From the Allora to the Non Ancora: Luzi's Essays on Dante (original) (raw)
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On the precipice of the First Circle of Hell, Dante the narrator describes his arrival synesthetically: “io venni al loco d'ogne luce muto.” The “silence” of the light is contrasted in the two verses immediately following by the incongruity of the “bellowing” of the sea, a mixed, animalesque metaphor that, Boccaccio notes in his Esposizioni, “è proprio de’ buoi.” According to the Florentine Ottimo Comento, Dante’s description stems from “l’oscurità del luogo, figura la cechitade del loro intelletto; chè come qui è intenebrato lo lume della ragione in sè, così quivi sentono privamento d'ogni luce.” In his late-fourteenth-century commentary, Neapolitan Guglielmo Maramauro writes the following: “Qui D. descrive como esso venne a questo loco MUTO, cioè rimoto d'ogni luce. E qui parla improprie, chè la muteza è solo atribuita a l'omo che non parla. Così questo loco è muto de luce, cioè privato d'ogni luce. E poriase mover un dubio: perchè D. fo con V. nel Limbo «luminoso etc.» e qui dice «I' venni in loco etc.?’” The poetic necessity of convenientia (appropriateness) animates much of Dante’s poetry, but here I will study his use of “improper” rhetoric, for both Boccaccio (“impropriamente”; “proprio de’ buoi”) and Maramauro (“parla improprie”) highlight the incongruity of Dante’s poetics and the seemingly out-of-place metaphors among the upside-down world of Inferno. This talk will explore the strategic use of synesthesia and other “inappropriate,” disordered, poetic instances as fundamental to Dante’s upside-down depiction of Hell, where everything from language to politics to music lacks order. In particular, it will consider the reception of this rhetorical trope– the obverse of appropriateness or that which is “proper”–in some of the earliest commentaries on the poem, as well as the literary legacy of Dante’s infernal silences.
The Oxford Handbook of Dante contains forty-four specially written chapters that provide a thorough and creative reading of Dante's oeuvre. It gathers an intergenerational and international team of scholars encompassing diverse approaches from the fields of Anglo-American, Italian, and continental scholarship and spanning several disciplines: philology, material culture, history, religion, art history, visual studies, theory from the classical to the contemporary, queer, post- and de-colonial, and feminist studies. The volume combines a rigorous reassessment of Dante's formation, themes, and sources, with a theoretically up-to-date focus on textuality, thereby offering a new critical Dante. The volume is divided into seven sections: 'Texts and Textuality'; 'Dialogues'; 'Transforming Knowledge'; Space(s) and Places'; 'A Passionate Selfhood'; 'A Non-linear Dante'; and 'Nachleben'. It seeks to challenge the Commedia-centric approach (the conviction that notwithstanding its many contradictions, Dante's works move towards the great reservoir of poetry and ideas that is the Commedia), in order to bring to light a non-teleological way in which these works relate amongst themselves. Plurality and the openness of interpretation appear as Dante's very mark, coexisting with the attempt to create an all-encompassing mastership. The Handbook suggests what is exciting about Dante now and indicate where Dante scholarship is going, or can go, in a global context.
Recensioni Similarly Havely is not overzealous in identifying Franciscan elements in every line of the Commedia, recognizing that the Franciscan debate on poverty is by no means the only important factor in the construction of Dante's literary per-sona. He does, however, present a convincing argument in favour of its pervasive influence throughout the work. To this end, Havely has been painstaking in his efforts to locate the most Franciscan aspects of all three canticles of the Commedia., focusing on avarice and authority in the Inferno, poverty of the spirit in the Purgatorio and on poverty and authority in the Paradiso. Throughout the book as well Havely emphasizes that the debate on poverty was not simply one that pitted Franciscans against the papacy, especially given the existence of periodic papal support for the movement, but rather as one that ultimately also pitted the Spirituals against the Conventuals, confirming the difficulty of resolving the issue, but also accoun...
Dante's Life of Dante, the Divine Comedy as autobiography
1998
Bibliothèque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services senices bibliographiques 395 Weilington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON KI A ON4 Ottawa ON K I A O N 4 Canada Canada The author has granted a nonexclusive licence dowing the National Library of Canada to reproduce, loan, distribute or sell copies of this thesis in microfom, paper or electronic formats. The author retains ownership of the copyright in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it may be printed or otheNvise reproduced without the author's pemission. L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive permettant à la Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou vendre des copies de cette thèse sous la forme de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. L'auteur conserve la propriété du droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés ou autrement reproduits sans son autorisation. Dante's "Life of Dante" The Divine Comedy as Autobiography