Laurence Hooper | Dartmouth College (original) (raw)

Books and Volumes by Laurence Hooper

Research paper thumbnail of Realisms and idealisms in Italian culture, 1300–2017

The Italianist, 2017

This special issue of the Italianist collects ten essays that consider the multiple manifestation... more This special issue of the Italianist collects ten essays that consider the multiple manifestations of realism and idealism in Italy from the Trecento to the present day. Notions of the ‘real Italy’ (and of ‘Italian realism’) remain fundamental for scholars working in various disciplines, while the exploration of the ideal Italies constructed throughout history continues to inspire innovative work on virtually every period of Italian culture. Rather than accepting the many assertions of realism and the many projections of idealism that have characterized Italian culture from its beginnings, this volume aims for a critical and multi-focal assessment of manifestations of realism and idealism in Italy.

Papers by Laurence Hooper

Research paper thumbnail of Characterization and eschatological realism from Dante to Petrarch

"Realisms and Idealisms in Italian Culture, 1300-2017", 2017

ABSTRACT This article considers the characterization of blessed souls in Dante’s Commedia (1307–2... more ABSTRACT
This article considers the characterization of blessed souls in Dante’s Commedia (1307–21) and Petrarch’s Canzoniere (c. 1356–74) and Triumphi (c. 1352–74). It argues that eschatological realism – the detailed representation of souls in the afterlife – lies at the heart of these three works, each of which depicts a deceased beloved who now resides in Paradise. Dante’s Paradiso navigates a range of doctrinal and literary challenges to incorporate its blessed characters into the poem’s continuum of interlocutors. Although the Commedia culminates with a first-person, mystical experience, the structural importance of third-person voices to the canticle demonstrates the centrality of realist characterization to the overall project. Petrarch’s works, meanwhile, reject Dante’s broad and varied descriptions of beatitude but nonetheless assert a more restricted eschatological realism channelled through the interpersonal connection with Laura. The beloved’s combination of exemplarity and historicity sets up the paradigm that defines the other characters in Petrarch’s narrative, including the poetic ‘I’.

SOMMARIO
L’articolo si concentra sul caratterizzare delle anime beate nella Commedia di Dante, nonché nel Canzoniere e nei Triumphi di Petrarca. Si propone che il realismo escatologico, cioè la raffigurazione dettagliata delle anime nell’aldilà, stia a cuore di tutte e tre opere, ognuna delle quali narra di un’amata defunta ora residente in Paradiso. Nel suo Paradiso, Dante travalica vari ingombri di natura sia dottrinale, sia letteraria per arrivare a includere i personaggi beati nella sequenza di interlocutori del poema. Benché la Commedia culmini in un’esperienza mistica in prima persona, l’importanza strutturale delle voci di terza persona dimostra la centralità della caratterizzazione realista al progetto complessivo. Le opere petrarchesche, invece, pur respingendo le descrizioni dantesche della beatitudine, piuttosto ampie e variegate, tuttavia esibiscono un realismo escatologico più stretto perché incanalato nella connessione interpersonale con Laura. La combinazione di esemplarità e storicità caratteristica dell’amata donna stabilisce un paradigma determinante per tutti gli altri personaggi della narrativa petrarchesca, l’io narrante compreso.

KEYWORDS: Characterization, beatific vision, verisimilitude, legal fiction, Dante, Petrarch

PAROLE CHIAVE: Caratterizzazione, visione beatifica, verosimiglianza, fictio iuris, Dante, Petrarca

Research paper thumbnail of Realisms and idealisms in Italian culture, 1300–2017

This special issue of the Italianist collects ten essays that consider the multiple manifestation... more This special issue of the Italianist collects ten essays that consider the multiple manifestations of realism and idealism in Italy from the Trecento to the present day. Notions of the ‘real Italy’ (and of ‘Italian realism’) remain fundamental for scholars working in various disciplines, while the exploration of the ideal Italies constructed throughout history continues to inspire innovative work on virtually every period of Italian culture. Rather than accepting the many assertions of realism and the many projections of idealism that have characterized Italian culture from its beginnings, this volume aims for a critical and multi-focal assessment of manifestations of realism and idealism in Italy.

Research paper thumbnail of Exile and Petrarch's Reinvention of Authorship

Renaissance Quarterly 69.4: 1217-56, Nov 30, 2016

This article demonstrates a systematic connection between the novelty of Petrarch’s authorship an... more This article demonstrates a systematic connection between the novelty of Petrarch’s authorship and his self-definition as an exile. Petrarch employs the unusual term exilium/esilio to substantiate his unprecedented claim that literature is a legally valid officium (civic role). Following Dante, Petrarch grounds his exilic authorship in the Christian discourse of peregrinatio: life as pilgrimage through exile. But Petrarch’s new officium allows him a measure of control over literary creation that no prior Italian writer had enjoyed. This is especially true of the “Canzoniere,” Petrarch’s compilation of his vernacular lyrics, whose singularity functions as a proxy for its author’s selfhood.

Research paper thumbnail of Dante's Convivio, Book 1: Metaphor, Exile, Epochē

MLN 127.5, Supplement: S86-S104, 2012

My essay focuses on the importance of metaphor in the first book of Dante's Convivio. By examinin... more My essay focuses on the importance of metaphor in the first book of Dante's Convivio. By examining closely the many metaphors of Convivio 1 and their relation to its "content," I show that Dante's work draws together a variety of disciplines to emphasize its author's subjectivity. Dante's metaphors do not offer a final intellectual or philosophical demonstration but rather encourage a suspension of judgment that replicates for the reader the alienation of exile from which Dante writes.

Research paper thumbnail of "Riacquistare la Casarsa buona": Exile, Realism, and Authorship in Pasolini's Atti impuri and Amado mio

Italian Studies 68, no. 1, 138-54, Mar 2013

This article challenges the established reading of Atti impuri and Amado mio, Pasolini’s early un... more This article challenges the established reading of Atti impuri and Amado mio, Pasolini’s early unfinished novels about young homosexual love, as diaristic. Previous accounts of the Friulan novels have largely ignored the fact that their final redactions were drawn up in Rome, where the author had fled from Friuli in January 1950 in the wake of a sexually tinged scandal. The present analysis suggests that the novels’ relationship to their setting should be read as nostalgic, and compares them to the poetic works on Friuli that Pasolini wrote in Rome in the early 1950s. This poetics of absence provides the backdrop for a reflection on the practice of realist authorship that engages with contemporary neorealist narrative from a position of paradoxical outsiderhood.

Research paper thumbnail of "Un estraneo in una terra ostile": Exile and Engagement in Pasolini's Verse Dramas

Italica 89.3: 357-70, 2012

Research paper thumbnail of Exile and Rhetorical Order in the Vita nova

L'Alighieri 38: 5-27, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Trilussa: A Case Study in the Translation of Dialect Poetry

Twentieth-Century Poetic Translation: Literary Cultures in Italian and English, eds. Daniela LaPenna and Daniela Caselli, (London: Continuum, 2008), 99-112, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Dialectal dialectics: Translating Trilussa

The Italianist, Dec 1, 2005

This article discusses translating the Roman dialect poet Trilussa for an English-speaking audien... more This article discusses translating the Roman dialect poet Trilussa for an English-speaking audience. Although Trilussa wrote in dialect, his poems were published to a nationwide reading public. I argue this lent them a renegade authority, what linguists Jack Chambers and Peter Trudgill have called “covert prestige." I therefore support using dialectal English in the translations. Prior translators of Trilussa had claimed it was necessary to use Standard English in order not to belittle the poet’s achievement. But this misunderstands the ethical economy of the poems, which depends on the covert prestige of Trilussa's Romanesco. I proposed London English as a relatively close analogue to Romanesco, since both were from a large urban center and comprehensible on a national level, while retaining their distinctive features An appendix contains eight of my own Cockney translations

Reviews/Interviews by Laurence Hooper

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Kay, "Dante's Lyric Redemption"

Renaissance Quarterly, 2017

Review of: Dante’s Lyric Redemption: Eros, Salvation, Vernacular Tradition. Tristan Kay. Oxford M... more Review of:
Dante’s Lyric Redemption: Eros, Salvation, Vernacular Tradition. Tristan Kay. Oxford Modern Languages and Literature Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. x 1 276 pp. $110.

Research paper thumbnail of Brunetto Latini . Le Livre du Trésor: Livre I . Ed. and trans. Bernard Ribémont and Silvère Menegaldo. Traductions des classiques du Moyen Age 94. Paris: Honoré Champion Éditeur, 2013. xc + 490 pp. €45. ISBN: 978-2-7453-2470-2

Renaissance Quarterly, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Barolini, Teodolinda, ed. and Richard Lansing, trans. Dante's Lyric Poetry: Poems of Youth and of the 'Vita Nuova.'  Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.  Pp. vii, 335.

The Medieval Review, Aug 31, 2015

Review of a new English edition of Dante's early lyric poetry.

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Brunetto Latini, Le Livre du Trésor, Book 1

Renaissance Quarterly 67.3, Sep 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Maria Luisa Ardizzone, Dante: Il paradigma intelletuale. Un'"inventio" degli anni fiorentini

Forum Italicum 47.1 (2013): 215-16

Research paper thumbnail of Interview with director, Yvonne McDevitt

Translations by Laurence Hooper

Research paper thumbnail of Primo Levi, "Il versificatore" (Excerpt from Translation)

Research paper thumbnail of Paolo Grossi, A History of European Law (Translator)

The Making of Europe Series Editor: Jacques Le Goff The Making of Europe series is the result of ... more The Making of Europe Series Editor: Jacques Le Goff The Making of Europe series is the result of a unique collaboration between five European publishers – Beck in Germany, Wiley-Blackwell in Great Britain and the United States, Critica in Spain, Laterza in Italy, and le Seuil in ...

Talks by Laurence Hooper

Research paper thumbnail of Exile and the "canzone" in Dante's Earthly Paradise

1. Nel ciel che più de la sua luce prende fu' io, e vidi cose che ridire né sa né può chi di là s... more 1. Nel ciel che più de la sua luce prende fu' io, e vidi cose che ridire né sa né può chi di là sù discende; perché appressando sé al suo disire, nostro intelletto si profonda tanto, che dietro la memoria non può ire. Veramente quant' io del regno santo ne la mia mente potei far tesoro, sarà ora materia del mio canto.

Teaching Documents by Laurence Hooper

Research paper thumbnail of Dante Now! (Workshop co-Director)

A series of outdoor readings from the Comedy around the Notre Dame campus by small groups of stud... more A series of outdoor readings from the Comedy around the Notre Dame campus by small groups of students and friends of the Italian program. The event culminated with all the readers performing the prayer to the Virgin (Par. 33.1-39) in the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Research paper thumbnail of Realisms and idealisms in Italian culture, 1300–2017

The Italianist, 2017

This special issue of the Italianist collects ten essays that consider the multiple manifestation... more This special issue of the Italianist collects ten essays that consider the multiple manifestations of realism and idealism in Italy from the Trecento to the present day. Notions of the ‘real Italy’ (and of ‘Italian realism’) remain fundamental for scholars working in various disciplines, while the exploration of the ideal Italies constructed throughout history continues to inspire innovative work on virtually every period of Italian culture. Rather than accepting the many assertions of realism and the many projections of idealism that have characterized Italian culture from its beginnings, this volume aims for a critical and multi-focal assessment of manifestations of realism and idealism in Italy.

Research paper thumbnail of Characterization and eschatological realism from Dante to Petrarch

"Realisms and Idealisms in Italian Culture, 1300-2017", 2017

ABSTRACT This article considers the characterization of blessed souls in Dante’s Commedia (1307–2... more ABSTRACT
This article considers the characterization of blessed souls in Dante’s Commedia (1307–21) and Petrarch’s Canzoniere (c. 1356–74) and Triumphi (c. 1352–74). It argues that eschatological realism – the detailed representation of souls in the afterlife – lies at the heart of these three works, each of which depicts a deceased beloved who now resides in Paradise. Dante’s Paradiso navigates a range of doctrinal and literary challenges to incorporate its blessed characters into the poem’s continuum of interlocutors. Although the Commedia culminates with a first-person, mystical experience, the structural importance of third-person voices to the canticle demonstrates the centrality of realist characterization to the overall project. Petrarch’s works, meanwhile, reject Dante’s broad and varied descriptions of beatitude but nonetheless assert a more restricted eschatological realism channelled through the interpersonal connection with Laura. The beloved’s combination of exemplarity and historicity sets up the paradigm that defines the other characters in Petrarch’s narrative, including the poetic ‘I’.

SOMMARIO
L’articolo si concentra sul caratterizzare delle anime beate nella Commedia di Dante, nonché nel Canzoniere e nei Triumphi di Petrarca. Si propone che il realismo escatologico, cioè la raffigurazione dettagliata delle anime nell’aldilà, stia a cuore di tutte e tre opere, ognuna delle quali narra di un’amata defunta ora residente in Paradiso. Nel suo Paradiso, Dante travalica vari ingombri di natura sia dottrinale, sia letteraria per arrivare a includere i personaggi beati nella sequenza di interlocutori del poema. Benché la Commedia culmini in un’esperienza mistica in prima persona, l’importanza strutturale delle voci di terza persona dimostra la centralità della caratterizzazione realista al progetto complessivo. Le opere petrarchesche, invece, pur respingendo le descrizioni dantesche della beatitudine, piuttosto ampie e variegate, tuttavia esibiscono un realismo escatologico più stretto perché incanalato nella connessione interpersonale con Laura. La combinazione di esemplarità e storicità caratteristica dell’amata donna stabilisce un paradigma determinante per tutti gli altri personaggi della narrativa petrarchesca, l’io narrante compreso.

KEYWORDS: Characterization, beatific vision, verisimilitude, legal fiction, Dante, Petrarch

PAROLE CHIAVE: Caratterizzazione, visione beatifica, verosimiglianza, fictio iuris, Dante, Petrarca

Research paper thumbnail of Realisms and idealisms in Italian culture, 1300–2017

This special issue of the Italianist collects ten essays that consider the multiple manifestation... more This special issue of the Italianist collects ten essays that consider the multiple manifestations of realism and idealism in Italy from the Trecento to the present day. Notions of the ‘real Italy’ (and of ‘Italian realism’) remain fundamental for scholars working in various disciplines, while the exploration of the ideal Italies constructed throughout history continues to inspire innovative work on virtually every period of Italian culture. Rather than accepting the many assertions of realism and the many projections of idealism that have characterized Italian culture from its beginnings, this volume aims for a critical and multi-focal assessment of manifestations of realism and idealism in Italy.

Research paper thumbnail of Exile and Petrarch's Reinvention of Authorship

Renaissance Quarterly 69.4: 1217-56, Nov 30, 2016

This article demonstrates a systematic connection between the novelty of Petrarch’s authorship an... more This article demonstrates a systematic connection between the novelty of Petrarch’s authorship and his self-definition as an exile. Petrarch employs the unusual term exilium/esilio to substantiate his unprecedented claim that literature is a legally valid officium (civic role). Following Dante, Petrarch grounds his exilic authorship in the Christian discourse of peregrinatio: life as pilgrimage through exile. But Petrarch’s new officium allows him a measure of control over literary creation that no prior Italian writer had enjoyed. This is especially true of the “Canzoniere,” Petrarch’s compilation of his vernacular lyrics, whose singularity functions as a proxy for its author’s selfhood.

Research paper thumbnail of Dante's Convivio, Book 1: Metaphor, Exile, Epochē

MLN 127.5, Supplement: S86-S104, 2012

My essay focuses on the importance of metaphor in the first book of Dante's Convivio. By examinin... more My essay focuses on the importance of metaphor in the first book of Dante's Convivio. By examining closely the many metaphors of Convivio 1 and their relation to its "content," I show that Dante's work draws together a variety of disciplines to emphasize its author's subjectivity. Dante's metaphors do not offer a final intellectual or philosophical demonstration but rather encourage a suspension of judgment that replicates for the reader the alienation of exile from which Dante writes.

Research paper thumbnail of "Riacquistare la Casarsa buona": Exile, Realism, and Authorship in Pasolini's Atti impuri and Amado mio

Italian Studies 68, no. 1, 138-54, Mar 2013

This article challenges the established reading of Atti impuri and Amado mio, Pasolini’s early un... more This article challenges the established reading of Atti impuri and Amado mio, Pasolini’s early unfinished novels about young homosexual love, as diaristic. Previous accounts of the Friulan novels have largely ignored the fact that their final redactions were drawn up in Rome, where the author had fled from Friuli in January 1950 in the wake of a sexually tinged scandal. The present analysis suggests that the novels’ relationship to their setting should be read as nostalgic, and compares them to the poetic works on Friuli that Pasolini wrote in Rome in the early 1950s. This poetics of absence provides the backdrop for a reflection on the practice of realist authorship that engages with contemporary neorealist narrative from a position of paradoxical outsiderhood.

Research paper thumbnail of "Un estraneo in una terra ostile": Exile and Engagement in Pasolini's Verse Dramas

Italica 89.3: 357-70, 2012

Research paper thumbnail of Exile and Rhetorical Order in the Vita nova

L'Alighieri 38: 5-27, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Trilussa: A Case Study in the Translation of Dialect Poetry

Twentieth-Century Poetic Translation: Literary Cultures in Italian and English, eds. Daniela LaPenna and Daniela Caselli, (London: Continuum, 2008), 99-112, 2008

Research paper thumbnail of Dialectal dialectics: Translating Trilussa

The Italianist, Dec 1, 2005

This article discusses translating the Roman dialect poet Trilussa for an English-speaking audien... more This article discusses translating the Roman dialect poet Trilussa for an English-speaking audience. Although Trilussa wrote in dialect, his poems were published to a nationwide reading public. I argue this lent them a renegade authority, what linguists Jack Chambers and Peter Trudgill have called “covert prestige." I therefore support using dialectal English in the translations. Prior translators of Trilussa had claimed it was necessary to use Standard English in order not to belittle the poet’s achievement. But this misunderstands the ethical economy of the poems, which depends on the covert prestige of Trilussa's Romanesco. I proposed London English as a relatively close analogue to Romanesco, since both were from a large urban center and comprehensible on a national level, while retaining their distinctive features An appendix contains eight of my own Cockney translations

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Kay, "Dante's Lyric Redemption"

Renaissance Quarterly, 2017

Review of: Dante’s Lyric Redemption: Eros, Salvation, Vernacular Tradition. Tristan Kay. Oxford M... more Review of:
Dante’s Lyric Redemption: Eros, Salvation, Vernacular Tradition. Tristan Kay. Oxford Modern Languages and Literature Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. x 1 276 pp. $110.

Research paper thumbnail of Brunetto Latini . Le Livre du Trésor: Livre I . Ed. and trans. Bernard Ribémont and Silvère Menegaldo. Traductions des classiques du Moyen Age 94. Paris: Honoré Champion Éditeur, 2013. xc + 490 pp. €45. ISBN: 978-2-7453-2470-2

Renaissance Quarterly, 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Barolini, Teodolinda, ed. and Richard Lansing, trans. Dante's Lyric Poetry: Poems of Youth and of the 'Vita Nuova.'  Lorenzo Da Ponte Italian Library. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.  Pp. vii, 335.

The Medieval Review, Aug 31, 2015

Review of a new English edition of Dante's early lyric poetry.

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Brunetto Latini, Le Livre du Trésor, Book 1

Renaissance Quarterly 67.3, Sep 2014

Research paper thumbnail of Review of Maria Luisa Ardizzone, Dante: Il paradigma intelletuale. Un'"inventio" degli anni fiorentini

Forum Italicum 47.1 (2013): 215-16

Research paper thumbnail of Interview with director, Yvonne McDevitt

Research paper thumbnail of Primo Levi, "Il versificatore" (Excerpt from Translation)

Research paper thumbnail of Paolo Grossi, A History of European Law (Translator)

The Making of Europe Series Editor: Jacques Le Goff The Making of Europe series is the result of ... more The Making of Europe Series Editor: Jacques Le Goff The Making of Europe series is the result of a unique collaboration between five European publishers – Beck in Germany, Wiley-Blackwell in Great Britain and the United States, Critica in Spain, Laterza in Italy, and le Seuil in ...

Research paper thumbnail of Exile and the "canzone" in Dante's Earthly Paradise

1. Nel ciel che più de la sua luce prende fu' io, e vidi cose che ridire né sa né può chi di là s... more 1. Nel ciel che più de la sua luce prende fu' io, e vidi cose che ridire né sa né può chi di là sù discende; perché appressando sé al suo disire, nostro intelletto si profonda tanto, che dietro la memoria non può ire. Veramente quant' io del regno santo ne la mia mente potei far tesoro, sarà ora materia del mio canto.

Research paper thumbnail of Dante Now! (Workshop co-Director)

A series of outdoor readings from the Comedy around the Notre Dame campus by small groups of stud... more A series of outdoor readings from the Comedy around the Notre Dame campus by small groups of students and friends of the Italian program. The event culminated with all the readers performing the prayer to the Virgin (Par. 33.1-39) in the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Research paper thumbnail of Goldoni, L'osteria della posta (Instructor/Director)

Part of the Notre Dame Italian Theater Workshop 2010 production: "Amore, onore, tradimento."

Research paper thumbnail of Pirandello, Bellavita (Instructor/Director)

Part of the Notre Dame Italian Theater Workshop 2010 production: "Amore, onore, tradimento."