From Casella to Cacciaguida: A Musical Progression Toward Innocence (original) (raw)
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CIABATTONI 2021 Italian Quarterly MUSIC AND DANTE'S EARLY POETRY
Italian Quarterly, LVIII, 229/230, Special Issue, pp.5-20, 2021
This essay discusses the problem of whether some of Dante’s early rhymes might havebeen set to music or destined to oral performance. The author takes his steps from thenotion of a divorce between poetry and music, as presented by Aurelio Roncaglia in1978, and reassesses the topic, through a close reading and comparative analysis ofDante’s Rime. Grounding the argument in musicological and philological scholarship, theauthor argues that a very few lyrics composed by a young Dante were indeed destinedto be performed musically.
Also available in Amazon Kindle and Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/663075) for e-readers. This work investigates exhaustively the musical references in Dante's Commedia. It is a critical survey of their literal and symbolical significance within Dante's narrative. Although Inferno, realm of Anti-Music, apparently only contains noises, there are several parodic referrals to music. Purgatory, where music is a means for purgation, is the canticle which is most specific in its description of actual chants and the way they are sung by the souls. In Paradise reigns superhuman music, therefore it contains numerous musical references, but very few of them are specific and indicate an existing chant: they are above human music. This investigation of the sonorous references in the Commedia has taken into account a historical-musical perspective, as is applied by musicians and musicologists specialized in Early Music.
Textual Cultures, 2022
Dante's works contain a wealth of musical references, and his linguistic treatise, De vulgari eloquentia, is an invaluable source of knowledge regarding the performance practice of contemporary lyric poetry. Despite these indisputable facts, several scholars have cast doubt on Dante's actual musical knowledge, and the extent to which we can interpret his references to musical performance as representing historical practice. This paper explores the issue of musical performance of lyric poems, both by Dante and as represented within Dante's works. It addresses the question of Dante's first-hand experience of melodic delivery of lyric poems, the meanings of musical terms in De vulgari eloquentia, Dante's thoughts on sung performance and its relationship with texts, and every instance in which there is a suggestion that a poem by Dante was sung during his lifetime.
Dante and the "Art of Singing in Verse"
Lectio in Musica Dantis: Dante e la musica del suo tempo. Filologia e Musicologia a confronto.
Taking as a point of departure Dante’s reference in the De vulgari eloquentia to an "ars cantandi poetice, this article explores Dante's conception of the relationship between poetry and music along three lines: his writings on the subject in the De vulgari eloquentia (esp. the terms actio/passio, proferere, and modulatio/oda), his interactions with other poets and musicians, and the Trecento musical reception of the Commedia.
Music and Grammar. Models of Dantean Inquiry from the 'De Vulgari Eloquentia' to Inf. 3
Textual Cultures, 2022
Dante's original and insightful linguistics and poetics have prompted important conversations among scholars, in terms of their anthropological, theological, and philosophical implications. In this article, I reconsider Dante's understanding of language and poetics from the perspective of grammar and music. I bring together the scholarship from these two disciplines to analyze Dante's theoretical and poetical works, and I argue that grammar and music offered Dante two distinct ways to think about language. I trace the relationship between the two disciplines in the 'De Vulgari Eloquentia' first, and in the first cantos of the 'Comedy' (Inf. 1-3), in the second part of this article. Ultimately, I show that a deeper understanding of Dante's grammatical and musical models of linguistic inquiry can shed new light on our comprehension not only of his poetics but also of his ethical and political project.
DANTE DECRYPTED: MUSICA UNIVERSALIS IN THE TEXTUAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE 'COMMEDIA'
Bibliotheca Dantesca, 2018
This paper can be downloaded directly from ScholarlyCommons. LINK: https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/5292 Please visit Bibliotheca Dantesca Annual Journal of Research Studies to DOWNLOAD the whole essay -------------------------------------------------- ABSTRACT: For seven centuries scholars have speculated about the structural design of Dante’s Commedia but remain perplexed by the poem’s comprehensive ar-chitecture. This study undertakes a strictly empirical quantitative analysis of Dante’s magnum opus to address this lacuna. The outcome of this analysis enumerates the correspondence between the foundational rationale of the Commedia’s textual architecture and both physical and metaphysical concepts of Ptolemaic cosmology and Pythagorean principles of harmony and propor-tion as described by Boethius. The poem manifests a musically and mathemat-ically meticulous design conceptualized as musica universalis and expressed as musica instrumentalis that echoes Paschal and Marian plainchant. With an an-alytical synthesis of three components—Beatrice’s mathematical identity, the Trinitary ontology of the terza rima, and the quantitative properties of the Commedia’s canto lengths and their frequency of occurrence—this study de-crypts Dante’s comprehensive architectural design of a poem whose structural harmony continues to be felt by readers today.
Modern Language Review, 2021
p. , emphasis original). Nonetheless, we can ask how far such contextualizations ultimately take us: are all artistic practices, and indeed all human endeavours, not subject to multiple conditions and influences? If so, what-if anything-is specific to '"music" ' (by the book's final page this term is accompanied by scare quotes)? A move to contextualize is perhaps necessary, but can it really be sufficient? Such points notwithstanding, Hickmott's approach does serve to balance the ways in which, to varying extents, the three thinkers discussed pass off their own enunciative positions as universal. is being said, Hickmott remains alive to the way that Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe, who conceived of themselves as receptors of the Western classical tradition, place importance on a self-questioning of their own discourse, and do so as they address a range of twentieth-century musical genres. Nancy is shown to be wary of the fusional dangers inherent in the experiences associated with rave music, just as he is alive to the varying fortunes of rock music since the s. Lacoue-Labarthe's comments on blues and rap, despite their good-natured intentions, are ably shown to tie him to his generation (they come in a public lecture he gave for children as young as , and although this context is acknowledged, it verges on harsh to concentrate on comments made in this unusual setting). In general, it is pleasing to see discussion of Lacoue-Labarthe in terms of music, which was central to his work and life-in Musica ficta: figures de Wagner (Paris: Bourgois, ), a work discussed here, as well as in its Nietzschean connections with Greek tragedy, and elsewhere. Overall, Hickmott's book is a stimulating read, and we must recall that it negotiates the tricky position-unlike works on literature or philosophy-of being unable to cite any examples of its ultimate subject: music or musicking.