Statius here are enhanced by his greeting which echoes biblical and exegetical precedent and by Virgil's responding gesture ("cenno," v. 15) which the author interprets to be the Christian embrace or kiss symbolizing (1) the Christological union of the human and divine and (2) an infusion of grace, or illumination.

Hollander, Robert. "Dante's Poetics." In Sewanee Review, LXXXV, 392-410. [1977]

Relates Dante's poetics to the theological controversy of the late thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries between the detractors of poetry led by Dominican theologians and the literary defenders of poetry standing firm on the nature of poetry, and more specifically its value as cognitive truth when compared with theology. Notable, for example, is Albertino Mussato's influential epistolary debate with a Dominican friar in 1315. Professor Hollander reviews historically the concept of the poet-theologian from Aristotle's distinction between poetry and philosophical truth, which was echoed by St. Augustine in Christian terms and brought to a head in Thomas Aquinas' opposition to poetry because of its admittedly fictional nature. The defenders, while forced to acknowledge the cognitive truth insisted upon by the theologians, stressed the allegorical significance of poetry. Dante, meanwhile, in his theoretical discussion and the example of his own poetic work, drew the distinction between the allegory of theologians and the allegory of poets, and went on boldly to claim literal truth for his Divina Commedia on the same order of biblical truth (a case, according to Singleton, of the fiction of the poem being that it is not a fiction). Thus, Dante's masterpiece (anticipated by the Vita Nuova) is cast in the allegory of theologians and its author, according to Hollander, is not simply a poeta-theologus, but a theologus-poeta. (For a more detailed and highly documented discussion, see Professor Hollander's recent study, "Dante Theologus-Poeta," in Dante Studies, XCIV [1976], 91-136 [see Dante Studies, XCV, 165-166].)

Hollander, Robert. "Typology and Secular Literature: Some Medieval Problems and Examples." In Literary Uses of Typology from the Late Middle Ages to the Present, edited by Earl Miner (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press), pp. 3-19. [1977]

Noting the recent increased "importation of biblical typology to the study of secular literature," and mindful that this critical approach often lacks precision because of the very authors' unclear use of typology, Professor Hollander offers a "tentative rnorphology of secular medieval literary adaptations of typology" by discussing several of its forms: natural typology, historical recurrence, decorative typology, Christian typology, and "improper" Christian typology. Included among the illustrative examples discussed are some drawn from Dante, particularly the figure of Cato at the beginning of the Purgatorio, where the typological approach is seen to enrich the significance of Cato in a way not possible earlier. Hollander concludes on the cautionary note that there are two rival traditions of medieval allegoresis, the allegory of poets and the allegory of theologians, distinguished by Bernardus Silvestris as integumentum and allegoria, respectively; and one must determine to what degree each is applicable to any given work.

Jones, Ann Rosalind. "The Lyric Sequence: Poetic Performance as Plot (Dante's Vita Nuova, Scève's Délie, Sidney's Astrophel and Stella, Drayton's Idea, La Ceppede's Théorèmes)." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXVII, 6464A-6465A. [1977]

Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University, 1976.

Kleinhenz, Christopher. "Food for Thought: Purgatorio XXII, 146-147." In Dante Studies, XCV, 69-79. [1977]

Contends that relating the passage to the entire Scriptural episode in Daniel 1 and to the contrasting Ciacco episode in Inferno VI provides a fuller reading of Dante's double exemplum of "Daniello [che] dispregiò cibo e acquistò savere" (Purg. XXII, 146-147) and richly interconnects it with the subsequent Cantos XXIII-XXIV, thus heightening the political as well as spiritual significance of the poem.

La Favia, Louis Marcello. Benvenuto Rambaldi da Imola: Dantista. Madrid: Ediciones José Porrúa Turanzas. xi, 133 p. illus. 1 pl. 21.5 cm. (Studia Humanitatis, [No. 1], The Catholic University of America.) [1977]

In this comprehensive treatment of the early commentary, seen as marking a decisive milestone towards a critical appreciation of the Commedia, the author examines the manuscript tradition, accounts for the inspiration and elaboration of the commentary, analyzes the commentary itself, and evaluates its present significance in the history of Dante criticism to the present day. Contents: Introduzione; I. Il "Comentum" e la tradizione manoscritta--L'edizione del Lacaita, I codici . . .; II. Il commento nei suoi aspetti estrinseci--Idea di un commento alla Commedia, Data di composizione del commento, Tre redazioni del commento benvenutiano, Comparazione delle tre redazioni La lingua di Benvenuto da Imola, Benvenuto ed i commentatori precedenti, Indipendenza del commento di Benvenuto da quello del Boccaccio; III. Il commento nei suoi elementi interni-- Divisione generale dell'opera, Originalità del commento di Benvenuto (Lettura della Commedia in chiave umanistica), Il carattere di Benvenuto; Originalità del commento dantesco di Benvenuto; Bibliografia; Indice analitico.

Lansing, Richard H. From Image to Idea: A Study of the Simile in Dante's "Commedia." Ravenna: Longo Editore 173, [8] p. 21.5 cm. (L'interprete, 8.) [1977]

Believing Dante's simile to be much more complex than even recent critics like Eliot and Auerbach imagined, the author here analyzes what he considers unusually complex similes in the Commedia, studying their most fascinating features, specifically "their capacity for suggesting multiple points of analogy between tenor and vehicle, their deployment as a means of integrating conceptual associations within the narrative, and their tendency to press the reader's imagination beyond the visual into the realm of ideas." It is evident that for Dante ideas are anchored in the sensory reality, but he insists that the visible keeps pointing to the invisible, that behind the image lies a significant symbolic reality, and therefore Dante's similes are essentially and immediately related to the larger modes of similitude of allegory and symbolism. Contents: Introduction; I. The Morphology of the Simile; II. The Simile in Its Context; III. Patterns of Meaning: The Shipwrecked Swimmer and Elijah's Ascent; IV. Patterns of Meaning: Similes in Series; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index of Similes Cited. A portion of chapter 2 was published as "Submerged Meanings in Dante's Similes (Inf. XXVII)," in Dante Studies, XCIV (1976), 61-69 (see Dante Studies, XCV, 167-168).

Lyczko, Judith Elizabeth. "Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Studies in the Dantesque and Arthurian Imagery of the Paintings and Drawings (Volumes I-III)." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXVII, 6116A-6117A. [1977]

Doctoral dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 1976.

Mandelstam, Osip. Osip Mandelstam: Selected Essays. Translated by Sidney Monas. Austin: University of Texas Press. xxvi, 245 p. 24 cm. (The Dan Danciger Publication Series.) [1977]

Contains his "Conversation about Dante" (Translated by Clarence Brown and Robert Hughes), pp. 3-44, reprinted here from its original appearance in this translation under the title, "Talking about Dante," in Delos, No. 6 (1971), 65-106 (see Dante Studies, XCI, 189).

Masciandaro, Franco. "Notes on the Image of the Point in the Divine Comedy." In Italica, LIV, 215-226. [1977]

Initiating a series of notes discussing Dante's use of the punto of time throughout the Commedia, the point "in which the human and divine, time and eternity flow together," as epitomized in Paradiso XXXIII, 91-96, the author here discusses (1) Inferno I, 10-12, etc., where the wayfarer remains caught on this side of the beginning of the salvific climb; (2) I, 37-45, where the wayfarer becomes aware of time along with a nostalgic recall of Eden, and with that a sense of anguish in his inability to possess the point in which time and eternity intersect; (3) V, 127-138, where the confluence of the temporal point and the thematic point can be seen in the quando of Francesca's speech; and (4) this same passage, where the verse "ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse" (V. 132) illustrates the failure by Paolo and Francesca to see the Christian drama of sin and expiation exemplified in their reading of Lancelot and Guinevere, contrasting with the "punto che mi vinse" of Paradiso XXX, 10-11.

Mathews, J. Chesley. "A Historical Overview of American Writers' Interest in Dante (to about 1900)." In Dante's Influence on American Writers 1776-1976 (see The Dante Society of America...) pp. 12-20. [1977]

Reviews briefly the interest in and influence of Dante among American writers as they evolved with increasing intensity from the end of the eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth, particularly in such figures as G. Ticknor, W. H. Prescott Margaret Fuller, R. H. Wilde, T. W. Parsons, W. C. Bryant, R. W. Emerson, J. G. Whittier, E. A. Poe, H. Thoreau, H. Melville, W. Whitman, H. W. Longfellow, and J. R. Lowell.

McCutchan, Garrett (Joint author). "Dante, Christ, and the Fallen Bridges." See Baglivi, Giuseppe....

Musa, Mark. "Virgil Reads the Pilgrim's Mind." In Dante Studies, XCV, 149-152. [1977]

Rejects the interpretation that Virgil has guessed the desire on the Pilgrim's mind at the beginning of Inferno XXIX, contending that there is no express reference to Virgil's "clairvoyance" here, as is the rule in such instances in the poem, and that in any case Virgil's ability to "read the Pilgrim's mind," far from a matter of god-like clairvoyance, simply boils down to mere discernment and sagacity within the limits of human intelligence or reason, of which he is the accepted embodiment.

Mussetter, Sally. "Dante's Three Beasts and the Imago Trinitatis." In Dante Studies, XCV, 39-52. [1977]

Seeking a more precise interpretation of the three beasts s in Inferno I, the author adds to John Freccero's psychological reading of the prologue scene in terms of regio dissimilitudinis St. Bernard of Clairvaux's revision (Sermo 42, de quinque negotiis) of this Augustinian-Neoplatonic idea by viewing spiritual awakening or conversion as the starting-point for reform as well, and Richard of St. Victor's revision (De Trinitate) of the Augustinian attributes of the Trinity and man, the imago Dei, in order to elaborate the trinitarian attributes in the human soul of potentia, sapientia and caritas, where the potentia and affectus in the lower Soul are harmonized by sapientia in the higher soul. This revision of Trinitarian attributes, with the sinner's spiritual awakening now considered not only as an initial conversion but also as a starting-point for a process of reform, is reflected throughout Dante's Commedia, beginning with the prologue scene where the pilgrim has fallen into the regio dissimilitudinis or region of unlikeness (to God) and the leone, lonza, and lupa are identified with the sinner's bestial perversion of potentia, sapientia, and caritas in his fallen state de angelo ad iumentum. The distorted reflection in Dante's pilgrim of God's free will expressed in charity is figured by the lupa, long associated in the bestiaries with the will's wrong choice of cupiditas over caritas and with will-lessness itself, gravezza, tristitia, accedia. Thus, even after conversion through spiritual awakening thanks to Divine inspiration, the pilgrim in Inferno recognizes his weakness of will, false loves, and earthly attachments and he is stymied by despair. He must straighten out his will on a journey of reform with the help of God's grace and appropriate guidance. The design of Dante's Hell is seen to conform with trinitarian psychology both in the prologue scene and in the long pilgrimage of the imago Dei from the regio dissimilitudinis to full likeness to his Creator in potentia, sapientia, and caritas.

Nolan, Barbara. The Gothic Visionary Perspective. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. xviii, 268 p. illus., plates 24 cm. [1977]

Contains a chapter on Dante's Vita Nuova (pp. 84-123) and further reference to Dante, passim, in the context of the book's general thesis of the remarkable parallelism between the new exegetical posture of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and religious art and literature, with particular emphasis on the latter. Without claiming causal relationships, the author suggests that the artifacts she describes "--the Gothic cathedral envisioned by Abbot Suger and realized at Chartres, the illustrated Apocalypses, the thirteenth-century French visionary quests, the Vita Nuova, Pearl, and Piers Plowman--can be more fully understood if considered within the context of attitudes toward history, prophecy and vision developed by monastic and clerical writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.... Through formal design, architect, sculptor and illuminator alike began to assert that divine revelation and human beatitude were to be examined and realized preeminently within the context of history--both mankind's and one's own. They demonstrated that vision belongs necessarily to the working out of God's temporal plan for man. Hence linear narrative--telling the story of divine revelation and personal salvation from Adam until the Apocalypse--became as central to the artistic form as the representation of visionary experience." Contents: Preface, 1. New Directions in Twelfth-Century Spirituality; 2. Anagogy; Aevum and Two Later Medieval Visionary Arts; 3. The Vita Nuova: Dante's Book of Revelation; 4. The Later Medieval Spiritual Quest: Through Time to Aevum; 5. Pearl: A Fourteenth-Century Vision in August; 6. Will's Dark Visions of Piers the Plowman; Index. The work comes with a frontispiece and 22 plates of illustration. Much of the chapter on the Vita Nuova is reprinted from two earlier essays, "The Vita Nuova: Dante's Book of Revelation," and "The Vita Nuova and Richard of St. Victor's Phenomenology," which appeared in Dante Studies, LXXXVIII (1970), 175-205, and XCII (1974), 35-52, respectively (see Dante Studies, LXXXIX, 116-117, and XCIII, 237-238).

Nolan, David, editor. Dante Commentaries: Eight Studies of the Divine Comedy (q.v.). [1977]

Paolucci Anne. "Dante, Hegel, and the Marian Inspiration of the Commedia." In Dante Studies, XCV, 95-118. [1977]

Reviews Hegel's theoretical discussions on the limitations of classical and symbolic art and their transcendence by modern Christian (and romantic) art through its greater spirituality, and discusses the pervasive Marian inspiration and imagery in the Commedia, contending that for Dante, first poet of the West, and for Hegel's definition of the romantic-Christian aesthetic consciousness an indispensable key was precisely this powerful inspiration of the Virgin Mary.

Paolucci Anne, editor. Dante's Influence on American Writers 1776-1976. The Dante Society of America.... [1977]

Pellegrini, Anthony L. "American Dante Bibliography for 1976." In Dante Studies, XCV, 157-190. [1977]

With brief analyses.

Picone, Michelangelo. "Strutture poetiche e strutture prosastiche nella Vita Nuova." In MLN, XCII, 117-129. [1977]

Focuses on the two conspicuous structural elements of the Vita Nuova, the poems and the prose, in their respective and mutually related descriptive, functional, and semantic/tropological aspects, with constant reference to the cultural-literary matrix out of which they evolved. From his analysis, the author concludes that, while Dante's poems here are embedded firmly in the tradition, originality lies in the prose (without previous models) which Picone finds highly innovative and revolutionary. Functionally, it is precisely the prose of the libello that brings order and global meaning out of the raw matter, the "chaos," of the poems. What issues from this combination and coordination of prose and poems in the Vita Nuova is therefore a moral and philosophic essay which, through the prose, leads the persona-protagonist to recognize the true meaning of the poems, a significance that coincides with ultimate Truth, God. With this approach to the Vita Nuova, contends Picone, such aspects as the polemical chapter XXV, the attack on Guittone and even on Cavalcanti become clearer, while the fundamental reconciliation of the identity of amor mundi and amor Dei as the ground of moral life is restored.

Picone, Michelangelo. "La Vita Nuova e la tradizione poetica." In Dante Studies, XCV, 135-147. [1977]

Contends that to ascertain the historico-cultural and literary value of the Vita Nuova, the work must be considered in the context of the Romance poetic tradition. The libello is seen as a direct attack on Guittone d'Arezzo's moralistic and illogical negative position vis-à-vis courtly love and as a corrective on Cavalcanti's own negative view of love with his lack of eternal vision. Dante has, in short, demonstrated in the Vita Nuova, as in the Commedia later, the positive view of human love as a first stage on the way to divine love, thus resolving the impasse regarding love as staged by Cavalcanti's canzone considered as a codification summa of courtly love. The Vita Nuova is consistent with the courtly tradition on the "itinerarium mentis ad veritatem," and goes beyond courtly love culture of eros to agape. It thus achieves literary distinction both within its Italian framework and in the larger Romance context, thanks to Dante's elaboration of the female figure into an abstract essence which in the intellectual vision of poets enables the contemplation of the divine.

Ransom, Daniel. J. "Panis Angelorum: A Palinode in the Paradiso." In Dante Studies, XCV, 81-94. [1977]

Re-examines Dante's use of the biblical figure, pane de li angeli in the Convivio (I, i, 7) and in Paradiso II, 10-14, relating the discussion to Dante's whole anti-Thomistic attempt to rationalize "the allegory of poets" by analogy with "the allegory of theologians," and concludes that the two contexts are not identical, for in the Commedia the metaphor reacquires its spiritual or theological substance and thus constitutes a subtle pailnode of Dante's earlier misappropriation of the biblical figure. "What was in the Convivio food for thought becomes once again food for the soul."

Ryan, Lawrence V. "Ulysses, Guido, and the Betrayal of Community.' In Italica, LIV, 227-249. [1977]

Without rejecting previous interpretations of the two highly polysemous figures in Inferno XXVI-XXVII, the author explores a neglected dimension of these two linked cantos in the context of the poem's overall design. The two examples of self-centredness are found to symbolize fraud against politeia and ecclesia and thus run counter to the poet's conception of ideal community of Church and State, as addressed with similar imagery in successive cantos of the Paradiso, for example, in II, IV, XI, XII, XIII, XVI and especially in the symmetrically corresponding canto XXVII, in which humanity is seen as sailing towards destruction until divine intervention straightens its course.

Schless, Howard H. "Dante: Comedy and Conversion. In Versions of Medieval Comedy, edited and with an introduction by Paul G. Ruggiers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press), pp 135-149. [1977]

The introduction and essays of Versions of Medieval Comedy were reprinted from Genre, IX (1976), 279-526; the present essay, from pp. 413-427 (see below, under Addenda).

Shapiro, Marianne. "Brunetto's Race (Inf. XV)." In Dante Studies, XCV, 153-155. [1977]

Contends that, along with Convivio IV, xxii, 6, and I Corinthians 9: 24, even more relevant are certain verses of Galatians (which affirms the primacy of faith over law) for illuminating the Brunetto episode in Inferno XV, especially verses 50-54, to which is assimilated also the Cato episode of Purgatorio II, in confirmation of the point of both, that secular knowledge is inadequate for attaining a transcendental destiny.

Singleton, Charles S. Dante's "Commedia'': Elements of Structure. Originally published as Dante Studies 1.) Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. [xi], 98 p. 20 cm. [1977]

Reprint of the original paperback edition of 1954 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press), which bore the title, Dante Studies 1. "Commedia": Elements of Structure (see 73rd Report, 60-61; extensively reviewed). An Italian version by Giulio Vallese (Napoli: Scalabrini) appeared in 1961 with the title, Studi su Dante, I: Introduzione alla Divina Commedia, with a new preface by the author for the Italian edition (see 80th Report, 32).

Singleton, Charles S. An Essay on the "Vita Nuova." Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 168 p. 20 cm. [1977]

Paperback reprint of the original 1949 edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press), which was also reprinted in paperback by the Harvard Press in 1958 (see 78th Report, 43; original edition extensively reviewed). An Italian translation by Gaetano Prampolini (Bologna: Il Mulino) appeared in 1968 (see Dante Studies, LXXXVII, 171).

Singleton, Charles S. Journey to Beatrice. (Originally published as Dante Studies 2.) Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press [vii], 291 p. 20 cm. [1977]

Reprint of the original paperback edition of 1958 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press; also, London: Oxford University Press, 1959), which bore the title, Dante Studies 2. Journey to Beatrice (see 77th Report, 52-53, and 78th Report, 35 and 40; extensively reviewed). An Italian translation by Gaetano Prampolini (Bologna: Il Mulino) appeared in 1968 (see Dante Studies, LXXXVlI, 171).

Stephany, William A. (Joint author). "The Visual Arts: A Basis for Dante's Imagery in Purgatory and Paradise." See Fengler, Christie K....

Tosello, Matthew, I.M.C. "Spenser's Silence about Dante." In Studies in English Literature, XVII, 59-66. [1977]

Contends that Spenser could not have been ignorant of Dante and his Commedia, basing himself on external evidence, for example, the prominence of Dante in Spenser's Italianate milieu and internal evidence, for example, the 360 Dantean parallels in his works. The author goes on to explain Spenser's silence about Dante in such a context on prudential grounds, citing in particular the contemporary Italian "Quarrel over Dante" which made the latter less fashionable and, more importantly, the Marprelate controversy involving the friction between radical Puritans who championed Dante, and the Established Church, which had placed his Monarchia and Commedia on the Index. In any case, while a piece-meal bibliography has grown on the subject, there is yet no comprehensive study of Spenser's knowledge and imitation of Dante.

Triolo, Alfred A. "Ira, Cupiditas, Libido: The Dynamics of Human Passion in the Inferno." In Dante Studies, XCV, 1-37. [1977]

As s part and continuation of a previous study, " 'Matta Bestialità in Dante's 'Inferno': Theory and Image" (Traditio, XXIV [1968] 247-292; see Dante Studies, LXXXVII, 173), the author here elaborates a unified, coherent theory of the fundamental human passions underlying the sins treated and exemplified and their structural distribution in the Inferno, in order to have a coherent basis of interpretation. Drawing upon Aristotle (N. Ethics, V and VII) and Cicero (Tusculan Disputations) and more particularly Lactantius (Divine Institutes), Professor Triolo analyzes the basic passions of ira, cupiditas, and libido (which assimilate others to themselves) and their combinations and permutations, as intermediaries between the Capital Sins and their particular manifestations in a manner conformable to the pagan as well as Christian system, thus permitting a more consistent understanding of Dante's panoply of pagan (and mythological) and Christian exemplars and equally consistent interface between the infernal and purgatorial systems in the Commedia. He shows, furthermore, how the passions are conditioned according to the Aristotelian dispositions that determine the irruption of passion or the prevalence of weakness in incontinence or the hardening of the same passions in two further degrees of intemperance in the form of malice and mad brutishness, the latter form of malice being its last phase beyond the "normal" human potential for evil. One specific canto discussed is Inferno IX, where the three Furies, Megaera, Tisiphone, and Alecto, are seen to stand for ira, cupiditas, and libido, respectively, and Medusa herself for a dark eros, or avaritia-cupiditas, as the root sin-passion, and therefore pertaining fittingly to the whole City of Dis, or Lower Hell. Moreover, in the Filippo Argenti episode, seen in a "cosmopolitical" light, is discerned the emergence of the master theme of the retributional ira Dei accompanying God's Providence in the governance of the world. Also treated in theory, figuration, and action, are tristitia, incontinent ira, superbia, timor, audacia, spes, and desperatio, and their negative distortions. This analysis is applied to Dante's Lower Hell, in which Professor Triolo subdivides the general sins as Violence and Fraud I (Circles 7 and 8) and Fraud II, or mad brutishness (Circle 9). He offers interpretative comments on several further narrative details and exemplars of sin.

Wheelock, James T. S. "A Function of the Amore Figure in the Vita Nuova." In Romanic Review, LXVII, 276-286. [1977]

Submits that in the conflation of amour courtois tradition and Christian ethos effected by Dante in the Vita Nuova one function of the figure Amore is to assume the tyrannical attitude of lordly domination typical of the courtly midons, thus preserving, in accord with Christian equality, the horizontal relationship between the poet-lover and Beatrice. After the death of the latter and the disappearance of the figure Amore, the "donna de la finestra" assumes the role of dominance and gratuitous pietà in the functional verticality of courtly tradition. This method of describing the dramatic and poetic function of Amore in Dante's libello is considered advantageous in revealing significant structural elements that might remain hidden.

Wilhelm, James J. "Two Visions of the Journey of Life: Dante as a Guide for Eliot and Pound." In Dante's Influence on American Writers 1776-1976 (see The Dante Society of America. . .), pp. 220. [1977]

Discusses Dante's influence on T. S. Eliot, who besides imitating Dante rhetorically projected much of Dante's vision (ese. of the Inferno) upon modern life, and on Ezra Pound, who patterned his own modern epic, the Cantos, on a de-Christianized version of Dante's triadic masterpiece. Especially in late maturity, Eliot captures the flow of Dante's vision in sustained poetry, while Pound rearranges Dantean images and ideas in striking new patterns.

Woody, Kennerly M. "Dante and the Doctrine of the Great Conjunctions." In Dante Studies, XCV, 119-134. [1977]

Recalls the tradition of millennial expectations associated with the "great conjunctions" of Saturn and Jupiter in order to shed some light on Dante's vague prophecies of a coming reform in Christendom found in the Commedia. On the basis of such passages as Purgatorio XXXIII, 40-45 and XX, 13-15, and the relevant commentaries of Iacopo della Lana and Pietro di Dante who mention the great conjunctions, the author concludes that Dante was thinking in terms of conjunctional astrology and that in his prophecies, given the special importance the poet attached to his own birth sign, Gemini (cf. Par. XXII, 112-114), Dante had particularly in mind the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Gemini in 1325 for the great reformation of Christendom.

The Divine Comedy. [III.] Paradiso. Translated, with a commentary, by Charles S. Singleton.... Bollingen Series, LXXX. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975. 2 v. (See Dante Studies, XCIV, 155-156; extensively reviewed.) Reviewed by:

Morton W. Bloomfield, in Speculum, LII, 644-645;

Christopher Kleinhenz, in Romance Philology, XXXI (Nov.), 412-415.

Vita Nuova. A Translation and an Essay, by Mark Musa. A new edition. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1973. (See Dante Studies, XCII, 182, and XCV, 176-177.) Reviewed by:

Jerome Mazzaro, in Italica, LIV, 312-314.

Beccaria, Gian Luigi. L'autonomia del significante. Figure del ritmo e della sintassi. Dante, Pascoli, D'Annunzio. Torino: Einaudi, 1975. 358 p. Contains two chapters on Dante--"Allitterazioni dantesche" and"L'autonomia del significante. Figure dantesche." Reviewed by:

Anna Laura Lepschy, in MLN, XCII, 160-166.

Demaray, John G. The Invention of Dante's "Commedia." New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 215-221 and 229, XCIV, 183, and XCV, 177.) Reviewed by:

Gustavo Costa, in Romance Philology, XXX (Feb.), 542-546;

Giuseppe Mazzotta, in Italica, LIV, 315-317.

Donno, Daniel J. "Dante's Ulysses and Virgil's Prohibition: Inferno XXVI, 70-75." In Italica, L (1973), 26-37 (see Dante Studies, XCII, 184). Reviewed by;

Gabriele Muresu, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXXI, 153-154.

Essays in Honor of John Humphreys Whitfield Presented to Him on His Retirement from the Serena Chair of Italian at the University of Birmingham. Edited by H. C. Davis, J. M. Matwell, D. G. Rees, G. W. Slowey. London: St. George's Press, 1975. viii, 291 p. Contains three Dantean essays, by Philip McNair on Paradiso XXXIII, by Umberto Bosco on the barattieri of Inferno XXI-XXIII in terms of medieval comedy, and by John A. Scott on Dante's conversion to a theory of universal government. Reviewed by:

Beatrice Corrigan, in Italica, LIV, 110-113.

Ferrante, Joan M. Women as Image in Medieval Literature, from the Twelfth Century to Dante, New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1975. (See Dante Studies, XCIV, 164.) Reviewed by:

H. A. Kelly, in Speculum, LII, 715-721;

Evelyn Birge Vitz, in Romanic Review, LXVIII, 144-118.

Grayson, Cecil. Cinque saggi su Dante. Bologna: Pàtron, 1972. (Le miscellanee, 5.) (See Dante Studies, XCIV, 184.) Reviewed by:

Christopher Kleinhenz, in Romance Philology, XXX (Feb.), 546-549.

Guido da Pisa. Guido da Pisa's Expositiones et Glose super Comediam Dantis, or Commentary on Dante's Inferno. Edited with Notes and an Introduction by Vincenzo Cioffari. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 223-224, and XCV, 178.) Reviewed by:

Thomas G. Bergin, in Italica, LIV, 306-312.

Hirdt, Willi. Studien zum epischen Prolog: Der Eingang in der erzählenden Versdichtung Italiens. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1975. 345 p. (Humanistische Bibliothek. Reihe I: Abhandlungen, Band XXIII.) Includes consideration of Dante in this investigation of the exordial topos in narrative poems from Homer, through the Italian Middle Ages, to Ariosto and Tasso. Reviewed by:

Gustavo Costa, in Romance Philology, XXXI (August), 176-178.

Jenaro-MacLennan, L. The Trecento Commentaries on the "Divina Commedia" and the Epistle to Cangrande. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 232, and XCV, 178 and 189.) Reviewed by:

Joan M. Ferrante, in Romance Philology, XXX (Feb.), 555-556.

Landino, Cristoforo. Scritti critici e teorici. A cura di Roberto Cardini. Roma: Bulzoni Editore, 1974. 2 V. (xxxii, 596 p.) Includes selections of Dantean interest. Reviewed by:

Charles B. Schmitt, in Renaissance Quarterly, XXX, 64-66.

Musa, Mark. Advent at the Gates: Dante's Comedy. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 236-237, and XCIV, 184.) Reviewed by:

Jerome Mazzaro, in Italica, LIV, 312-314;

James T. S. Wheelock, in Romanic Review, LXVIII, 163-164.

Padoan, Giorgio. Introduzione a Dante. Firenze: Sansoni, 1975. 142 p. Reviewed by:

Eduardo Saccone, in MLN, XCII, 166-168.

Sansone, Mario. Letture e studi danteschi. Bari: De Donato, 1975. 366 p. Contains a preface; eight lecturae Dantis--on Inferno X, XXXIII; Purgatorio I, XXI, XXVII; and Paradiso VII, XVII, XXVII; and four further essays--"Dante nelle culture regionali d'Italia," "Aspetti dell' interpretazione critica della Commedia dal 1920 al 1965," "Dante e Mazzini," and "Dante e Benedetto Croce." The 6th and 9th only appear in print for the first time. Reviewed by:

Dino S. Cervigni, in Italica, LIV, 318-320.

Shapiro, Marianne. Woman Earthly and Divine in the ''Comedy" of Dante. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1975. 187 p. 23 cm. (Studies in Romance Languages, 12.) (See Dante Studies, XCIV, 177-178.) Reviewed by:

John Bugge, in Speculum, LII, 1042-1044;

Gustavo Costa, in Romance Philology, XXX (Feb.), 542-546;

Joan M. Ferrante, in Italica, LIV, 320-323;

Anne Paolucci, in Renaissance Quarterly, XXX, 351-353.

Thompson, David. Dante's Epic Journeys. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 215-221, 242-243, and 247, XCIV, 186, and XCV, 179.) Reviewed by:

Gustavo Costa, in Romance Philology, XXX (Feb.), 542-546;

Giuseppe Mazzotta, in Italica, LIV, 315-317.

Wilhelm, James J. Dante and Pound: The Epic of Judgement. Orono: University of Maine Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 243-244, and XCV, 179.) Reviewed by:

G. Singh, in Italica, LIV, 323-326.

Wilkins, Ernest H. A History of Italian Literature. Revised by Thomas G. Bergin. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1974. Contains three chapters on Dante. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 244.) Reviewed by:

Christopher Kleinhenz, in Romance Philology, XXXI (Aug.), 174-176.

Wlassics, Tibor. Interpretazioni di prosodia dantesca. Roma: Signorelli, 1972. (See Dante Studies, XCII, 202, 210, and 211, XCIII, 247, XCIV, 186 and 201, and XCV, 179.) Reviewed by:

James T. S. Wheelock, in Romanic Review, LXVIII, 82-83.

Inferno. Illustrated by Gustave Doré; with a new introduction by Michael Marqusee. New York: Paddington Press Ltd. [and Two Continents Publishing Group], 1976. 13 + 183 p. illus. 38 leaves of plates 28 cm. (Masterpieces of the Illustrated Book.)

The translation of the text is that of Henry Francis Cary, reprinted from the 1890(?) edition of the Divine Comedy New York: A. L. Burt).

[Inferno, Paradiso] In The Humanist Tradition in World Literature: An Anthology of Masterpieces from Gilgamesh to the Divine Comedy, edited by Stephen L. Harris (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Co., 1970).

Contains the Inferno in the John Ciardi translation (see 73rd Report, 53-54, 80th Report, 22, Dante Studies, LXXXIX, 108) and the Paradiso in the T. G. Bergin translation (see 74th Report, 45).

Barbeau, Clayton. Dante and Gentucca: A Love Story. New edition. Santa Barbara, California: Capra Press, 1974. 42 p. illus. 18 cm. (Yes! Capra Chapbook Series, No. 19.)

A fictional account of Dantean inspiration, "from [the author's] novel, The Long Journey."

Bidney, Martin. "The 'Central Fiery Heart': Ruskin's Reading of Dante." In Victorian Newsletter, No. 48 (Fall 1975), 9-15.

Examines how Ruskin took Dante's image of the Wayfarer's shadow showing ruddy against the wall of fire in Purgatory (XXVI, 4-8) and related it to his theory of the imagination as a fire and of the fiery center or heart as an image of essential reality. Ruskin applied this association of imagination and reality in the image of "central fiery heart" to characterize Dante-poet himself who now looms before him as a master of unruly forces and is transformed "into a symbol of the highest stage of 'grotesque' awareness, of psychological and poetic synthesis."

Biser, Eugen. "Between Inferno and Purgatorio: Thoughts on Structural Comparison of Nietzsche with Dante." In Studies in Nietzsche and the Classical Tradition, edited by James C. O'Flaherty, Timothy F. Sellner, and Robert Meredith Helm (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1976), pp. 55-70. (University of North Carolina Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures, 85.)

While recognizing fundamental differences between Nietzsche and Dante, the author attempts to outline certain analogies, though admittedly episodic and transitory, between the two figures, particularly in their psycho-somatic or spiritual states at the moment of inspiration of the Commedia and the Zarathustra, in the Inferno-Purgatorio topographical background of the Zarathustra, and in several instances of Dantean structural elements and motifs discernible in the latter. (The original German of this essay is here Englished by Cheryl L. Turney.)

Boccaccio, Giovanni, and Leonardo Bruni. The Earliest Lives of Dante. Translated from the Italian ... by James R. Smith. Folcroft, Pennsylvania: Folcroft Library Editions, 1975.

Reprint of the 1901 edition (New York: Holt. There have been other recent reprints (see Dante Studies, XCIII, 226).

Brown, Lloyd W. "Jones (Baraka) and His Literary Heritage in The System of Dante's Hell." In Obsidian, I, No. 1 (Spring 1975),

Contends that Le Roi Jones's novel, The System of Dante's Hell (see Dante Studies, LXXXIV, 90), evokes the art and intellectual criteria of Dante, T. S. Eliot, and James Joyce to reject the Western philosophical and literary heritage they represent. Where the Dantean structural parallels specifically are concerned, Jones dispenses with Dante's Christian schema and concentrates on hell as a strictly socio-cultural experience localized in the Black ghetto. Autobiographically, the novel projects Jones's own development as a descent into the psychological hell of racial self-hatred.

Brown, Lloyd W. "Le Roi Jones [Imamu Amiri Baraka] as Novelist: Themes and Structure in The System of Dante's Hell." In Negro American Literature Forum, VII, No. 4 (Winter 1973), 132-142.

Analyzes some of the themes in relation to structural elements of Jones's novel, stressing the ironic use (and rejection) of the Christian eschatology and moral categories reflected in Dante's Inferno. In a word, Jones transfers Dante's hell "to socio-economic realities of the twentieth-century Black ghetto," seen as a product of that very systematizing tradition of Christian eschatology. The hero's salvation is considered to lie not in the latter, but in his racial self-acceptance.

Callahan, J. J. "The Curvature of Space in a Finite Universe." In Scientific American, CCXXV, August 1976, pp. 90-100.

In this highly technical discussion of the theories of Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Riemann, and Einstein, among others, the author cites Dante as having in the Comedy (cf. Par. XXVIII) conceived of cosmic space in a manner that goes radically beyond the Aristotelian picture and in a very modern way, with his model of the spiritual world, completes the material world view, somewhat as Einstein's model of the galactic system by means of dual viewing screens for rendering the concept of a finite universe.

Della Terza, Dante. "An Unbridgeable Gap? Medieval Poetics and the Contemporary Dante Reader." In Medievalia et Humanistica, N.S., VII (1976), 65-76.

Includes discussion of the particular contribution of American scholars like E. K. Rand and C. S. Singleton in a selective review of modern Dante exegesis, which leads to the conclusion that critical positions are not fixed, that indeed where Dante is concerned there is still room for new discoveries. A reworked Italian version appeared in Lettere italiane, XXVII (1975), 245-262 (see Dante Studies, XCV, 182). The essay was originally given as a lecture for a medieval conference at Harvard University in November 1974.

Doré, Gustave, illustrator. The Doré Illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy. New York: Dover Publications, 1976. vii, 136 p., chiefly illus. (136 plates) 30.5 cm.

With a publisher's note.

Frankel, Margherita. Le Code dantesque dans l'oeuvre de Rimbaud. Paris: Editions A.-G. Nizet, 1975. 254 p. illus. 23 cm.

Contends that an important key to the understanding and appreciation of the poetry of Rimbaud is his close affinity with Dante, notable particularly in the Illuminations and Une Saison en Enfer. Contents: Introduction; I. La fortune littéraire de Dante en France; II. Le caractère visionaire de la Divine Comédie et le rêve de voyance de Rimbaud; III. La Divine Comédie, une des clefs de Rimbaud; IV. Les éléments dantesques dans les Derniers vers; v. Images et correspondances dantesques dans les Illuminations; VI. Confrontation idéologique de Dante et Rimbaud dans Une Saison en Enfer; VII. Conclusions; Annexes [three illustrations]; Bibliographie. See also her "Le Code dantesque dans l'oeuvre de Rimbaud," in Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXIV (1974), 4260A (see Dante Studies, XCIV, 188).

Grebenschikov, Vladimir I. "The Infernal Circles of Dante and Solzhenitsyn." In Transactions of the Association of Russian-American Scholars in USA, VI (1972), 7-20.

Finds Solzhenitsyn generally akin to Dante in his conservative attitude toward established social values, his ethical, moralizing approach in his novel, The First Circle, and his concern for justice and mercy; and cites a number of specific Dantean parallels of structure, ambience, and imagery in the novel, e.g., in Solzhenitsyn's description of Stalin's Kremlin which echoes Satan's abyss in Dante's Inferno.

Headings, Philip R. "Among Three Worlds: Ward, Eliot, and Dante." In T. S. Eliot Review, II, No. 2 (Fall 1975), 11-14.

Review-article on T. S. Eliot, Between Two Worlds . . . by David Ward (see below). The author points out Ward's "not having understood sufficiently Dante or Eliot's uses of Dante in some of his most admired passages," such as The Waste Land, Ash-Wednesday, and Little Gidding.

Iannucci, Amilcare A. "Ulysses' 'folle volo': The Burden of History. In Medioevo romanzo, III (1976), 410-445.

Contends that, because of his medieval-Christian forma mentis stressing history and man's responsibility before the events of history, Dante takes the mythic hero out of the static time- and form-bound ethos of ancient Greece and creates a Christian tragedy in Inferno XXVI, in which Ulysses, now historicized in a Christian context and subject to its ultimate purpose, as the poet filters everything through the lens of Christianity. Thus, contrary to his Homeric counterpart, the Greek hero now emerges as one breaking out of the circle of time and exercising his free will, bent on a life of wandering in a hubristic search of knowledge, but without the benefit of grace. Once shifted from a journey of return to a journey of quest in this Christian universe, Ulysses and his companions are doomed to catastrophe as they violate God's explicit sign imposing limits. The author suggests a re-enactment of the Fall in an Adamic-like overstepping of the bounds in the search for forbidden knowledge symbolized by the dark mountain-isle which becomes the site of Ulysses' shipwreck and damnation. Similarly, Dante too had been led astray by the lure and presumption of philosophical knowledge but was saved by a re-affirmation of faith aided by Beatrice. And so his own salvific journey poetized in the Commedia is neatly counterpoised to Ulysses' journey in Inferno XXVI and its echoes throughout the poem. Dante is saved in time, while Ulysses by his last act persists in the misuse of his intellect and in his rebellious defiance of the Deity. The episode is even seen to reflect a shift in Dante's poetics through the contrastive juxtaposition of this lofty expression of the "tragic" style in Inferno XXVI and the overall humbler, intermediate style of Christian tradition in the poem.

Izzo, Donato Maria. "The Vindication of Liberty as an Inspiring Motive of the Divine Comedy." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXII (1972), 5741A.

Doctoral dissertation, Rutgers University, 1971. (Italian text.)

Leggio, Gail Culver. "Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Cult of Images." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXVI (1976) 5321A-5322A.

Doctoral dissertation, University of Virginia, 1975. (Includes a discussion of Rossetti's favoring the Dante of the Vita Nuova rather than the Commedia; from the figure of Amor in the former Rossetti is seen to derive all his personified emotions.)

Matthews, Lloyd J. "Chaucer's Personification of Prudence in Troilus (V. 743-749): Sources in the Visual Arts and Manuscript Scholia." In English Language Notes, XIII (June 1976), 249-255.

Submits that the source of the three-eyed Prudence in the lines spoken by Cryseyde here was very likely the three-eyed figure among the four cardinal virtues standing in the mystical procession of Purgatorio XXX, no doubt seen by Chaucer in one of the many contemporary illuminated Commedia manuscripts with commentary notes, such as the Holkham Hall MS. 514, and the Morgan Library MS. 676.

Mazzaro, Jerome. "The Fact of Beatrice in The Vita Nuova." In The Literature of Fact: Selected Papers from the English Institute edited with a foreword by Angus Fletcher (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 83-108.

Analyzes the Vita Nuova as an early example of the highly concentrated historiographic genre of autobiography, which he considers here from its effectively post-classical beginning and traces through its evolution in autobiographic poets like Petrarch, Sidney, and Wordsworth. Mazzaro traces the history of Dante's epiphanic encounter with Beatrice through its several liminal stages toward numinous autobiography. As both factual and visionary, real and unreal figure in Dante's vision, Beatrice is related by Mazzaro to the theological and epistemological bases for her poetic realization. In other words, Dante is seen to follow medieval poetics in his elaboration and modification of the reality of natural and historical fact to harmonize with the multi-valenced symbolical and sacramental quality of his lady. "Avoiding the mystic's withdrawal to Perfection, [Dante] is the 'revealed' model poet of Christian love, tied to history by the fact of Beatrice and challenging subsequent poets to follow in his way. He thus extends medieval typology to contemporary life and literature...." But in subsequent poetic autobiographies the synthetic symbolism realized in Dante's treatment of Beatrice breaks down and also leads to the separation of fact and fiction, a separation resisted by Dante.

Mazzotta, Giuseppe. "Poetics of History: Inferno XXVI." In Diacritics, No. 2 (Summer 1975), 37-44.

Recognizing rhetoric (a medium of both disclosing and concealing) as the primary theme of Inferno XXVI, the author examines a number of other specific elements and allusions in the canto, such as Ulysses' oration and journey, the tongues of fire, the sun references, the recall of Troy's fall and the subsequent translatio imperii westward to Rome, and finds that they are all related to a common motif of concealment and disclosure. Reflected in Dante's treatment is Brunetto Latini's translation of Ciceronian ideas about rhetoric into the myth of rhetoric as a theory of education, as a means for acting upon the formlessness of the world in order to build the city. The canto is thus seen to enact "a protracted reflection on the secular city and the pattern of secular history." But Dante implicitly acknowledges the failure of Brunetto's political rhetoric because of the very ambiguous nature of language which, subject to the world of contingency, gets separated from the truth and can easily become a deceptive instrument of fraud. In his orazion Ulysses is himself self-deceived, trapped by the literality of language/rhetoric, and his journey in pursuit of the sun, whose course is a perennial circular movement of appearance and concealment, inevitably and tragically fails, because it is contrary to linear history as a translation of the providential order. The example of Ulysses serves as an admonishment to Dante of the possible treachery of his own language and journey.

McGovern, John F. "The Conquest of Geryon." In Studies in Medieval Culture, VI-VII (1976), 129-134.

Suggesting that the legal dimension of Dante's Comedy requires serious examination, the author presents an interpretation of the Geryon episode (Inf. XVII) by applying the intricacies of medieval law which pertain to the significant belting and unbelting of a person in one of the three stations of warrior, cleric, and magistrate. Dante's doffing of the belt at Virgil's behest is seen as a stratagem for overcoming the powers of deep hell and for establishing Dante as a procurator with an imperial mission. Thus the episode marks the start of Dante's activity as a hero of the empire.

Orvieto, Enzo. "La datazione del commento all'Inferno dantesco di Guido da Pisa." In Kentucky Romance Quarterly, XXIII (1976), 121-127.

Contends that the dating of Guido's commentary by Francesco Mazzoni around 1340 and by Vincenzo Cioffari between 1328 and 1333 is not supported by the historical and internal evidence, which must be construed rather to indicate the period 1325-1330 for the commentary, thus confirming it as one of the earliest.

Owen, D. D. R. Noble Lovers. New York: New York University Press, 1975. 191 p. illus. 25 cm.

Contains a chapter on "Dante and Petrarch" (pp. 145-160) relating their lady-inspired poetry to his general thesis of the formalized literary transformation of a lofty conception of love, along with a new view of woman, and of woman as the beloved, beginning with Courtly Love in the Middle Ages and its subsequent evolution down to the present day. Profusely illustrated.

Plater, Edward M. V. "The Figure of Dante in Die Hochzeit des Mönchs." In MLN, XC (1975), 678-686.

Contends that in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's novella, Die Hochzeit des Mönchs, beyond the author's using Dante as the narrator of the story, there are more substantive parallels between Dante himself and two of the characters, Ezzelin and Astorre the monk. In the latter figure, moreover, can be seen the association of monkhood with the poet's vocation, an aspect of Meyer's Dante myth which relates to his own life.

Robinson, Jeffrey. "Dante's Paradiso and Keat's 'Ode to a Nightingale.' " In Keats-Shelley Journal, XXV (1976), 13-15.

Points out verbal parallels between Paradiso XXXIII, (with thematic connections in vv. 85-88 and 114-117) and the final stanza of the ode which, if actual influence obtains here, have important implications for Keats's precise meaning at the close.

Rodgers, Audrey T. "The Mythic Perspective of Eliot's 'The Dry Salvages.' " In Arizona Quarterly, XXX (1974), 74-94.

Includes discussion of Dantean parallels in T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, particularly in "The Dry Salvages," where the archetypal journey metaphor dominates the structure.

Russell, Rinaldina. "Tre versanti della poesia stilnovistica: Guinizzelli, Cavalcanti e Dante." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXIV (1974), 4217A.

Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1971. Published later as a book, in 1973 (Bari: Adriatica Editrice). (See Dante Studies, XCII, 195-196.)

Schless, Howard H. "Dante: Comedy and Conversion." In Genre, IX (1976), 413-427.

Contends that Dante's Commedia can indeed be considered in the comedic genre if we but recognize Dante's innovation of lifting his poem above the level of ordinary risible comedy to high comedy, that is, a work that instructs by attaining comedic harmony. Dante himself viewed comedy as movement from disaccord to accord and so gave his poem the title Commedia. But even the opening cantica can be considered comic in its contrast or discord with acceptable norm, in this case, raised a step above the usual social norm to that of the eternal universal norm of the Christian ideal. Against this accord of the Ought-to-be, on the principle of incongruity, the sinners appear absurd in their perverse choice with its ludicrous repetition eternally in Hell. Comedy functions successfully in the Inferno thanks to the poet's brilliantly counterbalancing the two forces of the sense of justice that placed the sinners there and our human sense of sympathy for them. The essay is reprinted in Versions of Medieval comedy, edited . . . by Paul G. Ruggiers (see above, main section, Studies, under Schless).

Sheridan, James J. "Mailer's An American Dream." In Explicator, XXXIV (1975), Item 8.

Notes that the lion and serpent as symbols of Barney Kelly in the climactic chapter of the novel are drawn from Dante's Inferno (I and XXIV-XXV)

Slade, Carole Ann. "The Straight Way Was Lost: Parallels between Dante's Inferno and Five Twentieth-Century Novels." In Dissertation Abstracts International, XXXIV (1974), 7783A-7784A.

Doctoral dissertation, New York University, 1973. (The novels explored are: Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, La Chute by Albert Camus, Abel Sánchez by Miguel de Unamuno, Ulysses by James Joyce, and The First Circle by Alexandr Solzhenitzyn.)

Steiner, George. "Dante Now: The Gossip of Eternity." In Encounter, XLVI (Jan. 1976), 36-38, 40, 42-45.

A review-article on C. S. Singleton's Bollingen Dante (see Dante Studies, LXXXIX, 107-108, XCII, 182, and XCIV, 155-156; extensively reviewed), in which the author meditates on such qualities of the Commedia as its contextuality, specificity, and contiguities, its internal echoes and reminiscences as the great structure builds upon itself, its bookishness such as to create an impossible challenge for the modern reader and at the same time its largely on-going relevancy.

Tankersley, Sue Anne. "Misinterpretations of Dante's Inferno by Three Early Manuscript Illuminators." In Dissertation Abstracts International XXXV (1974), 2302A.

Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, 1974. (On three North Italian illuminated manuscripts: Vatican 4776 of c. 1390, Pluteo 40.1 of 1456, and Vatican 365 of c. 1480, in which the illuminations are frequently in conflict with the text.)

Tucker, Dunstan, O.S.B. "Dante's Reconciliation in the Purgatorio.' In American Benedictine Review, XX (1969), 75-92.

Contends that the Commedia, while vivified by Dante's poetic genius, is substantively an expression of the culture of the medieval world, involving the use of allegory and Church liturgy, especially as codified in the Pontificale Romanum, or compendium of episcopal ceremonies. Instances of Dante's poeticized liturgy, specifically the "expulsion ceremony" in Purgatorio IX, Dante's progress through Purgatory proper, and Dante's reconciliation in Purgatorio XXXI, are seen to parallel the traditional expulsion ceremony of Ash Wednesday and the subsequent absolution of sin and reconciliation ceremony of the Church, reflecting in turn the scriptural expulsion from Eden and eventual Christological reconciliation between man and God. Also, addressing the question of whether Dante was bearded (cf. Purg. XXXI, 73-75), the author submits that the beard would reflect the condition of the penitent between the ceremony of expulsion and that of reconciliation, when hair and beard were liturgically cut.

Turner, Victor. "African Ritual and Western Literature: Is a Comparative Symbology Possible?" In The Literature of Fact: Selected Papers from the English Institute, edited with a foreword by Angus Fletcher (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 45-81.

Presents an anthropological analysis of an African ritual of oral-kinesthetic tradition with Dante's Purgatorio as a representative of Western literature of aesthetic tradition. As an example of the former, the author analyzes the therapeutic ritual of affliction, Chihamba, in the small village of the Ndembu people of northwestern Zambia. Similarly, Purgatorio I is analyzed as if it were a narrative of ritual process. There are many similar features inhering in these ritual and literary works of complex semiotic phenomena with their systems of multivocal and polysemous symbolism. But there are differences too, since the literary artifact is embedded in a long, cumulative cultural tradition of the written word, while the ritual is embedded in current cultural dynamics of relatively shallow historical time and is non-verbal as well as verbal. Since the symbol is the semantic molecule and therefore a microcosm of the whole process, both Ndembu ritual symbol and Dantean poetic symbol are found to share such attributes as multiple meanings, unification of disparate meanings, condensation of otherwise lengthy statement, and polarization of meanings in sets of semantic opposites. The author contends it is through their dominant symbols or iconic signs that the action genres of African ritual and the written texts of European literature are best compared, because the dominant symbols and clusters of ancillary symbols in the respective systems are the supreme expressions of the major cultural themes and thus are most apt to reveal differences in the implicit postulates of dynamic cultural systems.

Waller, Marguerite R. "Historical Theory and Poetic Practice: The Case of Petrarch." In Criticism, XVIII (1976), 273-294.

Includes comparative references to Dante to show how Petrarch in his vision of history and in his poetry had lost the old relationship of sign and meaning along with the justification of any metaphysical underpinning. Reflecting "a decomposition of Augustinian theology and of the poetic which Dante extrapolated from that theology," Petrarch is found "unwilling and unable to continue in the ways of his predecessors, but not in a position to make any claims for his new departure."

Ward, David. T. S. Eliot, Between Two Worlds: A Reading of T. S. Eliot's Poetry and Plays. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973. X, 304 p. 22 cm.

Contains considerable reference to Eliot's relationship to Dante (cf. Index--52 Dantean entries). But see the review-article by P. R. Headings above.

Wlassics, Tibor. "Le anomalie fonologiche del rimario di Dante." In Battaglia letteraria, XXII, No. 2. (1972), 1-3 and 13-14.

This essay has been reprinted in his Interpretazioni di prosodia dantesca (Roma: Angelo Signorelli Editore, 1972). (See Dante Studies, XCII, 210.)

German and Italian Lyrics of the Middle Ages: An Anthology and a History. Translations and introductions by Frederick Goldin. Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1973. Contains thirteen poems from Dante's works. (See Dante Studies, XCII, 185, and XCV, 177-178.) Reviewed by:

Reto R. Bezzola, in Vox Romanica, XXXV (1976), 214-216.

Guido da Pisa. Guido da Pisa's Expositiones et Glose super Comediam Dantis, or Commentary on Dante's Inferno. Edited with notes and an introduction by Vincenzo Cioffari.... Albany: State University of New York Press, 1974. (See Dante Studies, XCIII, 223-224, and XCV, 178, and see above, main section, under Reviews) Reviewed by:

Antonio Canal, O. Carm., in Carmelus, XXIII (1976), 288-292;

Andrea Mariani, in L'Osservatore romano, 4 dic. 1976, p. 3.

Hollander, Robert. "Purgatorio II: Cato's Rebuke and Dante's Scoglio." In Italica, LII (1975), 348-363. (See Dante Studies, XCIV, 170-171.) Reviewed by:

Gabriele Muresu, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXX (1976), 182-183.

Howe, Kaye. "Dante's Beatrice: The Nine and the Ten." In Italica, LII (1975), 364-371. (See Dante Studies, XCIV, 171.) Reviewed by:

Gabriele Muresu, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, LXXX (1976), 185.

Wlassics, Tibor. Dante narratore: Saggi sullo stile della Commedia. (Firenze: Olschki, 1975. (See Dante Studies, XCIV, 181 and 186 ) Reviewed by:

Gabriele Muresu, in Rassena della letteratura italiana, LXXX (1976), 177-178.

State University of New York

Binghamton, New York

In Dante Studies XCV (1977), p. 185, under the Powicke entry, add: An earlier American edition of Ways of Medieval Life and Thought. . ., without the introduction by A. L. Rowse, appeared in 1951 (Boston: The Beacon Press; first printed, London: Odhams press, 1950). The essay on Romeo was read on February 15, 1944, before the Oxford Dante Society.