American Dante Bibliography for 1963

Anthony L. Pellegrini

This bibliography is intended to include Dante translations published in this country in 1963, and all Dante studies and reviews published in 1963 that are in any sense American. The latter criterion is construed to include foreign reviews of Dante publications by Americans. 

 

Translations

The Divine Comedy. Translated by Dorothy L. Sayers. With 26 full-page illustrations by William Blake. New York: Basic Books, 1963. 3 vols.

De luxe hard-cover edition in three volumes, boxed, of Miss Sayers’ version in terza rima, originally published by Penguin Books between 1949 and 1962 (see 74th Report, 45-46 and 57, 75th Report, 30 and 38, 76th Report, 56and 61, 77th Report, 56, and 81st Report, 20 and 31).

The Odes of Dante.... Translated by H. S. Vere-Hodge. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963. Also, a British edition: Oxford, Clarendon Press.

Twenty-one odes, the sestina (Al poco giorno), and the double sestina (Amor, tu vedi ben), drawn from Dante’s several works, are translated in the original rhyme-schemes, with the Italian text on facing pages and a brief introduction and notes to each ode. There are also a Preface (pp. v-viii), an Introduction (pp. 1-32) on “The Form of the Canzone” and “Dante in the Odes,” and an “Appendix on Tre donne” (pp258-263). Indexed. The Italian text is taken from the 1960 edition of the Opere by the Società Dantesca Italiana.

 

Studies

John Arthos. Dante, Michelangelo and Milton. New York: Hillary House, 1963. xi, 124 p.

In the light of the Longinian view that through the sublime, achieved by the artist from his own noble nature, the reader can be “transhumanized,” the author examines the works of the three artists in their relation to divine principles. In a pithy chapter on Dante (pp. 18-49), Professor Arthos focuses on Dante’s philosophy of language in the evolution of his art, his conception of the poet as a creator on an analogy with God, and his preoccupation with his own individual relationship to the Divinity. The effect of Dante’s art goes beyond Longinus by putting us in touch with what he sees in a kind of direct relationship to truth. “The sublime in Dante finally rests in the fulfilment of the idea of the unity of man and God.”

Erich Auerbach. Studi su Dante. Edited with an introduction by Dante Della Terza. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1963. (I fatti e le idee. Saggi e biografie, 101.)

Gathers in Italian translation (from the German, by Maria Luisa De Piero Bonino; from the English, by Dante Della Terza) most of Auerbach’s studies relating to Dante: Dante, poeta del mondo terreno; Sacrae Scripturae sermo humilis; Figura; Francesco d’Assisi nella “Commedia;” Passi della “Commedia” dantesca illustrati da testi figurali; L’orgoglio di Saul (Purg. XII, vv. 40-42); La preghiera di Dante alla Vergine (Par. XXXIII) ed antecedenti elogi; Gli appelli di Dante al lettore. A bibliographical account of the studies is given in the preface and in a “Nota ai testi” (pp. xx-xxi) by the editor. For analyses of many of the studies which appeared in recent years in English or otherwise, see 73th Report, 55; 78th Report, 26; 79th Report, 40 and 56; and 80th Report, 23. In a preface (pp. vii-xix), Professor Della Terza evaluates Auerbach as a student of Dante and his influence on recent Dante criticism. Indexed.

A. S. Bernardo. “The Three Beasts and Perspective in the Divine Comedy.” In PMLA, LXXVIII (1963), 15-24.

Synthesizes recent findings of such interpreters as Singleton, Freccero, and others, to support the contention that in turning away from the Wolf to follow Virgil as guide, the Wayfarer enacts a descent in humility, necessary prelude to ascending to grace. Metaphorically, he has gone to the bottom of the cosmos, or northern hemisphere full of cupidity and corruption, and has begun the ascent to “eternity’s locus” in the southern hemisphere. The cone of Hell prefigures the Mount of Purgatory in outline, and descent down the cone is already an ascent up to the mount.

Giovanni Boccaccio. Leonardo Bruni Aretino. The Earliest Lives of Dante. Introduction by Francesco Basetti-Sani. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1963. (Milestones of Thought.)

Paperback edition of the Lives as translated from the Italian by James Robinson Smith in 1901. The introduction consists of brief sections on Dante and his personality and on Boccaccio and Bruni and their biographies of Dante, respectively. Also included is a brief passage from The Life of Dante by Filippo Villani. Indexed.

Maud Bodkin. Archetypal Patterns in Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1963. (Oxford Paperbacks, 66.)

Paperback edition of the work originally published in 1934 by Oxford University Press and in 1958 by Vintage Books. (See 79th Report, 56-57.)

James Burnham. The Machiavellians: Defenders of Freedom. Chicago: Regnery Company, 1963 [c1943]. x, 305 p. (A Gateway Edition, 6079.)

Contains an opening section on “Dante: Politics as Wish,” pp. 130. Reprint of the 1943 edition (New York: The John Day Company; also, London: Putnam and Company), with a new preface by the author (For another reprint [1970] and analysis, see Dante Studies, XCIII, 248-249.)

Glauco Cambon. “Examples of Movement in the Divine Comedy (An Experiment in Reading).” In Italica, XL (1963)108-131.

Submits an “aesthetic” reading of three brief, but pregnant passages—Inf. XVII, 135-6; Purg. II, 51; Par. I, 92-3, each climactic in its immediate context, in order to show how in their subtly analyzed sonal, chromatic, rhythmic and kinetic effects, together with the conceptual meaning expressed, they recall within their respective cantiche, in a symmetric and mutually contrastive manner, the essential thematic movement of the Comedy as a whole.

John Ciardi. Dialogue with an Audience. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1963. 316 p.

Contains his essay on “How to Read Dante” (pp. 270-280), originally published in Saturday Review, June 3, 1961, pp. 12-14 and 53-54, and reprinted in Stanley Burnshaw, ed., Varieties of Literary Experience: Eighteen Essays in World Literature (New York: New York University Press, 1962), pp. 171-182. (See 80th Report, 24, and 82nd Report, 59.)

E. R. Curtius. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Translated from the German, Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, by Willard Trask. New York: Pantheon Books, 1963. 662 p.

Another edition of the English translation of Curtius’ well known work, first published in 1953, in the Bollingen Series. The German original appeared in 1948. (See 68th-72nd Reports, 45.)

E. R. Curtius. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. New York: Harper and Row, 1963. (Harper Torchbooks, TB-2015.) 658 p.

Paperback edition.

Dante Della Terza. “Erich Auerbach.” In Belfagor, XVIII (1963), 306-322.

Appraises the Dantean, as well as general, scholarship of Auerbach who spent the last un years of his productive life in America. Includes a “nota bibliografica” (pp. 321-322) of works by and on Auerbach.

Enrico De’ Negri. “Una leggenda nuova.” In Wort und Text: Festschrift für Fritz Schalk. (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1963), 142-160.

Contends that in Franciscan hagiography closest to Dante, the notions of vita, novitas, and memoria are so intimately associated as to constitute an official rhetoric. These same concepts are at the core of the Vita Nuova, which is the life or legend of Beatrice as both woman and saint, the difference between this legend (hence nuova) and the others being that in Franciscan legends the writer does not participate in the happenings narrated, while in thelibello this person plays a dominant role. Here lies the uniqueness of the Vita Nuova, based, as it is, on matter deriving from the courtly lyric and transformed into legend.

Francis Fergusson. “Poetic Intuition and Action in Maritain’s Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry.” In Jacques Maritain, the Man and His Achievement, edited by Joseph W. Evans (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), 128-138.

Jules Gelernt. Review Notes on the Divine Comedy by Dante. New York: [Thor Publications, Inc.], 1963. Distributed by Monarch Press. (Monarch Review Notes, No. 510.)

Paperback handbook, with an introduction arranged topically, and sections on the three cantiche, consisting of a brief introduction, a summary of each canto, and a comment on each canto. Includes a short section of “Questions and Answers on Key Points” and a select bibliography.

Allan H. Gilbert. Dante and His Comedy. New York: New York University Press, 1963. Also in paperback. (The Gotham Library.)

Applies to Dante “the principles of minimum interpretation” in this general introduction designed primarily for the general reader. Chapters are arranged under the following major headings and subtopics: 1. “Fact or Fancy?”—Autobiography or Fiction?—Vision or Reality?—The Feigned Traveler’s Experience—The Eyewitness in the Inferno—The Observer in Purgatory—Eyesight in Paradise—Other Vivid Impressions—What Does the Visitor Share with the Dead?; 2. “Poetry”—A String of Beads—To Please, to Teach, the Poet’s Aim—A Poem on Poetry—Inferno—Purgatorio—Paradiso; 3. “Comedy”—Comedy through Dante’s Eyes—The Comic Hero—Epic Figures Lowered—Common Life in the Action—Inferno and Purgatorio—Paradiso—Similes from Daily Life—Generally Recognized Comedy; 4. “Religion”—The Church in the Commedia—The Empty Chariot —The Traveler’s Sins—Renown or Repentance?; 5. “Beatrice”—The Early Beatrice—Beatrice as Teacher and Guide—Beatrice in the Structure of Paradiso; 6. “Punishments and Rewards” —Punishments in Hell—Purification in Purgatory—Paradise; 7. “Outline-Analysis of the Commedia—Inferno—Purgatorio—Paradiso.” Also included are a preface, a general index, and a “Key to Passages from Dante and his Commentators.”

Allan H. Gilbert. “Dante as Gulliver.” In Renaissance Papers, 1962 (Durham, N.C.: The Southeastern Renaissance Conference, 1963), 27-32.

Contends that although Dante, like Swift, sometimes forgets art in his desire to teach, yet the artist, staging himself as a Gulliver-like traveler, exhibits the storyteller’s pleasure in the narration of his grotesque adventure, as exemplified in the Geryon episode.

Allan H. Gilbert. “Dante’s Hundred Cantos.” In Italica, XL (1963)99-107.

Examines the anomalies in the otherwise symmetrical structure of Dante’s poem and speculates on the probable gradual ideation and chronology of composition by the poet. Professor Gilbert concludes that the Comedy ”may be considered a fusion and development of two poems, one on Beatrice angelicata . . . the other a progress through the world of the dead guided by the author of Aeneid 6.” Dante was so many years at his artistic creation—e.g. “the experienced humanity of Malebolge smack of late composition”—that any portion of the finished poem may contain elements of both youthful endeavor and artistic maturity.

René Girard. “De La Divine Comédie à la sociologie du roman.” In Revue de l’Institut de Sociologie (Brussels), No. 2 (1963), 263-269.

Against the error of a romantic interpretation of Paolo and Francesca, whose apparently absolute passion may seem a solipsistic triumph over Hell, the author contends that the genesis of their love affair is definitely based on their reading of Lancelot and Guinevere, in whom they see themselves mirrored. Actually, theirs is only a derivative desire and the diabolical intermediary stimulating it is the literary work, which Dante’s Comedy expressly denounces as a malignant influence: “Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse.” The archetypal pattern of Dante’s poem, first set by St. Augustine’s Confessions, in both of which the genesis of the hero’s experience is inscribed in the form of the work itself, recurs in the modern novel where the hero’s “conversion” is a transposition of the fundamental experience of the writer, who has undergone the “romantic” experience before retelling it on the fictive level. The conclusion which is a death to the world constitutes a birth in the fictive creation. The whole process is clarified only by the end, as in the Divine Comedy, and there is the same pattern of descent eventually becoming ascent. Professor Girard cites the fundamental unity of Western thought evinced by the analogous vision of the world intrinsic in the various modes of thought and domains of being from patristic meditation and Christian allegory to the Marxist and Freudian modes to present-day reflection and the fictive world of mediated desire in the modern novel. 

Etienne Gilson. Dante and Philosophy. Translated by David Moore. New York: Harper and Row, 1963. (Harper Torchbooks, TB1089.)

Paperback edition of Professor Gilson’s well known work, originally published in French as Dante et la philosophie (Paris, Vrin, 1939; reprinted 1954) and subsequently in English as Dante the Philosopher (London, Sheed and Ward, 1948 and 1952). Writing as an historian of philosophy, the author examines Dante’s philosophical thought and seeks to define his developing attitudes towards philosophy. His treatment is cast under the following major headings: I. Dante’s Clerical Vocation and Metamorphoses of Beatrice; II. Philosophy in the Banquet; III. Philosophy in the Monarchy; IV. Philosophy in the Divine Comedy; and Eclaircissements. There are indices of proper names and of the principal questions discussed.

J. V. Hagopian. “A Prince in Babylon.” In Fitzgerald Newsletter, No. 19 (Fall 1963), 1-3.

Suggests that Fitzgerald’s “Babylon Revisited” is a Dantesque story, noting that the protagonist’s life reflects a pattern of repentance, moral rebirth, purgatorial suffering, and the promise of redemption by his Beatrice-like wife.

Vernon Hall. A Short History of Literary Criticism. [New York:] New York University Press, 1963. xii, 184 p. (The Gotham Library.)

In a chapter on Dante (pp. 21-26), the author deals briefly with Dante’s letter to Can Grande and the De vulgari eloquentia and concludes that “Dante was the first modern critic.”

Colin Hardie. “Cacciaguida’s Prophecy in ‘Paradiso’ 17.” In Traditio, XIX (1963), 267-294.

By means of close argumentation based on evidence of chronology and consistency, along with other internal and external evidence, the author scrutinizes Dante’s system of prophecy in the Comedy, focusing on Cacciaguida’s prediction in Par. XVII, 76-77, and including a consideration of Virgil’s Veltro in Inf. I, 101-102, and Beatrice’s ”515,” or DXV, in Purg. XXXIII, 43-44. Noting how the Comedy resolves all ambiguities within itself, he concludes that Cacciaguida refers to Dante himself as poet. “Cacciaguida’s prophecy of the Comedy, its author, effect and fame, then forms part of his whole concern for the nobility of his family and its flower in Dante.” With this are also resolved the cruxes of the Veltro and the DXV as vague references to Dante, his poem and his mission. On the matter of chronology, Professor Hardie elaborates on his earlier contention (in Modern Language Review, LV[1960], 359-370) that Dante began writing his great poem in 1311-1312, i.e., “after April 1311, but before Henry VII’s death,” and submits that the last canto was finished in the summer of 1321.

Helmut Hatzfeld. “The Stylization of Divine Love in Dante, St. John of the Cross, Pascal, and Angelus Silesius.” In Saggi e ricerche in memoria di Ettore Li Gotti. 3 vols. (Palermo, 1961-63). (Centro di studi filologici e linguistici siciliani. Bollettino, 6-8.) Vol. II, pp. 76-102.

Finds that the works of these four writers exhibit but four different structural and stylistic expressions of the same essential problem. After St. Thomas categorized the types of love and sharply separated the love benevolence from the love of concupiscence and upheld the concept of amicitia caritatis (Summa Theol., PSQu. 26, Art. 4c and SS, Qu. 25, Art. l0c), there was no question as to the incompatibility of any kind of earthly love with Love of God. Dante’s position on love is examined in the Purgatory, along with the positions of the other three writers, respectively. All four stylizations, the author concludes, reveal the same identical approach to Divine Love: “there is no charity for them without the destruction of cupidity.” The following conceptual and imagistic parallels are cited: for all four there is the same progress in charity, involving suffering on their way to bliss; the eyes as best reflecting the human soul as the corporeal symbol for the love attraction; recognition of God’s invitation to love along the way of their inspiration and progress; superiority of the love of contemplation in the hierarchy of charity; and the identification of Divine Love (Charity) as the ultimate Wisdom.

E. M. Hood. “The Condition of Ulysses: Expansions and Contractions in Canto XXVI of the Inferno.” In 81st Annual Report of the Dante Society (1963)1-17.

Interprets the Ulysses episode in terms of movements of expansion and contraction, reflected in every aspect—spiritual, ethical, aesthetic, stylistic.

B. F. Huppé and D. W. Robertson. Fruyt and Chaf: Studies in Chaucer’s Allegories. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.

Contains occasional references, passim, to Dante, especially to parallels between The Book of the Duchess and the Vita nuova. Indexed.

C. K. Hyder. “Rossetti’s Rose Mary: A Study in the Occult.” In Victorian Poetry, I (1963)197-207.

Contains references to Dantean parallels in D. G. Rossetti’s poem.

John Killinger. The Failure of Theology in Modern Literature. New York: Abingdon Press, 1963. 239 p.

Includes a discussion (pp. 18-25ff.) of Dante’s supreme example of completeness in his masterpiece in contrast to the rift between modern literature and the Christian faith. The author also discusses, passim, certain putative Dantean parallels in modern works, such as Camus’ The Fall and T. S. Eliot’s poetry.

G. W. Knight. The Christian Renaissance: With Interpretations of Dante, Shakespeare and Goethe. New York: The Norton Library, 1963.

Paperback edition of the work first published in 1933 and then in a revised edition in 1962. (See 81st Report, 24-25.)

Rico LebrunDrawings for Dante’s Inferno. N.P.: Kanthos Press, 1963. [The verses of the Cantos translated from the Italian by John Ciardi.]

There is an introduction, “Rico Lebrun and Dante” (6 p., unnumbered) by John Ciardi, and a “Note on the Drawings of Lebrun” (2 p., unnumbered) by Leonard Baskin. Facing the 36 [i.e. 40] plates on opposite pages is the relevant text of Dante’s poem in Ciardi’s translation. “The book was designed by Leonard Baskin, set in monotype Bembo at the Stinehour Press and printed by The Meriden Gravure Company.”

D. A. Lenardon. “An Annotated List of Articles Dealing with Italian Literature Appearing in the Journal Encyclopédique from 1756 to 1793.” In Italica, XL (1963), 52-61.

Includes eight entries bearing upon Dante.

Ulrich Leo. James Eustace Shaw.” In Romanische Forschungen, LXXV (1963), 98-102.

Commemorates the late Professor Shaw, with a critical appreciation of his Dantean and other medieval studies.

F. W. Locke. “Dante and T. S. Eliot’s Prufrock.” In Modern Language Notes, LXXVIII (1963), 51-59.

Contends that Dante’s verses (Inf. XXVII, 61-66) serving as epigraph to Eliot’s Prufrock are to be construed as an integral part of the poem. The richer meaning achieved yields the suggestive analogy: Guido is to Dante as Prufrock is to you (the reader).

J. A. Mazzeo. “Hell vs. Hell: From Dante to Machiavelli.” In Symposium, XVII (1963), 245-267.

Despite the cultural distance between Dante (who could imagine a Purgatory and Paradise as well as Hell) and Machiavelli (who could imagine only a Hell), the Dantean Hell, conceived in terms of incontinence, force, and fraud, was preserved and transformed by Machiavelli in the later cosmological structure. It is this conception of Hell that the author identifies as Machiavelli’s view of the world, as he examines the breakdown of hierarchy and the emergence of fortune and virtue. For Machiavelli, the force of incontinence, engendered by man’s infinite desire which lacks an infinite object, is kept in check by the forces of violence and fraud. Understood as including shrewd actions and dissimulation, fraud may even be “good.” “Freedom, reason, glory, law, ability are embedded in force, fraud, desire, chance, natural and cultural necessity. While these polarities may at times overcome one another, we must also grasp the fact that they create each other.”

R. C. Melzi. “Castelvetro’s Annotations to the Inferno: A Second Look at a Scarcely Known Manuscript.” In Italica, XL (1963), 306-319.

Argues for attribution to Castelvetro of the marginal notations in MS. a. k. 1. 13 of the Biblioteca Estense, Modena: Dante’s Commedia, with commentary by Landino (Venice, Quarengi, 1497). Designated as the Chiose, these marginal annotations are carefully compared with Castelvetro’s later Sposizione ai primi XXXIX canti dell’Inferno dantesco. Professor Melzi submits that the Ckiose is a “working copy” from Castelvetro’s liberal maturity in Modena, 1548-1558, exhibiting a profound reading of the Commedia combined with a modern aesthetic sensitivity. The Chiose is a valuable key to Castelvetro’s later work of both Dantean and Petrarchan interest and enhances his importance as a new philologist.

Sister M. Joel Micke. “An Examination of Saint Benedict’s Seventh Degree of Humility in Dante’s Earthly Paradise.” In American Benedictine Review, XIV (1963), 168-172.

Finds parallels of Saint Benedict’s seventh degree of humility in Dante’s Purgatorio XXX-XXXI, where they serve as steps to self-awareness.

Rocco Montano. Storia della poesia di Dante Napoli: Quaderni di Delta, 1962-1963. 2 v. (558, 670 p. (Quaderni di critica e testi, 2-3.)

Professor Montano’s express purpose is to re-interpret the whole of Dante in the light of our latest knowledge of the medieval world; to trace the history of Dante’s poetry, avoiding the extremes of both historical and Crocean criticism; to present organically an anthology of all necessary texts for understanding Dante’s poetry; to offer a critical commentary for guiding the reader to a unified, comprehensive view of the Comedy, based on rigorous historical awareness and quite opposed to the De Sanctis-Croce critical position; to resolve various essential problems pertaining to Dante’s poetry; and to offer a fresh reading of single major episodes in the Comedy. The work is arranged in four parts: (Vol. I:) I. Il cammino verso la verità; II. Inferno; (Vol. II:) III. Purgatorio; and IV. Paradiso; these are in turn subdivided into chapters under various topical headings. In a prefatory note, Professor Montano cites his many Dante studies previously published (especially in Delta, between 1952 and 1959), of which the present work represents a synthesis and tentative conclusion.

Charles Muscatine. “Locus of Action in Medieval Narrative.” In Romance Philology, XVII (1963), 115-122.

Contends that, like medieval art, medieval narrative, especially allegory, reflects the Gothic tension of two modes of spatial representation: the symbolic (planimetric and stylized) and the naturalistic (three-dimensional and integrated). The first expresses the immutable, moral relationships of God; the second, the turbulent, terrestrial experience of humankind. Not merely decoration or a means of effecting verisimilitude, locus was also important in organizing action and giving it meaning. Examples run from Prudentius’ Psychomachia to the Divine Comedy and later. In Dante’s art, the two modes of rendering locus stand in typically Gothic poise.

A. L. Pellegrini. “American Dante Bibliography for 1962.” In 81st Annual Report of the Dante Society (1963), 19-37.

With brief analyses.

John Pettigrew. “Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’: A Reconciliation of Opposites.” In Victorian Poetry, I (1963)27-45.

Contains references to Dante’s Ulysses, which served to inspire the complex figure of Tennyson’s poem.

Joseph Raben. “Milton’s Influence on Shelley’s Translation of Dante’s ‘Matilda Gathering Flowers.’ “ In Review of English Studies, XIV (1963)142-156.

Examines the three redactions of Shelley’s translation of Purgatory XXVIII, 1-51, which was published posthumously as “Matilda Gathering Flowers,” and finds that for his diction and imagery Shelley relied especially upon the verse of Milton, as the best model for recreating Dante in English.

Irene Samuel. “The Valley of the Serpents: Inferno XXIV-XXV and Paradise Lost X504-577.” In PMLA, LXXVIII (1963), 449-451.

Examines correspondences between Dante’s and Milton’s handling of figures of Hell in the transformation scenes to show that Milton learned much from Dante: “to people Hell with the recognizably human, to show Hell enacting its nature, and to attach finally to that enacted, recognizable, human evil such revulsion that the reader gladly escapes from Hell.”

Gian Roberto Sarolli. “Dante ‘scriba Dei.’ “ In Convivium, N.S., XXXI (1963), 385-422, 513-544, and 641-671.

Studies at length the figure of the prophet Nathan, referred to by Dante in Paradiso XII, 127 ff., in Biblical and medieval literature, and contends that this figure may be the key to solving the cruxes of the symbolical Veltro (Inf. I, 100 ff.) and DXV (Purg. XXXIII, 43). Professor Sarolli also identifies the M (Par. XVIII, 99 ff.) with the Eagle and the “Maiestas Domini-Imperatoris” by means of a Reichenau illuminated manuscript. His conclusion bears out his long accumulation of evidence in support of Dante’s sense of his own mission as scriba Dei on the example of Saint Luke and the prophet Nathan.

J. A. Scott. “Dante’s Use of the Word Intelletto.” In Italica, XL (1963), 215-224.

Takes profound issue with Donald Heiney’s study, ”Intelletto and the Theory of Love in the Dolce Stil Nuovo” (see 81st Report, 23-24), and demonstrates that, far from being a non-rational “passive sensibility of love possessed by superior souls” (Heiney), the intelletto referred to in Dante’s Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore is indeed an intellectual faculty by which the select few have real understanding of the nature of nobility and therefore of true love. (cf., e.g., Conv. IVxx, 9).

Spitzer, Leo. Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony: Prolegomena to an Interpretation of the Word “Stimmung.” Edited by Anna Granville Hatcher; preface by René Wellek. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1963. xi, (5), 232 p.

In the context of this study in “historical semantics,” combining lexicography and history of ideas, the author includes a discussion (pp. 92-95) of Dante’s harmonizing imagination and synesthetic devices in welding together not only the supernatural and the earthly spheres, but also ancient beliefs and modern techniques. The work, originally published in Traditio, II (1944), 409-464, and III ( 1945), 307-364, is here revised and expanded by Professor Hatcher. Indexed.

F. A. Stebbins. “Dante in Orbit.” In Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, LVII (1963), 210-217.

Summarizes Dante’s time references in the Divine Comedy, noting the poet’s remarkable astronomical exactitude, and points out, with reference to the Paradiso,  that Dante seems to be the first, among those who saw it simply with the mind’s eye, to see the earth from orbit. Includes two sets of illustrative diagrams.

J. G. Taaffe. “Circle Imagery in Tennyson’s In Memoriam.” In Victorian Poetry, I (1963)123-131.

Explains the circle imagery as a Dantean parallel, since Tennyson records that In Memoriam ”was meant to be a kind of Divina Commedia, ending with happiness.”

Warman Welliver. “The De vulgari eloquentia and Dante’s Quasi After-Life.” In Bernice Slote, ed., Myth and Symbol: Critical Approaches and Applications.... A Selection of Papers Delivered at the Meeting of the Midwest Modern Language Association and the Central Renaissance Conference, 1962 (Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, 1963), 162-173.

Reiterates and refines his contention in Questions of Intent . . . (q.v. infra) that Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia, Convivio, and Divina Commedia, interpreted allegorically, represent the metaphorical journey of the poet’s life from death (his exile) to salvation through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, respectively. The two prose works, accordingly, constitute only a feigned incompleteness, for all three taken together fulfill the poet’s unity of conception inspired in him shortly after his exile. It was this bold program of writing based on a metaphorical journey through the after-life that turned Dante from politics to poetry.

E. H. Wilkins. “The First Two Triumphs of Petrarch.” In Italica, XL (1963), 7-17.

Contains a brief section on Dante’s influence (pp. 15-16), citing the many fewer Dantean parallels in the later Triumphs as a reflection of Petrarch’s changed attitude toward Dante. Submitting two further instances of Dantean influence, Dr. Wilkins cites as equivalent the Massinissa-Sophonisba (Triumph of Love) and Paolo-Francesca episodes.

 

Reviews

Dante AlighieriThe Inferno. Translated by Warwick Chipman. (See 80th Report, 21-22, and 81st Report, 31.) Reviewed by:

            H. W. Hilborn, in Queen’s Quarterly, LXX (1963), 450-451.

Dante AlighieriLa Vita Nuova. Translated by Mark Musa. (See 81st Report, 20.) Reviewed by:

Morris Bishop, in Italica, XL (1963), 182-183;

G. P. Orwen, in Modern Language Journal, XLVII (1963), 347.

John ArthosDante, Michelangelo and Milton. (See above.) Reviewed by:

            {Anon.], in Times Literary Supplement, 14 Nov. 1963, p. 928.

Erich AuerbachDante: Poet of the Secular World. (See 80th Report, 23, and 81st Report, 31.) Reviewed by:

Beatrice Corrigan, in University of Toronto Quarterly, XXXII (1963), 193-198;

D. J. Donno, in Renaissance News, XVI (1963)114-115;

Francis Fergusson, in Modern Philology, LX (1963)283-286;

H. W. Hilborn, in Queen’s Quarterly, LXX (1963), 450-451.

Erich AuerbachLiteratursprache und Publikum in der lateinischen Spätantike und im Mittelalter. (See 79th Report, 40, 56, and 59.) Reviewed by:

            Oscar Büdel, in Romanische Forschungen, LXXV (1963)119-134.

Irma BrandeisThe Ladder of Vision. (See 79th Report, 41 and 52, 80th Report, 24 and 34-35, and 81st Report, 21 and 32.) Reviewed by:

            L. R. Rossi, in Italica, XL (1963)281-285.

Dorothy Bethurum, ed. Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature. (See 79th Report, 47, under Schless.) Reviewed by:

            Helaine Newstead, in Romance Philology, XVII (1963), 190-194.

Phillip DamonModes of Analogy in Ancient and Medieval Verse. (See 81st Report, 34.) Reviewed by:

            L. J. Friedman, in Romance Philology, XVII (1963), 186-190.

Enzo EspositoCritica letteraria. Rassegna degli studi sulla letteratura italiana apparsi nei periodici del 1961 (Rome: Società Editoriale Idea, 1962). (Lists 43 Dante items.) Reviewed by:

            J. G. Fucilla, in Italica, XL (1963), 195-196.

D. M. FoersterThe Fortunes of Epic Poetry. (See 81st Report, 21-22.) Reviewed by:

            B. K. Campbell, in Romance Philology, XVI (1963)384-385.

Sister Feliciana GroppiDante traduttore. 2a. edizione notevolmente accresciuta. Rome, Tipografia Poliglotta Vaticana, 1962. Reviewed by:

            H. A. Hatzfeld, in Catholic Historical Review, XLVIII (1963), 572-573.

Baxter HathawayThe Age of Criticism. (See 81st Report, 23 and 32.) Reviewed by:

Glauco Cambon, in Poetry, CII (1963), 198-201;

J. H. Whitfield, in Italian Studies, XVIII (1963), 147-150.

Italian Studies in Honor of E. R. Vincent. Edited by C. P. Brand, K. Foster, and U. Limentani. (Cambridge, Eng.: W. Heffer, 1962. (Contains three Dantean pieces by U. Bosco, C. Grayson, and F. May.) Reviewed by:

            C[harles] S[peroni], in Italian Quarterly, VII, No. 25 (1963), 60-65.

Luigi MalagoliSaggio sulla “Divina Commedia” (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1962). Reviewed by:

            Arshi Pipa, in Italica, XL (1963), 183-187.

C. S. SingletonDante Studies 2. Journey to Beatrice. (See 77th Report, 52-53, etc. Widely reviewed.) Reviewed by:

            T. G. Bergin, in Speculum, XXXVIII (1963), 501-504.

T. K. SwingThe Fragile Leaves of the Sibyl. (See 81st Report, 29-30.) Reviewed by:

H. A. Hatzfeld, in Catholic Historical Review, XLVIII (1963), 572-573;

E. C. Witke, in Speculum, XXXVIII (1963), 666-667.

Giulio ValleseDa Dante ad Erasmo (Naples: G. Scalabrini Editore, 1962. (See 81st Report, 33.) Reviewed by:

            Frank Rosengarten, in Italica, XL (1963), 192-195.

Bernard WeinbergA History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance. (See 80th Report, 33, and 81st Report, 33 and 37.) Reviewed by:

Glauco Cambon, in Poetry, CII (1963), 198-201;

C. Grayson, in Romance Philology, XVII (1963), 490-496;

Ralph Nash, in Criticism, V (1963)281-283;

J. Schoeck, in University of Toronto Quarterly, XXXII (1963), 199-204.