American Dante Bibliography for 1990

Christopher Kleinhenz 

This bibliography is intended to include all the Dante translations published in this country in 1990 and all Dante studies and reviews published in 1990 that are in any sense American. For their invaluable assistance in the preparation of this bibliography and its annotations my special thanks go to the following graduate students—past and present—at the University of Wisconsin–Madison: Fabian Alfie, Edward Hagman, Gerald NeCastro, Pauline Scott, Elizabeth Serrin, Tonia Bernardi Triggiano, Scott Troyan, Scott Visovatti, and to Adriano Comollo of Brigham Young University and Mary Refling of New York University. 

• Translations
• Studies
• Reviews

 

Translations

Alighieri, Dante. Dante’s “Il Convivio” (The Banquet). Translated by Richard H. Lansing. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1990. xxxi, 274 p. (Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Volume 65, Series B.) 

The translation is based on Maria Simonelli’s critical edition (Bologna: Pàtron, 1966) and contains an Introduction (“The Convivio in Dante’s Life,” “Artistic Achievement,” “Sources and Influences,” “Editorial Policy for This Translation”), a Select Bibliography, Notes, and an Index.

Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Life of Dante (Trattatello in Laude di Dante). Translated by Vincenzo Zin Bollettino. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1990. lxii, 97 p. (Garland Library of Medieval Literature, Volume 40, Series B.)  

The translation is based on Pier Giorgio Ricci’s edition in Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio, vol. III (Verona: Mondadori, 1965) and contains an Introduction (“The Life of the Author before the Composition of The Life of Dante,” “Artistic Achievement: Forms of The Life of Dante,” “Sources: Biography in the Middle Ages,” “Sources: Dante the Man,” “Sources: Dante the Poet,” “Dante and Boccaccio’s Influences on Realism and Vernacular Writing,” “Editorial Policy for This Translation”), a Select Bibliography, and Notes.

Shapiro, Marianne. De Vulgari Eloquentia: Dante’s Book of Exile. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. xiv, 277 p. (Regents Studies in Medieval Culture.) 

Shapiro discusses Dante’s treatise as the distinctive product of the poet’s exile, a universal statement on language that coincides with and complements his conception of Empire. The volume includes consideration of the late medieval grammarians—the modistae: Martin de Dacia, Boethius de Dacia, Johannes de Dacia, and Michel de Marbais—and their influence on Dante, as well as a new English translation of De vulgari eloquentia, which is based on Pier Vincenzo Mengaldo’s edition (Padova: Antenore, 1968). Contents: Preface; Bibliographical Note; Introduction: Dante’s Book of Exile; De Vulgari Eloquenia: A Translation; Vernacular Backgrounds; The Rules of Sir Raimon Vidal: A Translation; On the Art of Composing Poems [De la doctrina de compondre dictatz]: A Translation; Dante and the Grammarians; Conclusion: Problems and Perspectives; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Studies

Ahern, John. “Nudi Grammantes: The Grammar and Rhetoric of Deviation in Inferno XV.” In Romanic Review, LXXXI, No. 4 (November), 466–486. 

Argues that Dante’s portrayal of the sodomites owes a debt to Boncompagno da Signa, who in Rhetorica Novissima (1235) ridicules medieval grammarians for “subjecting civil laws to Priscian’s rules.” In an earlier tract (1215) Boncompagno had already put John of Salisbury’s pun on Lucan’s phrase “nudi Garamantes” to good use in his polemics against scholars who considered rhetoric to be a subdivision of grammar. Ahern believes that Dante must have been familiar with Boncompagno’s witticism, and he cites several instances in the canto where moral perversion is linked with linguistic perversion. “All the homosexual literati whom he placed in Inferno XV are ‘nudi grammantes,’” he argues, whose “deviant desire is concealed behind and inadvertently expressed in their language.”

Ahern, John. “The Reader on the Piazza: Verbal Duels in Dante’s Vita Nuova.” In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, XXXII, No. 1 (1990), 18–39. 

Dante reconciles the contradictory continuity of social and literary texts as his composition “Donne ch’avete” embraces both spoken and written paradigms of thirteenth–century Italy. While the common element of the verbal duel occasions the poem, Dante’s deeper understanding of the dynamics of written poetic composition seeks not a physical response from his lady but an invisible response from his reader. As can be detected from its very first verse “Donne ch’avete” looks to a new and larger audience for poetry.

Ahern, John. “Troping the Fig: Inferno XV 66.” In Lectura Dantis, VI (1990), 80–91.  

The familiar phrase “dolce fico” of Brunetto Latini’s prophecy to Dante reveals a powerful trope when the language of Inferno XV is examined in the context of medieval understandings of grammar and rhetoric. Gender ambiguity in Brunetto’s use of the word “fico” which means both the fig tree and the fruit and his substitution of the masculine form over “fica” suggest a certain “ungrammaticality” in his speech—a linguistic sign representative of his sin. Dante constructs a transumption whereby a series of meanings comment upon the sin of sodomy and the tradition of grammar and rhetoric.

Allan, Mowbray. “Response to Teodolinda Barolini.” In MLN, CV, No. 1 (1990), 144–146. 

The question is whether a text can generate an ontological existence. Believing that it does not, then it follows Dante cannot cause his readers hope for Virgil’s salvation when it seems clearly contradictory to Christian theology. In fact, we might even find we are more likely to reject the possibility of Virgil’s salvation because we are made more exacting connoisseurs of justice as readers than as citizens. (For Barolini’s note, see below.)

Arbery, Glenn Cannon. “Dante in Bardstown: Allen Tate’s Guide to Southern Exile.” In Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea, LXV, No. 256 (1990), 93–107. 

The presence of Dante in the poetry of Allen Tate is not an overbearing influence but rather a mode of symbolic imagination achieved by the poet with difficulty. Arbery traces this Dantean mode as found in Tate’s poem “The Swimmers.”

Ardissino, Erminia. “I Canti liturgici nel Purgatorio dantesco.” In Dante Studies, CVIII (1990), 39–65. 

Examines the hymns from the liturgy found in Purgatorio and studies how their significance in the original ecclesiastical context is transferred to and intensified in Dante’s Comedy. “Nelle brevi citazioni Dante mette in opera una tecnica allusiva che arricchisce il testo del poema, così come a sua volta il poema arricchisce e commenta il testo sacro o l’inno. Si attua una simbiosi tra testo sacro e testo poetico, l’uno chiosa l’altro in modo che i due sistemi, sacro e poetico, divengono complici di uno stesso messaggio.”

Ascoli, Albert Russell. “‘Neminem ante nos’: Historicity and Authority in the De vulgari eloquentia.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 186–231.  

It is tempting to read Dante’s seemingly minor texts, that is to say the Vita nuova, the Convivio and the De vulgari eloquentia as texts subservient to the Divine Comedy. This approach, however, overlooks possibilities for understanding how Dante employed the “minor texts” for constructing a personal and historical authority for himself in a culture deeply concerned with the nature of authority.

Baldassaro, Lawrence. “Dante’s Hardened Heart: The Cocytus Cantos.” In Lectura Dantis Newberryana... (q. v.), 3–20. 

Baldassaro examines the figure of the pilgrim in Cocytus to explain his unusual behavior there, suggesting that he is mirroring the sin of betrayal through his reactions to the other sinners. Baldassaro examines Dante’s unclear motives in kicking Bocca degli Abati and concludes that the Pilgrim is mirroring the sin being punished as a recognition of his own potential for sin. Baldassaro then analyzes the Pilgrim’s meeting with Ugolino and examines the Poet’s invective against Pisa at the end of the episode. Again, Baldassaro dismisses previous explanations, noting that Dante is calling for the destruction of an entire city—sinners and innocents—for the death of Ugolino’s four innocent children; in short, Dante would again be participating in the sin that is being punished. Finally, Dante meets Frate Alberigo in a state of physical numbness and promises to remove the ice from Alberigo’s eyes if the sinner will identify himself—another promise which Dante never intends to keep. In this way, Baldassaro argues that the icy realm of Cocytus would be the so–called objective correlative to Dante’s frozen heart, allowing him to see his own potential for sin so that he can be purified in Purgatory with humility.

Baraff, Barbara. “On the ‘Unity’ of Inferno III.” In Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 115–121. 

Taking issue with Natalino Sapegno’s claim that the third canto of the Inferno has serious structural flaws, Baraff argues that “a tightly interwoven narrative is not the only device available to an author to produce a harmonious effect” and sides with Momigliano in insisting that the canto’s unity derives from its setting, tone, and the numerous Virgilian echos. “This is one of the few episodes in the Inferno where Dante affords the reader a sweeping panorama of the landscape,” writes Baraff, who observes further that the projection of psychological mood onto physical landscape infuses the canto with an alternative type of “background” logic.

Baranski, Zygmunt G. “The Constraints of Form: Towards a Provisional Definition of Petrarch’s Triumphi.” In Petrarch’s “Triumphs”... 63–83. 

Makes passing references to Dante’s De vulgari eloquentia and Letter to Can Grande della Scala, as well as to the overall structure of the Comedy in his attempts to illustrate the unity among Petrarch’s Trionfi and to understand Petrarch’s use of allegory and symbolism in the poems. One conclusion is that, while Dante’s Comedy is a truly Christian allegory in terms of both form and symbolism, Petrarch’s Trionfi have a Christian message in an inherently pagan form and structure.

Baranski, Zygmunt G. “The Marvellous and the Comic: Toward a Reading of Inferno XVI.” In Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 72–95. 

Inferno XVI betrays a richly metaliterary character hitherto unacknowledged in the tradition of the lectura Dantis. It plays a key role in the structure of the Comedy, for it is the first canto which so insistently demands to be read, not as an autonomous unit, but as part of a broader ideological and formal framework. With Inf. XVI, Dante was intentionally forging a link between the Comedy and the multifaceted and “marvelous” nature of Geryon, and through this link, to the literary tradition as a whole. However, in order to stress the originality and range of his own poem, the Poet needed a “marvelous” being whose traditional lineaments were so vague that he could redraw them almost entirely. He did this by amplifying Geryon in such a way that, through his unique summative qualities, he would also suggest the unique nature of Dante’s own text.

Baranski, Zygmunt G. “Reflecting on Dante in America: 1949–1990.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 58–86. 

Because of its status as both aesthetic artifact and hermeneutic investigation, the Divine Comedy has provoked considerable discussion during the past forty years. Regardless of which position one takes, both are certainly allowed and indeed invited by Dante, so that it seems likely he would not be displeased by the ways in which American criticism has fed on his work.

Barber, Joseph A. “A Statistical Analysis of the Fiore.” Lectura Dantis, VI (1990), 100–122. 

Presents the results of a number of statistical analyses which consider frequencies of common verbs/words/prepositions and distributions of nouns and adjectives according to syllable length in Fiore, Dante’s Divine Comedy and Rime, and the lyrics of the Duecento, Trecento, and Antonio Pucci. From these results Barber argues that Dante is probably not the author of Fiore and suggests directions for future research on the problem.

Barolini, Teodolinda. “For the Record: The Epistle to Cangrande and Various American Dantisti.” In Lectura Dantis, VI (1990), 140–143. 

In this response to Ralph G. Hall and Madison U. Sowell’s article “Cursus in the Can Grande Epistle: A Forger Shows His Hand?” (see Dante Studies CVIII, 133), Barolini notes that the authors’ extreme polarization of American from European dantisti in the matter of the authenticity of the Epistle to Cangrande would appear to reflect their lack of understanding of this issue. They seem to have conflated the ideologies and positions taken by both sides in such a way as to blur distinctions rather than to clarify them. The confusion and lack of critical consensus about the balance of importance between the literal and the allegorical reading intended by the Poet may be due in great measure to the excessive importance granted the question of the Epistle and its paternity. Ultimately, Barolini believes that the authenticity of the Epistle may be a red herring that detours scholars from the more important issue of the Comedy’s narrative and representational strategies and its mode of signifying.

Barolini, Teodolinda. “Narrative and Style in Lower Hell.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 314–344.  

Constrained by narrative limits such as having to create presence so that he might make absence evident by means of contrast, Dante makes Hell conform to his own laws rather than God’s. Working relentlessly to situate us within his own speculum, Dante seeks to reorient us so that if we see things from within his world, we will not realize how much he deviates from God’s laws, which are not representable with conventional narrative means.

Barolini, Teodolinda. “Q: Does Dante Hope for Vergil’s Salvation? A: Why Do We Care? For the Very Reason We Should not Ask the Question (Response to Mowbray Allan [MLN, 104].” In MLN, CV, No. 1 (1990), 138–144. 

Responding to Allan’s article (see Dante Studies, CVIII, 114), Barolini notes that the Divine Comedy, accepted by readers as depicting an ontological reality with an extension into the future, gives us no reason not to hope for Virgil’s salvation. It is, however, possible to debate whether Virgil’s salvation is theologically plausible. Nevertheless, since Dante makes us care about Virgil, we can never really doubt whether Dante hopes for Virgil’s salvation.

Barolini, Teodolinda. “Second Response to Mowbray Allan.” In MLN, CV, No. 1 (1990), 147–149. 

The fact that Dante creates a possible world in such an overdetermined manner in no way collapses the distinction between the possible and real worlds. It does, however, provide Dante ample opportunity to blur distinctions so that we will collapse it for him. In the real world, theologians do not make us hope for Virgil’s salvation, but in the possible world we can. (For Allan’s first response, see above.)

Barolini, Teodolinda. “Stile e narrativa nel basso inferno dantesco.” In Lettere italiane, XLII, No. 2 (1990), 173–207. 

Italian version of “Narrative and Style in Lower Hell” (see above).

Barolsky, Paul. Michelangelo’s Nose: A Myth and Its Maker. University Park and London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990. xx, 169 p.

Contains numerous references to Dante and some specific sections on the extensive nature of Michelangelo’s “imitatio Dantis” (e.g., “Dante the Sculptor,” “The ‘Divine Comedy’ of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment,” “Dante and Saint Peter,” “Art and Purgatory,” “The Language of Dante,” etc.)

Bernardo, Aldo S. “Sex and Salvation in the Middle Ages: From the Romance of the Rose to the Divine Comedy.” In Italica, LXVII, No. 3 (1990), 305–318. 

Both the Divine Comedy and the Romance of the Rose pose, as a central moral dilemma, the ineluctable power of love. In both works the Rose symbolizes the ultimate object of human passion; in the former it represents the ultimate satisfaction of an all–consuming spiritual passion; in the latter it represents woman’s body and the protagonist’s furious need to possess it. Bernardo sees an essential connection between the two works in the fact that “both protagonists are in some ways lovers seeking satisfaction of their love.”

Bernardo, Aldo S. “Triumphal Poetry: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio.” In Petrarch’s “Triumphs”..., 33–45. 

Examines the use of the Roman triumph in canto XXIX of Dante’s Purgatorio, Boccaccio’s Amorosa Visione, and Petrarch’s Trionfi. Bernardo compares the three poets’ use of the triumph to illustrate the similarities and differences among them. First of all, Petrarch and Boccaccio, following Dante’s example, write using terza rima and the poets experience the allegorical triumphs while asleep or in a mystical vision. All three poets have their beloved as the focal point of the triumphs, as well as needing a guide who will explain the allegory to the poet. However, Bernardo also shows how these triumphal poems illustrate the differences in the three poets’ perspectives: Dante’s point of view could be called divine or omniscient, seeing the human through God’s eyes; Boccaccio’s and Petrarch’s are of a human dimension with the former’s physical love leading to a more pure love, and the latter’s glory of virtuous deeds outlasting the passage of time. Bernardo ends by demonstrating how Petrarch’s Trionfi lack the negative elements that Dante and Boccaccio’s triumphs have, explaining his greater influence on the thinkers of the Renaissance.

Biow, Douglas George. “Narrative Self–Consciousness of the Marvelous in Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, and Tasso.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LI, No. 5 (1990), 1629–A. 

Doctoral Dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University. 269 p. (Concerns primarily the episode of Polydorus.)

Bollettino, Vincenzo. “Giovanni Boccaccio: Life of Dante (Vita di Dante; Trattatello in Laude di Dante).” In Dissertation Abstracts International, L, No. 11 (1990), 3611–A. 

Doctoral Dissertation, Rutgers University, 1989. 241 p. (See above, under Translations.)

Botterill, Steven. “Dante Studies and the Study of Dante.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 88–102. 

One could hardly debate the fact that the history of Dante studies is, in fact, the history of the journal Dante Studies, yet the question remains: how did this come to be so? The article first considers how this came to be so, and second, how the prestige of Dante Studies has enabled it to function as an integral part of Dante scholarship, shaping how (primarily) American scholars regard the status of Dante’s works.

Botterill, Steven. “Inferno XXIX: Capocchio and the Limits of Realism.” In Italiana 1988... (q. v.), 23–33. 

Though most twentieth–century analysis has insisted on the realism of this canto, the author argues on the basis of the figurative language, intertextual references, and the depiction of Capocchio that the “nature and function of realism in Inferno XXIX ought to be reconsidered.” Capocchio’s aping of nature in his alchemy is linked to Dante’s mimesis of nature in his poetry. In Inferno XI Dante refers to Aristotle’s discussion of mimesis in the Physics which Aquinas used to show that imitation must be governed by moral means and ends. Capocchio, who was “damned for the moral corruption of his art,” recognizes Dante as a “spiritual kinsman” and thus serves as a warning to Dante of the potential danger of mimesis.

Botterill, Steven. “Legato con amore in un volume: Uberto Limentani and the Cambridge Lecturae Dantis.” In Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 29–35. 

A student of the late Limentani, Botterill traces his teacher’s role in the development of Dante studies at Cambridge after the Second World War. Although his major interest was not the Trecento, Limentani’s lifelong commitment to the study and teaching of Dante was always aimed at reaching as wide an audience as possible. For this and for his work for the Cambridge lecturae Dantis, he well deserves to be called a Dantist.

Botterill, Steven. “Life after Beatrice: Bernard of Clairvaux in Paradiso XXXI.” In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, XXXII, No. 1 (1990), 120–136. 

With the term “guide” reserved for Virgil and Beatrice, Bernard’s role in Paradiso is best summed up by the word “sponsor.” Neither his renown for eloquence nor his place as advocate of the Virgin makes Bernard special in Dante’s eyes. Rather it is the combination of these attributes and his representation of active contemplation that give him the responsibility, indeed privilege, of preparing Dante for the ultimate deificatory vision.

Briosi, Sandro. “Due voci per un dizionario di retorica.” In Quaderni d’italianistica, XI, No. 2 (1990), 290–298.  

In the first these two voci (“Metafora”) we find a short reference to Dante, concerning his particular, typically medieval use of metaphor and allegory.

Brogan, Jacqueline Vaught. “It Must Be Re–Newed: Dante’s Comedy and Stevens’ Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction.” In Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 122–132. 

Reviews several of Dante’s concerns, including the mutability of language, faith, and history, and emphasizes Wallace Stevens’ revision of the Comedy.

Brooker, Jewel Spears, and Joseph Bentley. Reading “The Waste Land”: Modernism and the Limits of Interpretation. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1990. xii, 239 p.

Contains numerous references to Dante.

Brown Herson, Ellen. “Oxymoron and Dante’s Gates of Hell in Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound.” In Studies in Romanticism, XXIX, No. 3 (1990), 371–393. 

Oxymoron emerges as one of the principal rhetorical figures encountered in Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound and is often suggestive of oxymoron as employed in the Divine Comedy.

Brownlee, Kevin. “Language and Desire in Paradiso XXVI.” In Lectura Dantis, VI (Spring), 46–59.  

In canto XXVI two of the Comedy’s principal themes, love and language, are treated in terms of Dante’s authority as a theologian and as a poet. By posing as a second Paul in the first part of the canto, and as a second Adam in the latter half, Dante authorizes himself as a Christian poet and legitimates his commitment to a vernacular poetics. “By Paradiso 26 erotic desire has become caritas and poetic language has become theology. But neither eros nor poetry has been displaced, or even transcended: rather, both are represented as ‘fulfilled,’ as ‘redeemed,’ within the context of what must be seen as Dante’s Incarnational poetics.”

Cachey, Theodore J., Jr. “Between Hermeneutics and Poetics: Modern American Translation of the Commedia.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 144–164. 

The range of translations provoked by a given work stands as a testament to the literary history of that text’s reception by other linguistic fields. Consequently, we expect that a work such as the Divine Comedy might produce a variety of translations arousing critical interest concerning the history and theory of translation. To date, this has not occurred, although Cachey suggests some areas for further consideration.

Carruthers, Mary J. The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. xiv, 393 p., 30 plates. 

Contains some scattered references to Dante (Divine Comedy, Vita Nuova) and one brief discussion of Paolo and Francesca’s reading of Lancelot (Inf. V) with regard to the key words “memory,” “desire,” “reading,” and “punto.”

Casagrande, Gino. “Esto Visibile Parlare: A Synaesthetic Approach to Purgatorio 10.55–63.” In Lectura Dantis Newberryana... (q. v.), 21–57. 

Casagrande first describes Dante’s use of synaesthesia in general and then gives an extensive background, including an explanation of the scholastic doctrine of the common sense (sensus communis). Using the passage from the Purgatorio (X, 55–63), he demonstrates the synaesthetic connection between the fragrance of the incense and the laud of the choirs in terms of their semantic axis, which he shows to be prayer.

Casagrande, Gino. “‘Per la dannosa colpa de la gola’ [.] Note sul contrapasso di «Inferno» VI.” In Studi Danteschi, LXII (1990), 39–52.

Examines the medieval tradition relative to the sin of gluttony and attempts to clarify the lack of certainty that characterizes both early and modern interpretations of the allegorical meaning of the rain that wastes the shades of the gluttons—specifically, the correspondence between the punishment Dante inflicts on them and the sin they committed on earth. The author cites various texts—in particular, the writings of St. Augustine and Alan of Lille—which emphasize the idea that, since the human body is formed of the earth, excessive consumption of food and drink (i.e., gluttony) reduces the body to mud, just as excessive rain reduces earth to mud. That is to say that this sin degrades the glutton and lowers him to the elemental level of the mud from which he was created, and this in accordance with the rule of the contrapasso. [GC]

Caserta, Ernesto G. “Croce’s Essay on Dante.” In Italian Culture, VIII (1990), 121–136. 

A retrospective appraisal of Croce’s La poesia di Dante in the context of nineteenth–century Dante studies and Croce’s theory of aesthetics. Croce’s essay condemned “pedantic Dantists, who had made Dante their god and worshipped him with mysterious rituals.” He worked to “demystify the Dante cult” by removing the “parasitic vegetation” that had so surrounded Dante “in order that the genuine and immortal voice of Dante might be heard.” Croce’s aesthetics insisted on the autonomy of art, the interaction between poetry and reader, and the poet’s limitations in understanding his own work. Thus, he saw nineteenth–century philological, biographical, allegorical, political, moral, aesthetic, and theological studies as only means to the end of enjoying and explaining Dante’s art. For Croce, political, theological, and philosohical concerns undergo a lyrical or aesthetic synthesis, thus creating an original work of art.

Cecchetti, Giovanni. “The Statius Episode: Observations on Dante’s Conception of Poetry.” In Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 96–114. 

A well–balanced, orderly presentation of Purgatorio XXI and XXII, which also considers such larger issues as the nature and function of poetry. Concludes that the “great meaning of the Statius episode” is its “exaltation of the redeeming power of poetry, and a consecration of Dante the poet, who writes the Commedia in order to save mankind.” While acknowledging that “Statius appears as a figura Christi,” Cecchetti argues that “the real figura Christi is poetry, which uplifts and redeems. Dante is on the one hand Statius saved through his ‘vocale spirto,’ and on the other, more importantly, Virgil, called to save the world with a new Aeneid that is also a new Bible. He is the personification of Statius and Virgil combined...and at the same time the new redeemer armed with the divine power...of poetry.”

Cervigni, Dino S. “Dante and Modern American Criticism: An Introductory Essay.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 5–28. 

Serves as an overview of the essays contained in this volume of Annali dedicated to “Dante and Modern American Criticism,” with appropriate critical commentary on each.

Cervigni, Dino S. “The Eunoè or the Recovery of the Lost Good.” In Lectura Dantis Newberryana... (q. v.), 59–80. 

According to scholastic theology, the sacrament of Penance simultaneously takes away sin and revives the soul’s lost virtues and merits. In Dante’s Earthly Paradise this takes place in two poetically distinct moments: the soul’s immersion in Lethe deletes its sinfulness, while drinking from Eunoè brings back to life the good the soul had previously done and later lost on account of sin. The author supports this thesis with extensive quotations from the Bible, particularly Ezekiel, as well as from Thomas Aquinas and several other church Fathers.

Cieszkowski, Krzysztof Z. “‘They murmuring divide; while the wind sleeps beneath, and the numbers are counted in silence’. The Dispersal of the Illustrations to Dante’s Divine Comedy.” In Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly, 23, No. 3 (Winter, 1989/90), 166–171.

Traces in detail the process whereby the series of Blake’s Dante water colors was divided and dispersed among seven institutions in 1918, and the responses such division occasioned. Both accident and design have contributed to the state of affairs in which works now in institutional collections are located in different places and are likely to stay there. The dispersal of the Dante illustrations can be adduced as an example of the principle of entropy applying to art collections and to compound works susceptible to subdivision. It would be anachronistic to criticize the process, and in any case the presence of the Blake drawings in America and Australia has had a substantial influence on the growth of Blake’s reputation outside Britain. [LW]

Chance, Jane. “Chaucer’s Zephirus: Dante’s Zefiro, St. Dominic, and the Idea of the General Prologue.” In The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England, edited by Jane Chance (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990), 177–198. 

Reviews Dante’s treatment of Zefiro in canto XII of Paradiso, which Chaucer used as a model. Argues that St. Dominic, whose birth was caused in part by Zefiro’s fructification of Castile, is a type or Christian analogue of Zefiro in restoring and tending Christ’s garden or vineyard.

Chiappelli, Fredi. “Il colore della menzogna nelle scenografie dell’Inferno.” In Lectura Dantis, VI (1990), 3–27.  

Treats the “coloration” of the landscapes of the Inferno. Chiappelli notes how the color which best characterizes the atmosphere of hell—the color purple–black (from the expression aere perso in canto V)—reflects the complete hopelessness of the damned. Other colors which the poet uses to portray various states of mind are vermillion—the color of blood—and biacca or white lead. Dante uses different colors to “tint” the conversations of the damned in such a way as to underscore the mendacity underlying their words.

Cioffi, Caron Ann. “The Sins of the Blind Father: The Statian Source for Dante’s Presentation of Ugolino in Inferno 32 and 33.” In Lectura Dantis Newberryana... (q. v.), 81–93. 

Cioffi compares and contrasts Inferno XXXII and XXXIII with various episodes in Statius’ Thebaid, suggesting that “lower Dis, like Thebes, is the ultimate disutopia.” The article focuses on three important Statian scenes: Menalippus’ mutilation of Tydeus, the violence that surrounds Oedipus’ relationship with his sons, and the betrayal of Amphiaraus. These episodes emphasize the ways in which individual acts of violence and betrayal rend the larger fabric of society—a theme that is central to the last few cantos in the Inferno.

Coiner, Nancy Lee. “The Figure in the Margins: Literary Autobiography in the Middle Ages.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, L, No. 12 (1990), 3944–A. 

Doctoral Dissertation, Stanford University, 1989. 345 p. (For Dante the author argues that “allegory’s role in self–representation stems from the way it combines figurality with temporal narrative structures” and examines “how allegorical exegesis (frame and commentary) and allegorical wordplay on the author’s name enable autobiographical discourse.”)

Colilli, Paul. “Harold Bloom and the Post–theological Dante.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 132–143. 

Dante, while virtually nowhere to be found in the work of Harold Bloom, is nevertheless a pivotal figure in the critic’s theoretical methodology, perhaps even testifying implicity in favor of the viability of his theoretical premises.

Comollo, Adriano. Il dissenso religioso in Dante. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1990. 153 p. (Biblioteca dell’”Archivum Romanicum,” 235.)  

Discusses the various heterodox movements in Dante’s day and analyzes Dante’s views on the Church and, in particular, those places in the Divine Comedy where the poet appears to depart from the official Church dogma. Contents: Premessa; Introduzione; 1. Profilo dell’eresia ai tempi di Dante (1250–1350); 2. Influenze dirette: amici, maestri, educatori; 3. Accuse, condanne, anatemi di autorità religiose e politiche contro Dante. La censura e Dante; 4. Il “messaggio” religioso–profetico di Dante nell’interpretazione della critica lungo i secoli; 5. Il topos della corruzione della chiesa nella Commedia e negli autori cattolici del tempo; 6. La storia della chiesa secondo Dante; Conclusione; Bibliografia; Indice dei nomi.

Comollo, Adriano. “Religious Dissent in Dante.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, L, No. 10 (1990), 3245–A. 

Doctoral Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1989. 301 p. (See above.)

Cornish, Alison. “The Epistle of James in Inferno 26.” In Traditio, XLV (1989–90), 367–379. 

Cornish uses St. James’ discourse on the evils of speech to explain the incongruous juxtaposition of Ulysses with Guido da Montefeltro in Inferno XXVI. While on first glance the “magnanimity of Ulysses and the pusillanimity of Guido appear most opposed,” Cornish argues that their respective acts of presumption rather than of fraudulent counsel are the basis for the canto’s contrapasso. She proposes that Dante’s addition of the image of the “fiery tongue” to the “neoplatonic commonplace of steering horses and ships” found in both works “constitutes an invective against eloquence, against philosophical overreaching, against intellectual presumption.”

Cornish, Alison. “Planets and Angels in Paradiso XXIX: The First Moment.” In Dante Studies, CVIII (1990), 1–28. 

Investigates the problems presented in the ambiguous astronomical image with which Paradiso XXIX begins and links this astronomical exordium with the initial moment in creation of the universe, particularly the seemingly paradoxical moment in which the angels were created and that in which some fell. Cornish concludes: “The astronomical exordium can indeed be seen as a representation of the first instant of creation, but of the angels rather than of the planets. The balance of the first instant corresponds to the momentary neither/nor in which the angels were created equal, undecided, in imperfect grace, and in an ambiguous half–light. Yet the twilight and dawn immediately distinguish themselves as one entity rises into a spring morning, and the other, under an autumnal sign, drops beneath the earth to night. The same simple movement yields two opposite results. In addition, the celestial zenith from which depend the two lights of heaven, as we are asked to imagine them, can then correspond to the point “dove s’appunta ogne ubi e ogne quando” on which Beatrice fixes her gaze. The universe has thus been imbalanced ever since it was released from the zenith of eternity and ubiquity—statim post. Just as the evenings and mornings of the first lines of Genesis are incomprehensible without the exaltation of angelic knowledge as their literal meaning, the significance of the opening image of Paradiso XXIX requires the same metaphysical link. Dante’s choice of the sun and the moon to evoke the temporal aporia of the world’s beginning reflects the correlation of time with celestial movement that has persisted since antiquity. The immediate admittance of evil into the pristine work of a perfect Creator is represented by the various effects of those same celestial bodies: twilight, morning, night.”

Corti, Maria. “On the Metaphors of Sailing, Flight, and Tongues of Fire in the Episode of Ulysses (Inferno 26).” In Stanford Italian Review, IX, Nos. 1–2 (1990), 33–47. 

Investigates the canto of Ulysses (Inf. XXVI) with regard to three related metaphors and their respective semantic fields and relationships with the earlier literary tradition from Augustine and Boethius to Dante: 1) sailing, 2) flight, and 3) the tongues of fire, all of which may be interpreted both allegorically and metaphorically.

Croce, Benedetto. Benedetto Croce: Essays on Literature and Literary Criticism. Annotated and Translated from the Italian with an Introduction by M. E. Moss. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. xi, 244 p. 

In addition to several references to Dante in the Introduction, the volume contains translations of Croce’s essays on Dante: “The Character and Unity of Dante’s Poetry” (69–74, 208) [“Carattere e unità nella poesia di Dante,” in La poesia di Dante] and “Dante: The Concluding Canto of the Commedia” (75–82, 209–210) [“Dante: L’ultimo canto della Commedia,” in Poesia antica e moderna].

Cuddy, Lois A. “Circles of Progress in T. S. Eliot’s Poetry: Ash–Wednesday as a Model.” In T. S. Eliot: A Voice Descanting. Centenary Essays, edited by Shyamal Bagchee (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990), 68–99.

Studies the influence of Dante and “the circular structure of Dante’s pilgrimage” on Eliot’s conception of Ash–Wednesday. Refers in particular to the following cantos in the Comedy: Inf. X and XXVI; Purg. IX, XIX, XXI, XXVI, and XXVIII.

Dante’s “Divine Comedy”: Introductory Readings. I: “Inferno.” Edited by Tibor Wlassics. Lectura Dantis VI: Supplement (Spring): Special Issue: Lectura Dantis Virginiana, I (1990).

Contains individual readings of the thirty–four cantos of Inferno, fourteen of which appeared in volumes 1–4 of Lectura Dantis. Contents: Tibor Wlassics, Presentation (3–4); Ricardo J. Quinones, I (5–16); Antonio C. Mastrobuono, II (17–27); Mario Trovato, III (28–41); Amilcare A. Iannucci, IV (42–53); Thomas Goddard Bergin, V (54–69); Denise Heilbronn, VI (70–81); Dennis Looney, VII (82–92); Christopher Kleinhenz, VIII (93–109); Joseph A. Barber, IX (110–123); Glauco Cambon, X (124–138); Pier Massimo Forni, XI (139–148); Steven Botterill, XII (149–162); Aldo Scaglione, XIII (163–172); Giuseppe C. Di Scipio, XIV (173–188); Peter Armour, XV (189–208); Susan Noakes, XVI (209–221); Paolo Cherchi, XVII (222–234); H. Wayne Storey, XVIII (235–246); Dante Della Terza, XIX (247–261); Teodolinda Barolini, XX (262–274); Egidio Lunardi, XXI (275–280); Joseph D. Falvo, XXII (281–296); Regina Psaki, XXIII (297–306); George D. Economou, XXIV (307–318); Marianne Shapiro, XXV (319–331); Ruggero Stefanini, XXVI (332–350); Lino Pertile, XXVII (351–362); Mark Parker, XXVIII (363–372); Darby Tench, XXIX (373–387); Donna Yowell, XXX (388–399); Giovanni Cecchetti, XXXI (400–411); William M. Wilson, XXXII (412–418); Robert J. Di Pietro, XXXIII (419–427); Dino S. Cervigni, XXXIV (428–438).

Dasenbrock, Reed Way. “Ezra Pound, the Last Ghibelline.” In Journal of Modern Literature, XVI, No. 4 (Spring, 1990), 511–533.

Dasenbrock argues that Pound’s anti–democratic political theories owe a great debt to Dante’s De Monarchia. He sees important parallels between Dante’s admiration of Henry VII and Pound’s admiration for Mussolini. “Dante is the poet of Ghibellinism,” he writes, “singing of the Empire that he hopes will be restored; Pound is the last Ghibelline, singing less of Empire than of Emperors and thinking that in Mussolini he has found the Great Ruler who would set the world aright.”

Davis, Charles. “Dante and Ecclesiastical Property.” In Law in Mediaeval Life and Thought, edited by Edward B. King and Susan J. Ridyard (Sewanee, Tenn.: The Press of the University of the South, 1990), 244–257. (Sewanee Mediaeval Studies, No. 5)

A general and wide–ranging examination of Dante’s ideas on ecclesiastical property and on related issues, such as Franciscan poverty, Church corruption, and the relationship between Emperor and Pope.

De Bonfils Templer, Margherita. “Le due ineffabilitadi del Convivio.” In Dante Studies, CVIII (1990), 67–78. 

Treats Dante’s twofold notion of ineffability—“inintelligibilità” and “impotenza espressiva” (Convivio III, iii)—and its dependency on William of Conches’ Glosae super Timaeum Platonis. In addition, the author notes: “Ciò che veramente s’impone attraverso una considerazione delle due ineffabilitadi dantesche del Convivio è l’assenza di una connotazione mistica delle stesse, e la preponderanza, nell’intero trattato dantesco, del problema gnoseologico come problema degli intelligibili e della intelligibilità.”

De Fazio, Marina R. “Dante Studies: A Decade of American Dissertations (1980–1989).” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 166–178. 

A useful, partially annotated bibliography of American doctoral dissertations, which focus on Dante and his works either primarily or secondarily.

De Fazio, Marina R. “The Scribe and the Inventor: The Poet in Inferno.” In Lectura Dantis, VI (1990), 60–68. 

Examines the authorial “intrusions” in Inferno. An analysis of the “author” in the Comedy, both pilgrim and artistic creation, in relation to his work brings out “an ambivalence between two conflicting notions of his role as poet”: the scribe who “humbly and faithfully” reports his experience; the inventor “whose aim is to write the poem which will rank him high among the poets of all times.” There are three types of authorial intrusions: 1) in which the “poet refers to himself in terms of his experience as a pilgrim”; 2) in which the “poet seems to acquire a historical consistency which relates to the political events of his times”; and 3) in which the “narrator shows his identity as the poet who is writing the work we are reading”. Connecting Ulysses’ “folle volo” with the narrator’s own “folle venuta,” the author argues that throughout the poem there is a struggle between poetic “humility and superiority.” Reviewing verbs of telling and narrating in the episodes of Filippo Argenti, Geryon and Pier della Vigna and their role in the analogy between the levels of journey and writing, she concludes that “the borders between truth and lie, between reality and poetic fiction, are not always easily distinguishable.”

D’Angelo, Rosetta. Il poemetto dell’«Intelligenza.» Urbino: QuattroVenti, 1990. 108 p.

Devotes the final part of the third chapter to a discussion of the influence of the poem on Dante, particularly in the idealized presentation of his lady in the Vita Nuova, Convivio and the Commedia.

Doob, Penelope Reed. The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages. Ithaca, N.Y., and London: Cornell University Press, 1990. xviii, 355 p. 

In a section devoted to Dante (“Dante’s Divine Comedy: The Labyrinthine Landscape; The Labyrinthine Journey; The Myth Transformed and Reenacted”), the author demonstrates the pattern and path of the labyrinth in the Comedy throughout which Dante “uses and corrects Virgil and Boethius.” There are three models of the labyrinth in the Comedy: “the inextricable prison–labyrinth of hell, the probative unicursal labyrinth of purgatory, and the circling spheres and souls of paradise.” Argues that the art of heaven perfects the imperfections of the other realms. Dante’s journey through the maze demonstrates that “perfect understanding is impossible, but...circuitous process is epistemologically essential.” In his manipulation and redefinition of the labyrinth, Dante, utilizing the Cretan myth, “plays virtually every role in the legend at some point.”

Durling, Robert M., and Ronald L. Martinez. Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante’s “Rime Petrose.” Berkeley–Los Angeles–Oxford: University of California Press, 1990. xii, 486 p. (A Centennial Book.) 

Contains an extended commentary on the rime petrose and on their relationship to other of Dante’s works (especially Vita Nuova, Convivio, De Vulgari Eloquentia, and Divine Comedy). The authors offer many insights on the special character of Dante’s “microcosmic poetics” which are introduced in the petrose and which will have a decided shaping effect on the conception and composition of the Divine Comedy. Investigation of the earlier literary, philosophical, and scientific traditions from which Dante drew his ideas. For the latter body of works the authors treat subjects from a wide range of sources—astronomy, astrology, zoology, mineralogy, human biology—and suggest how Dante intricately joins them in his poetry to capture the struggle of the lover with these material forces and to depict his relationship with the universe (microcosm–macrocosm). According to the authors, the notion of constant change in the sublunary sphere is central to the petrose, which deal with the cyclical change of seasons and astral influence, as well as with those forces that, like the woman’s obduracy, work against this sort of movement—the coldness of winter, the self–destructive violent negativity of the lover. An Introduction provides the pertinent scientific and philosophical background, and the first chapter analyzes the way Dante’s early work, the Vita Nuova, stems from and reflects those traditions. The next four chapters (2–5) discuss the four rime petrose, one per chapter, and the final chapter investigates the several ways in which these poems influence the Divine Comedy in theme and structure. The appendices deal with, among other things, number symbolism in the sestina metrical form and the variety of precious stones mentioned in the Paradiso, as well as texts and original English translations of the petrose, the first canzone of the Vita Nuova (“Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore”), and the incomplete second book of De Vulgari Eloquentia. Contents: Preface; Introduction; 1. Early Experiments: Vita Nuova 19; 2. The Solstice and the Human Body: “Io son venuto al punto de la rota”; 3. The Sun and the Heliotrope: “Al poco giorno e al gran cerchio d’ombra”; 4. The Poem as Crystal: “Amor, tu vedi ben che questa donna”; 5. Breaking the Ice: “Così nel mio parlar voglio esser aspro”; 6. The Rime petrose and the Commedia; Appendix 1. “Nascentis militie dies”; Appendix 2. The Numerology of the Sestina; Appendix 3. Precious Stones in the Paradiso; Appendix 4. Texts and Translations: The Rime petrose; Vita Nuova 19; De vulgari eloquentia, Book 2; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Durocher, Richard J. “Dante, Milton, and the Art of Visible Speech.” In Comparative Literature Studies, XXVII, No. 3 (1990), 157–171. 

Dante’s influence on Milton’s treatment of the “archetypal sinner’s allegorical history” and the “pilgrim’s fitful visionary return to God,” largely unappreciated to date, is clear in a comparison between Purgatorio and Books XI–XII of Paradise Lost. The author argues that, “while distancing himself from Dante’s theology, Milton applauds Dante’s art,” especially his narrative devices. The series of artworks in cantos X through XVII are reflected in Adam’s vision of the future in Book XI. Milton also parallels “Dante’s strategy of describing his participation in various sins,” and the “cycles of vision–response–correction.” The Paradise available to humans is “a paradise within.” Though both Dante the pilgrim and Adam have ascended in visions of God, only Dante “continues to rise to apprehend Paradise restored.”

Erasmi, Gabriele. “Petrarch’s Trionfi: The Poetics of Humanism.” In Petrarch’s “Triumphs”..., 161–174. 

The catalyst of Petrarch’s Trionfi lies in the poet’s renewal of the notion of the triumphal procession which gives the work not only form and unity but also allows deployment of the catalogue. A narrative created by a visual compendium of biblical, classical and modern exempla demonstrates meditation of ancient thought under the stimulus of modern preoccupations defining a certain poetics of humanism. References contrasting particular characteristics and episodes of the Divine Comedy are made under closer examination of the Triumphus amoris.

Evans, Cynthia. “Can an ‘Old, Dead Classic’ Be Revived?” In Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching, n.s., I, No. 2 (1990), 21–28. 

Explains some approaches to classroom study of the Inferno, including creating illuminated manuscripts and physical models of the landscape. The use of “dialectical journals” in which students summarize some aspect of the poem on one page and give personal reactions on the facing page generates critical thinking.

Faraci, Mary. “Inferno XIII in the Hands of an Intellectual.” In Language and Style, XXIII, No. 3 (Summer, 1990), 273–282.

Argues that in the essay, “Speech and Language in Inferno XIII,” Leo Spitzer is “Dante’s best reader” of this particular canto. Suggests that the “theme of freedom of speech is the theme of Spitzer’s essay and of Dante’s canto. It is the problem of readers and their indifference, however, that has excluded the creative response from speaking for itself in the even, easy narrative tones of textbook introductions to Dante and Dante scholarship. In Spitzer’s hands, the style of the canto reflects the education and patience of Dante as he struggles to create an audience for the theme of liberty and community.”

Ferrucci, Franco. Il poema del desiderio: Poetica e passione in Dante. Milano: Leonardo, 1990. 296 p.

Wide–ranging investigation of Dante’s creative ambition which “ha contribuito a mutare lo spessore filosofico di un discorso secolare orientando il tema del desiderio in una direzione imprevista. Se, contro ogni insegnamento della patristica cristiana, l’oggetto supremo del desiderio—il mondo divino—diviene rappresentabile, e se, in un gesto di aperta effrazione, è possibile penetrare nel sovramondo, allora viene stabilita la supremazia dell’arte sulla teologia; e se il mondo di Dio è descrivibile, ogni altro mondo può essere descritto.” Contents: 1. Vita nuova; 2. Il colle, il sole, il pelago, la selva; 3. Comedìa; 4. L’opera–nave e l’opera–pianta; 5. Parabola e similitudine nella Commedia; 6. Dal poema narrativo alla sacra rappresentazione; 7. La dialettica del desiderio; 8. Come Dante ha creato la letteratura moderna; Indice dei nomi.

Fleming, John V. Classical Imitation and Interpretation in Chaucer’s Troilus. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. xviii, 276 p. 

Contains a number of references to Dante.

Forni, Pier Massimo. “Boccaccio’s Answer to Dante.” In Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea, LXV, 256 (1990), 71–82. 

Contrasts aspects of the artistic personalities of Dante and Boccaccio, using the Comedy and the Decameron as primary references. Dante’s tendency to judge and pigeonhole stands in contrast to Boccaccio’s more conciliatory style, his “concessive nonchalance.”

Gilewicz, Magdalena. “The Strategies of Allegory in Dante, Spenser, and Conrad.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LI, No. 6 (1990), 2010–A. 

Doctoral Dissertation, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1989. 267 p.

Grace, John Patrick. “Dante’s Polemic against Greed and His Portrait of Saint Francis.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, L, No. 12 (June), 3972–A. 

Doctoral Dissertation, University of North Carolina, 1988. 176 p.

Grlic, Olga. “Four Virgilian Heroes in Canto 1 of the Inferno.” In Stanford Italian Review, IX, Nos. 1–2 (1990), 49–52. 

Discusses briefly Dante’s moral and political reasons for the grouping of the four figures of Camilla, Eurylus, Nisus, and Turnus in Inferno I (vv. 106–108). “For Dante, these Virgilian characters represent the victims of greed signified by the lupa: he sees them united in their desire for spoils, which blinded them to the real causes and issues of the war and ultimately caused their downfall.”

Gunzberg, Lynn M. “‘Nuotando altrimenti che nel Serchio:’ Dante as Vademecum for Primo Levi.” In Reason and Light: Essays on Primo Levi, edited by Susan R. Tarrow (Ithaca, N.Y.: Center for International Studies, Cornell University, 1990), 82–98. (Western Societies Program, Occasional Paper No. 25.) 

Examines Levi’s use of Dante’s Inferno (particularly cantos XXI–XXII) for his Survival in Auschwitz. “Levi found that Dante had provided him with a way to make sense of the experience, with a precise, detailed, medieval but universal and rational conceptualization of the irrational. The Dantean model, evoked by the several direct citations and allusions throughout Survival in Auschwitz, helped Levi relate his experience in terms which were familiar to Italian readers.”

Hall, Ralph G., and Madison U. Sowell. “On Dante and “Cursus”: A Brief Response to “For the Record.” In Lectura Dantis, VI (1990), 143–144. 

Written in reaction to Teodolinda Barolini’s response (“For the Record...” for which see above) to their earlier article (“Cursus in the Can Grande Epistle...” for which see Dante Studies, CVIII, 133). Reasserting their belief in the inauthenticity of the Epistle to Can Grande, Hall and Sowell underline the fact that Barolini’s response was not based on the evidence they had offered, clarify the American/European split on the issue, and argue that, though the Comedy is best approached through the text itself, the “privileging of the Pseudo–Dantean Epistle” will continue to distract us from doing so.

Harrison, Robert Pogue. “Phenomenology of the Vita nuova.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 180–184. 

Dante’s Vita nuova is the literary testimony of his probing the meaning of the life and death of Beatrice as giving rise to a certain transcendence inexplicable because of the finite nature of time. Hence, the Vita nuova provides a phenomenological testament unlike what we might reasonably expect to find embedded in the timelessness of the Divine Comedy.

Harrison, Robert Pogue. “Vision and Revision: The Provisionary Essence of the Vita Nuova.” In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, XXXII, No. 1 (1990), 6–17. 

Whether the ending of the Vita Nuova constitutes a “rifacimento,” one which recognizes the episodes of the “donna gentile” as the libello’s original final chapters, remains an enigma by way of solely philological interpretations. Instead, the work’s revisionary narrative throughout and remarkable use of the subjunctive at the end create an ending which extends into provisionary time, providing both a closure for the libello and an opening for the ultimate vision in the Comedy. (This essay constitutes the last chapter of author’s book The Body of Beatrice, see Dante Studies, CVII, 139–140.)

Hart, Thomas Elwood. “The Cristo–Rhymes, the Greek Cross, and Cruciform Geometry in Dante’s Commedia: ‘giunture di quadranti in tondo’.” In Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, CVI, Nos. 1–2 (1990), 106–134. 

Intrigued by the fact that the Cristo–rhymes in cantos XIV and XIX of the Paradiso appear in exactly the same lines (104, 106, and 108), Hart undertakes a series of geometric calculations to discover whether Dante had used Archimedes’ ratios (used to calculate the circumference of a circle) to predetermine the precise location of all four of the Comedy’s Cristo–rhymes. The Cristo–rhymes occur at amazingly proportional intervals, suggesting the quadrants of a circumscribed Greek cross (two equal diameters at right angles).

Hatcher, Elizabeth R. “Dante, psychoanalysis, and the (erotic) meaning of meaning.” In Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, LIV (1990), 353–367. 

Using a history–of–ideas approach, Hatcher examines the roots of the polysemous interpretation of dream–symbolism on the part of modern psychoanalysts; this she traces to the medieval practice of the polysemous interpretatation of reality, illustrated through Dante’s poetics which operate on a literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical level. She also sketches the autobiographical elements which operate within the Comedy.

Havely, N. R. “Brunetto and Palinurus.” In Dante Studies, CVIII (1990), 29–38. 

Studies the complex interplay between the Palinurus episode in Virgil’s Aeneid and the Pilgrim’s encounter with Brunetto Latini (Inferno XV), and in particular the significance of the displacement of mentors: respectively of Palinurus by the Sibyl and of Brunetto by Virgil.

Hollander, Robert. “The ‘Canto of the Word’ (Inferno 2).” In Lectura Dantis Newberryana... (q. v.), 95–119. 

Examines the intensely discursive nature of the canto by explicating the seven “speeches” found therein. Central to the discussion is the relationship between the power of the word and poetic authority, and Hollander examines the process by which the authority of Virgil is diminished, while that of Dante is heightened.

Hollander, Robert. “Purgatorio II: The New Song and the Old. In Lectura Dantis, VI (1990), 28–45.  

Argues that no matter how beautiful the Comedy “was for its maker and is for its readers, Dante composed it with the intent to censure a merely aesthetic appreciation of the text.” Having reviewed Virgil and Dante’s inadequacies as poets and guides, the author decides that the allegory in Purgatorio II is closer to that described in Convivio II.i than that in the Epistle to Cangrande. Dante’s insistence on the “experiential veracity” of his voyage shows that Dante’s “poetics forced him to pretend” that his poem enters “the continuum of history rather than remaining suspended in the excogitations of timeless allegoresis.” In any case, “Dante continues to act, as does Casella, in ways that recall his former rather than his hoped–for future life.” They, like the reader, are lost in the beauty of the old song and forget the new song.

Howard, Lloyd. “Linguistic Patterns and Internal Structure in Five canti of the Inferno.” In Quaderni d’italianistica, XI, No. 1 (1990), 85–90. 

In Inferno VI Ciacco notes that other political worthies are found in Hell, thus preparing Dante the Pilgrim and the reader for subsequent cantos in which these individuals are presented as politicians. While these worthies have certain similarities, the episodes in which they are presented are joined through formulas of linguistic repetition which make these connections clear.

Iannucci, Amilcare A. “Casella’s Song and Tuning of the Soul.” In Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea, LXV, No. 256 (1990), 27–46. 

The Pilgrim’s passage from the total disorder of Hell to Purgatory is meant to be a reclamation and reaffirmation of the order that governs the universe. In Purgatorio II this is symbolized by Dante’s recovery of music and the harmony that it represents. Iannucci gives a fuller musical interpretation of this canto, one that takes into account the three categories encompassed by the medieval concept of music: cosmic, human, and sonorous.

Iannucci, Amilcare A. “Forbidden Love: Metaphor and History.” Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Università di Siena, XI (1990), 341–358.

This volume of the journal contains the Atti del Convegno su Antioco Malato: Forbidden Loves from Antiquity to Rossini, Siena 18–20 maggio 1989. Examines Inferno V in light of the myth of Venus and Mars—love and war, passion and destruction—and in a political perspective, i.e., the consequences for society of the acts of “forbidden love” (fole amor) of the peccator carnali. Concentrates on the immediate and effective nature and the dramatic quality of Dante’s spare, psychological presentation of Paolo and Francesca, two contemporary historical figures.

Italiana 1988, Selected Papers from the Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Italian. (November 18–20, 1988). Monterey, Calif., 1990. Edited by Albert N. Mancini, Paolo A. Giordano, and Anthony J. Tamburri. Rosary College Italian Studies, 4 (River Forest, Ill.). 

Contains articles on Dante by Steven Botterill and Christopher Kleinhenz. Each essay is listed separately in this bibliography under the individual author’s name.

Kallendorf, Craig. “Nachleben.” In Vergilius, XXXVI (1990), 82–98.  

The article is part of a special report on “Vergilian Scholarship in the Nineties: A Panel Sponsored by the Vergilian Society of America” and contains a section devoted to Virgil in Dante with abundant references to current scholarship on the topic.

Kay, Richard. “Dante’s Acrostic Allegations: Inferno XII.” In Res Publica Litterarum, XIII (1990), 123–135. 

Complements two earlier articles concerning “Dante’s acrostic allegations” in Inferno XI (see Dante Studies, CVI, 138 and 155). Connects various sequences of the first syllables of tercets to other works, including Dante’s own, which contain discussions of the material at hand. Examines verses in relation to their sources, including Aristotle, Ovid, Aquinas, Orosius, and St. Paul.

Kenney, Catherine. The Remarkable Case of Dorothy L. Sayers. Kent, Ohio, and London: The Kent State University Press, 1990. xvii, 309 p.

Contains numerous references to Dorothy Sayers as translator and interpreter of Dante.

Kim, Myungbok. “The Poetics of Praeludere: Dante and Wordsworth.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, L, No. 11 (1990), 3579–A. 

Doctoral Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, 1989. 177 p. (A comparative/contrastive study of the Vita Nuova and Wordsworth’s The Prelude as preparatory to their projected works: the Divine Comedy and the Recluse. Examines the notion of the “productivity of poetry–writing: what gets its started and what keeps it going.”)

King, Roma A., Jr. The Pattern in the Web: The Mythical Poetry of Charles Williams. Kent, Ohio, and London: Kent State University Press, (1990). x, 189 p. 

Contains numerous references to Dante.

Kirkpatrick, Robin. “Dante’s Beatrice and the Politics of Singularity.” In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, XXXII, No. 1 (1990), 101–119. 

This essay explores the notion of individuality and Dante’s experimentation with selfhood as they are manifested in his writings, especially through the figure of Beatrice. An understanding of the poet’s singularity rests primarily upon an examination of portions of the Vita Nuova and the Comedy, with particular emphasis on the last cantos of Purgatorio.

Klein, Ilona. “Dante and the Franciscan Movement.” In Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea, LXV, No. 256 (1990), 7–16. 

Intended for a general audience, this essay briefly sketches the life and influence of St. Francis and his Order on the philosophy of Dante. Gives special emphasis to the necessity of a return to apostolic poverty in order to achieve a genuine reform of the Church.

Kleiner, John. “The Eclipses in the Paradiso.” In Stanford Italian Review, IX, Nos. 1–2, 5–32. 

Examines Dante’s use of shadows and eclipses in the Paradiso, particularly in cantos II, X, and XXIX where they “mark each of the critical thresholds crossed by the pilgrim. These shadows...compromise paradise’s pure light to produce a legible display; each liminal shadow is both an imperfection or impurity and a sign.” Because the eclipses have a “disruptive effect,” they may be seen as “threats to the Paradiso’s intelligibility, ...genuine obstacles to interpretive process.” However, Kleiner argues that the eclipses play a crucial role in the interpretive structure in the poem.

Kleiner, John. “Finding the Center: Revelation and Reticence in the Vita Nuova.” In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, XXXII, No. 1 (1990), 85–100. 

The centered pattern of the Vita Nuova is imperfect as the work strains toward two centers: one which is marked at chapter XXIII (where the poet’s revelatory vision of Beatrice’s death occurs) and at chapter XXVIII (where the real event is quietly recorded). The formal transposition of poems and their “divisioni” and Dante’s use of the introductory words “appresso” and “poi” attest to this opposing configuration. The instability of the Vita Nuova’s center discloses a crisis and, at the same time, reaffirms its central importance.

Kleinhenz, Christopher. “American Dante Bibliography for 1989.” In Dante Studies, CVIII (1990), 113–172. 

With brief analyses.

Kleinhenz, Christopher. “Biblical Citation in Dante’s Divine Comedy.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 346–359.  

Dante’s biblical allusions call forth biblical texts in a variety of manners, creating a “poetics of citation.” Since Dante integrates biblical passages in a way that often forces reconsideration of the citation’s usage, he simultaneously calls forth the written and visual traditions attached to the specific text, thus moving the reader beyond the textual limits established by the Divine Comedy itself.

Kleinhenz, Christopher. “Dante and the Tradition of Visual Arts in the Middle Ages.” In Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea, LXV, No. 256 (March), 17–26. 

The visual character of much of Dante’s imagery is well recognized. This essay, which in its oral presentation was illustrated with slides, surveys briefly some of the most important of the visual images found in the Comedy. Considers the iconographical elements which Dante has assimilated from the earlier artistic tradition and provides examples which illustrate the Comedy’s impact on the subsequent artistic tradition up to the present day.

Kleinhenz, Christopher. “Dante as Reader and Critic of Courtly Literature.” In Courtly Literature: Culture and Context: Selected Papers from the 5th Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, Dalfsen, The Netherlands, 9–16 August, 1986), edited by Keith Busby and Erik Kooper (Amsterdam and Philadelphia, Penn.: John Benjamins, 1990), 379–393. 

Throughout his works, Dante develops a new attitude toward cortesia, one springing from spiritual origins and deriving its impetus and characterstics from the right ordering of the soul in accordance with God’s will and divine plan. As the poet develops this new attitude toward the court and courtliness, he shows himself to be not only a careful reader, but also an astute critic of courtly literature. In the Divine Comedy, the secular tradition comes to its inevitable end and is replaced by its spiritual counterpart.

Kleinhenz, Christopher. “The Poetics of Citation: Dante’s Divina Commedia and the Bible.” In Italiana 1988... (q. v.), 1–21. 

Investigates Dante’s technique in the Comedy of evoking the Bible through the use of an exact or modified version of the Latin text or an Italian translation or paraphrase of the Vulgate. While using some scriptural citations simply for their immediate evocative value, Dante employs many others whose function in the text may be fully understood only through a careful consideration of the larger context established by the Bible and the biblical commentary tradition. Analyzes, in particular, the episode of Farinata in Inferno X to order to demonstrate how meaning is generated by a remarkable conjunction of individual words, complete phrases, and images, through which Dante draws attention to the specific biblical text and its larger referential context of the Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection. These considerations are set in motion by Dante’s insistence on the biblical citation—“la tua loquela ti fa manifesto” (X, 25)—which sets in motion the entire series of intertextual connections.

Knoespel, Kenneth J. “When the Sky Was Paper: Dante’s Cranes and Reading as Migration.” In Lectura Dantis Newberryana... (q. v.), 121–146. 

Drawing on sources as varied as Homer and Derrida, the author considers the topos of bird formations as a representation of words and argues that Dante’s use of the figure “quite literally works to instruct readers how, exerting, vigilance and diligence, they should negotiate their way through the narration.” The image of “ordered groups of cranes,” for the Roman poets a military metaphor and for the church fathers a model for monastic obedience, becomes for Dante a “model for politicians and poets.” It is not only a pattern of words but a “migratory procession...of evolving illumination” for both the reader and Dante the pilgrim. The last part of the essay explores Dante’s hermeneutical method, showing that the Comedy “is not simply a field in which to identify topoi, but a philosophical narrative that challenges readers constantly to negotiate meaning.”

Koslow, Francine A. “Fantastic Illustrations to Dante’s Inferno: Romantic and Contemporary Visions.” In Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, II, No. 4 (1990), 133–143.

General discussion of the illustrative tradition of the Divine Comedy with specific treatment of the representations of the lustful (Inf. V) by William Blake, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Gustave Doré and Auguste Rodin, and of the Ugolino episode (Inf. XXXIII) by Jean Baptiste Carpeaux, Henri Fuseli and Rico LeBrun. Attention is also given to Robert Rauschenberg’s drawings for the Inferno.

Koterski, Joseph W., S. J. “Messianic Expectations in the Fourteenth Century.” In Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea, LXV, No. 256 (1990), 47–58. 

Christopher Dawson has emphasized that reform movements in the Church helped to stimulate the creation of a Christian culture. Dante’s political vision and his attacks on a corrupt Church are situated within the context of papal reforms going back to Hildebrand. His own hope for a political solution and his expectation of an apocalyptic transformation are contrasted with the vision presented in Piers Plowman.

Kuehn, Heinz R. “A Descent into Hell.” In Sewanee Review, XCVIII, No. 2 (1990), 324–329. 

Review of Jeffrey Burton Russell, The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1988), which treats in part the “diabology of Dante.”

La Favia, Louis M. “Thomas Aquinas and Siger of Brabant in Dante’s Paradiso.” In Lectura Dantis Newberryana... (q. v.), 147–172. 

After providing an extensive biographical and historical background to Siger of Brabant and the controversies surrounding him, La Favia attempts to account for Siger’s presence in the Heaven of the Sun. Rejecting the solutions of Madonnet, Van Steenberghen, Gilson and Nardi, he attempts to ascertain what Dante could have known about Siger and Averroes and how he himself regarded them. Siger is not exclusively a symbol of pure philosophy, but of philosophy buttressed in its limitations by theology. The juxtaposition of Siger and Aquinas exemplifies perfectly the underlying theme of the canto: concordia discors.

Lectura Dantis Newberryana, Volume II. Lectures presented at the Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois, 1985–1987. Edited by Paolo Cherchi and Antonio C. Mastrobuono. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1990. viii, 186 p. 

Contains essays by Lawrence Baldassaro, Gino Casagrande, Dino S. Cervigni, Caron Ann Cioffi, Robert Hollander, Kenneth J. Knoespel, Louis M. La Favia, and Michelangelo Picone. Each essay is listed separately in this bibliography under the individual author’s name.

Lindheim, Nancy. “Body, Soul, and Immortality: Some Readings in Dante’s Commedia.” In MLN, CV, No. 1 (1990), 1–32. 

Argues that images of the body are for Dante a nexus of hope and faith in an eternal material reality. Dante’s belief in a bodily resurrection and his deep and ardent respect for human relationships motivate his anti–Averroism. Whenever the body becomes a subject of discourse—in the canto of the suicides, for example, or Manfred’s interest in his body’s reburial—it serves as a reminder of how human gestures, often motivated by a momentary impulse, resound with eternal value. “The resurrection of the body...is for Dante a guarantee of the permanent importance of the individual person’s life in this world.”

Lollini, Massimo. “Ineffabilità, retorica e amicizia. Percorsi di una teoria della testimonianza in Dante e Agostino.” In NEMLA Italian Studies, XIII–XIV (1989–90), 5–21. 

Discusses the three topoi of inexpressibility, affected modesty and the exordium (and their interrelationships), as well as the theme of friendship, in the classical and medieval tradition and as they appear in the works of Dante, and particularly in the final canto of Paradiso with the beatific vision. “Possiamo concludere allora che l’ineffabilità della gloria divina, non rappresenta l’autentica conclusione del viaggio dantesco, ma piuttosto lo strumento retorico e poetico attraverso cui Dante ci ricorda che noi stiamo leggendo un’opera poetica che cerca di descrivere qualcosa che non può essere esaurito dalle parole umane, se non nei termini di una incessante interpretazione e di una continua ricerca di senso.”

Looney, Dennis. “Purgation and Emendation of a Simile: Purgatorio VI and VII.” In Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 133–141. 

Suggests that the introductory simile in Purgatorio VI that likens the pilgrim to the game–winner is rewritten in the following canto where Virgil would be seen as the loser. Looney argues that this sort of rewriting/reworking or transformation is central to Dante’s poetics of the Purgatorio, as is the analogy between the human soul, which gradually moves upward toward perfection, and the poet’s progess toward holiness, which is officially recognized at the conclusion of canto XXVII. This reconciliation of “matera” and “arte” has a complement in these cantos in the discussion of prayer and its power to amend defects.

Lund–Mead, Carolynn Ruth. “The Pilgrimage of the Son to the Father in the Works of Virgil, Dante and Milton.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, L, No. 9 (1990), 2889–A. 

Doctoral Dissertation, University of Toronto, 1989.

Martinez, Ronald (Joint author). See Robert M. Durling, Time and the Crystal...

Mastrobuono, Antonio C. Dante’s Journey of Sanctification. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1990. xiii, 279 p. 

Mastrobuono argues for a correction of Charles Singleton’s view expressed in Journey to Beatrice that, in his words, “Dante’s journey through Inferno and Purgatory under the guidance of Virgil is a preparation for santifying grace, which Dante supposedly receives at the advent of Beatrice on the mountaintop of Purgatory.” Mastrobuono’s premise is that “Singleton’s thesis...is based on an erroneous interpretation of St. Thomas, and that Dante’s journey under Virgil’s guidance through Inferno and Purgatory is an effect of (not a preparation for) sanctifying grace, which Dante has already received before entering the world beyond.” Chapter I is devoted to the exposition of this point. In Chapter II, Mastrobuono provides further documentation in support of his view (expressed in his book, Essays on Dante’s Philosophy of History, see Dante Studies, XCVIII, 168) that “the first day in Purgatory is not Easter Sunday as most critics believe. It is, instead, simply a day in Purgatory corresponding to the Vigil Night of Holy Saturday in Jerusalem.” Chapter III reproduces an earlier essay on the interpretation of Beatrice’s prophecy concerning the “cinquecento diece e cinque” (see Dante Studies, CVII, 150). In the Appendix Mastrobuono presents the extensive second part of his two–part review of the volume by John Freccero, Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, concentrating on his “interpretations concerning individual parts of the Comedy” (for the first part of this review, see the item below). Contents: Acknowledgments; Preface; I. Sanctifying Grace: Justification and Merit; II. This is the day the Lord has made; III. The Powerful Enigma: A Mortification of the Intellect; Appendix: Review Article: A Book Twenty–Five Years in the Making.

Mastrobuono, Antonio C. “Review Article: A Book Twenty–Five Years in the Making.” Italian Culture, VIII (1990), 13–37. 

Review–article of the volume by John Freccero, Dante: The Poetics of Conversion (See Dante Studies, CV, 148). In this first part of a two–part review (for the second part, see the Appendix in Mastrobuono’s Dante’s Journey of Sanctification, above) the author treats Freccero’s “view of the poem as a whole.”

McGregor, James H. “Is Beatrice Boccaccio’s Most Successful Fiction?” In Texas Studies in Literature and Language”, XXXII, No. 1 (1990), 137–151. 

In his Trattatello in laude di Dante Boccaccio “reveals” Beatrice’s historical identity in order to manipulate her role in Dante’s spiritual and literary development. In order to establish his own vision of Dante and his work—one more in keeping with emerging Renaissance ideals—Boccaccio diminishes the place of Beatrice, especially as she is represented in the Vita Nuova.

Montano, Rocco. “Il commento alla Divina Commedia di Charles S. Singleton.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 104–114. 

Argues that Singleton’s work fails, in many ways, to provide the basic ideas and information that one should find in a commentary two thousand pages long. Singleton does not generally address the major esthetical and philosophical problems involved in the text, but, on those occasions when he does, this is done with confusion and misunderstanding.

Narducci, Rinamaria. “I poeti in volgare del De vulgari eloquentia.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LI, No. 5 (1990), 1632–1633–A. 

Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. 194 p.

Noakes, Susan. “Hermeneutics, Politics, and Civic Ideology in the Vita Nuova: Thoughts Preliminary to an Interpretation.” In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, XXXII, No. 1 (1990), 40–59. 

Dante’s new vernacular style seeks to find the middle ground of the sociopolitically disparate environment of his time by espousing an idealized hermeneutic practice. By building a linguistic framework upon the interplay between stable and shifting meanings Dante creates a lay literature which serves to attract a new readership. External, internal and theoretical approaches suggest that the Vita Nuova should be, on a certain level, integrated into the corpus of Dante’s political works.

Nolan, Edward Peter. Now through a Glass Darkly: Specular Images of Being and Knowing from Virgil to Chaucer. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, (1990). 316 p. 

Chapter 7 (“The Descending Dove: Dante’s Francesca as the Anti–Beatrice”) deals specifically with Dante’s representation of figures as texts and mirrors of recte legendi, right reading. By tracking discourses and authoritative sources quoted and alluded to which represent thoughts and feelings in Dante’s and Chaucer’s characters, we gain insight which facilitates our assessment of these characters as literary constructs and as implied human beings suffering into truth.

Parel, A. J. “Machiavelli’s Use of Civic Humanist Rhetoric.” In Rhetorica, VIII, No. 2 (1990), 119–136.  

Machiavelli’s discussion of Trajan in his Protestatio di iustitia relies on Dante’s version of the legend in Purgatorio X, 73–93, though Dante emphasizes faith rather than justice.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. Eternal Feminines: Three Theological Allegories in Dante’s “Paradiso.” New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, (1990). xiii, 144 p. (Mason Welch Gross Lecture Series.) 

Discusses the three “eternal feminines”—Beatrice, the Church, and the Virgin Mary (which are “historical, and yet allegorical, and therefore theological”) and their interrelationships and position in the ideological structure of the poem—and investigates the larger question of the theology of the interaction between this world and the next in Christian thought and in the Divine Comedy. Pelikan is thus able to analyze the Paradiso as a whole and to address, as well, questions concerning monasticism, papal politics, the medieval ideas on justice, power and wisdom, and Dante’s relationship to Augustine and Boethius. Contents: Preface; Abbreviations; Prologue: Tre Donne; The Otherworldly World of the Paradiso; Lady Philosophy as Nutrix and Magistra; Beatrice as Donna Mia; The Church as Bella Sposa; Mary as Nostra Regina; Epilogue: Wisdom as Sophia and Sapienza; Bibliography.

Pertile, Lino. “La punta del disio: storia di una metafora dantesca.” In Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 3–28. 

Through semantic and intertextual analyses Pertile discusses 1) the way in which Dante follows the mystic Christian tradition adopting erotic terminology to express the desire to be with God and 2) how Dante goes beyond this tradition by using this terminology also for the desire of kwowledge. In this identity of the search for God and the search for knowledge there is further evidence of the common inspiration of both the Convivio and the Divine Comedy.

Petrarch’s “Triumphs”: Allegory and Spectacle. Edited by Konrad Eisenbichler and Amilcare A. Iannucci. Toronto: Dovehouse Editions, 1990. xv, 420 p. (University of Toronto Italian Series, 4.) 

The volume is based on a symposium held at the University of Toronto, May 1–3, 1987. Contains essays which deal in part with Dante by Zygmunt G. Baranski, Aldo S. Bernardo, Gabriele Erasmi, and Massimo Verdicchio. Each essay is listed separately in this bibliography under the individual author’s name.

Picone, Michelangelo. “Poetic Discourse and Courtly Love: An Intertextual Analysis of Inferno 5.” In Lectura Dantis Newberryana... (q. v.), 173–186. 

Picone defends the view that the Comedy—and Inferno V in particular—represents Dante’s rewriting and correcting of the Arthurian romances and their language of desire. The poet’s intention is disclosed by his use of the word menare. In contrast to the ill–directed language of desire found in the romantic tradition and epitomized by Francesca, Dante’s language of desire is correctly oriented toward its divine source, caritas.

Potter, Joy Hambuechen. “Beatrice, Dead or Alive: Love in the Vita Nuova.” In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, XXXII, No. 1 (1990), 60–84. 

Identifies numerous textual elements of the Vita Nuova in terms of a power struggle. Dante’s attempt to free himself from the sensual power of Beatrice centers basically on linguistic maneuvers which seek to defeminize her character and on various distancing devices deployed by the work as a “Book of Memory.” In this way Dante creates an “Otherness” for Beatrice, one which no longer shares in sexuality and hence prepares her for her role in the Divine Comedy, while also asserting the poet’s place in the male domain of literature.

Potter, Joy Hambuechen. “Glauco Cambon.” In Lectura Dantis, VI (1990), 123–139. 

A sensitive review and appreciation of the late comparatist’s many contributions to Dante criticism (e.g., Dante’s Craft [see Dante Studies, LXXXVIII, 179]).

Preston, Janet L. “Dantean Imagery in Blue Velvet.” Literature/Film Quarterly, XVIII, No. 3 (1990), 167–172. 

Notes the thematic and symbolic correlations between the Divine Comedy and the film “Blue Velvet.” Each work represents an “initiation journey” through realms of depravity in pursuit of self–knowledge. The article notes the use of color and imagery to evoke a subterranean world with specific references to Dante’s Inferno; in particular, the author notes a connection between Dorothy Vallen’s apartment and Dante’s seventh circle of Hell. Whereas Dante is ultimately saved by his love for Beatrice, the salvation of the film’s protagonist is provisional, marked by ambiguity and temporality. In pointing out the thread of paradox that runs throughout the film, Preston argues for “Blue Velvet” as a revision of the Comedy in which “Beatrice” is tainted and “Dante’s” future is uncertain.

Quinn, William A. “Dante in the Trenches: Doctrinaire Irony at a State University.” In Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea, LXV, No. 256 (1990), 59–70. 

The author relates his experience in teaching the Inferno at the University of Arkansas to students whom he categorizes as being neither heathens, heretics, or hedonists. Notes that in the context of a secular university an ironic approach to the work has served him well.

Quinones, Ricardo J. “Dante and Modernism.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea, LXV, 256 (1990), 30–36.  

Among other things, the Modernist movement in criticism has given rise to a new appreciation of personality in fiction. More specifically, Modernism has imbued critics with the realization that the poet is not a singular voice, but rather a voice among many within his or her own text. Never is this more prevalent than in the Purgatorio, where Dante the poet becomes less a Triton among the waves and more a person with shared human qualities.

Quinones, Ricardo J. “Lectura Dantis: Purgatorio VIII.” In Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 47–59. 

A thorough–going, orderly reading and appreciation of Purgatorio VIII, which considers it for its particular intrinsic merits and in its larger contextual relationship with other cantos.

Robey, David. “Dante and Modern American Criticism: Post–structuralism.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea, LXV, 256 (1990), 116–131. 

While it is debatable whether assimilation of criticism by post–structuralism is possible, it is evident that we sometimes find such a merger. This merger is clearly present in some recent Dante criticism which, for all its post–structuralist shortcomings, nonetheless embraces many post–structuralist tendencies in efforts to explicate further its critical premises.

Ross, Charles S. “Dante and Dominion: Castles from Epic to T. S. Eliot.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea, LXV, 256 (1990), 38–56. 

From ancient epics to modern fiction, the castle has frequently served as a topos, one where a knight usually does battle and, upon vanquishing his enemy, is called upon to uphold the custom of the castle. But in the Middle Ages, custom tends to indicate a negative valence, a tendency upheld by Dante in the Inferno and later reversed in the Paradiso.

Saly, John. “A Rereading of Inferno IX.” In Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 36–46. 

Discusses Inferno IX as a microcosm of the anagogic level of allegory that permeates the entire Comedy. The pattern of “arrest and restart” in place since canto I of the Inferno is intensified in canto IX in order to emphasize the overall movement, integral to a reading of the allegorical progress of the Pilgrim, as one marked by moments of paralyzing self–doubt and subsequent self–knowledge.

Sanguineti, Edoardo. “Infernal Acoustics: Sacred Song and Earthly Song.” In Lectura Dantis, VI (1990), 69–79. 

Drawing on terminology set forth by Boito and Shafer, the author argues that “the soundscape of Hell...cannot be reduced to mere musical emptiness” (excluding Nimrod’s horn and Mastro Adamo’s belly); rather, there is a “meditated and meaningful plenitude of ‘antimusic’...[of] disharmonic harshness and acoustic unpleasantness.” In the Inferno listening, which usually precedes seeing, is often directed toward distortions and perversions of the sacred, most noteworthy the parody of Venantius Fortunatus’ hymn in canto XXXIV. This parody throughout the Inferno sets up the dichotomy in Purgatorio II between the sacred song and the earthly song—In Exitu Israel de Aegypto and Amor che nella mente mi ragione. This dichotomy dramatizes the beginning of the movement “from the esthetic to the ethical life” and to a transcendence of both.

Schiller, Kay E. “Dante and Kantorowicz: Medieval History as Art and Autobiography.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 396–411. 

While some may view Ernst Kantorowicz’s choice of opening The King’s Two Bodies with Shakespeare and closing it with Dante as arbitrary, it seems more likely a deliberate choice on his part.

Scott, John A. “Dante and Philosophy.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 258–277. 

The view that the Divine Comedy represents Dante’s rejection of his earlier “flirtation” with philosophy seems to be shared by many American Dante scholars. Yet, it is difficult to accept such a claim, especially given such evidence as Cato’s cautioning Dante that music distracts our souls, and Dante the Poet’s cautioning us, in Purgatorio, that it is music—and not true philosophy—which can be an obstacle.

Shapiro, Marianne. “Ecphrasis in Virgil and Dante.” In Comparative Literature, XLII, No. 2 (1990), 97–115. 

Just as Virgil drew upon Homer’s depiction of Achilles’ shield, Dante draws upon the tradition of ecphrasis as presented by Virgil. His introduction to Purgatory signals the poet’s succession to that realm, an arrival engaging both the poet and the pilgrim. By doing so, Dante documents the progress of the writer as artist and encapsulates the epistemologically ambivalent situation of poetry as a didactic source and a repository of information.

Shoaf, R. A. “‘Dante in ynglyssh’: The Prologue to the Legend of Good Women and Inf. 13 (Chaucer and Pier della Vigna).” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 384–394. 

American Chaucerian scholarship has been concerned with how Chaucer might be situated with respect to Dante, whether as the “medieval English Virgil” or as the “anti–Dante.” None of these views seems wholly appropriate, as Chaucer’s Prologue to the Legend of Good Women indicates in its establishment of a link to Inferno XIII. “There is more of Dante in Chaucer than most readers are currently willing to admit. In fact, there is in Chaucer at least this much of Dante, that if Chaucer is not Dante, Dante taught Chaucer not, and how not, to be Dante.”

Shoaf, R. A. “Literary Theory, Medieval Studies, and the Crisis of Difference.” In Reorientations: Critical Theories and Pedagogies, edited by Bruce Henricksen and Thaïs E. Morgan (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 77–92.

Given the predicament that medieval literature is “especially vulnerable ... to translations as the only way it can be taught,” responsible medievalists should realize that “literary theory can help them understand and communicate such problematics as punning, allusion, quotation, and voice as instances of the boundary or membrance between two languages and cultures, where difference is put in crisis....” To exemplify his notion that “every reader is a writer or rewriter, translating the original into a new version,” Shoaf concentrates most extensively on Inferno XXIV, in which “Dante confronts a crisis of convention.” This canto dramatizes the poem’s own need to “translate” such crises: “In effect, Virgil and Dante the poet accountenance the need for the poem to discover anew the conventions that will lead to its culmination.” From this perspective we can understand the opening image of the “villanello” mistaking the hoarfrost for snow as “an extended trope of writing itself,” in which the snow—the “new” text that displaces his pre–script, the hoarfrost—is itself subject to change. Such mutability, which calls for “translation,” constitutes an invitation to us to teach translation as well as teaching various texts in translation. [LW]

Shoaf, R. A. “Purgatorio and Pearl: Transgression and Transcendence.” In Texas Studies in Literature and Language, XXXII, No. 1 (1990), 152–168. 

Literary evidence points to the Pearl poet’s knowledge of the Comedy. This is especially true in the configuration of the stream that separates: dreamer and maiden in Pearl; pilgrim and Matelda in Purgatorio. The notion of transgression and the image of the ford in Pearl are modeled on Dante, who, in turn, found his source in Scripture.

Sicari, Stephen. “Bloom in Purgatory: ‘Sirens’ and Purgatorio II.” In Twentieth Century Literature, XXXVI, No. 4 (Winter, 1990), 477–488.

Examines the second canto of Purgatory as subtext to the “Sirens” episode in James Joyce’s Ulysses. In this way he suggests that Bloom’s conscious attention to the love song in that episode is a deliberate way for him to experience his pain and therefore to work through it, paralleling Purgatory’s inhabitants who willingly undergo their torments to purify themselves.

Sicari, Stephen. “The Epic Ambition: Reading Dante.” In Paideuma, XIX, No. 3 (Winter, 1990), 65–78.

Argues that Ezra Pound defined his own epic project of The Cantos through an astute reading of the Divine Comedy. Examines Pound’s personal understanding of Dante and attempts to demonstrate its impact on his poetic undertakings. Pound’s definition of epic, seemingly derived from Dante, is a poem containing history. In form and content, The Cantos mimic Dante’s work. Moreover, like Dante’s pilgrim, Pound’s wanderer is continuously compared to prior epic figures (Ulysses, Aeneas); he is shifting and polyvalent, indeed, a composite of previous epic heroes. The author argues that The Cantos depict a post–Romantic return to origins, a theme derived from Pound’s eccentric understanding of Dante’s sacro poema. [FA]

Sicari, Stephen. “History and Vision in Pound and Dante: A Purgatorial Poetics.” In Paideuma, XIX, Nos. 1–2 (1990), 9–35. 

Examines how Pound’s reading of Dante influenced his conception of Imagism, particularly in regard to his reading of the Paradiso. Beginning with Pound’s critical works and moving into The Cantos, Sicari traces Pound’s interpretation of vision in the Comedy as a cornerstone of his own poetics of transcendence through the “Image.”

Simoncini, Daniele. “Moduli interpretativi danteschi (Convivio 2.5.14).” In Quaderni d’italianistica, XI, No. 2 (1990), 265–268. 

Dante’s adherence to Thomism is often only formal. While St. Thomas condemns the allegorical interpretation of pagan poets, Dante still considers Virgil as a pagan prophet, because of his Fourth Eclogue. Moreover, in the examined passage of the Convivio Dante interprets Virgil’s verses allegorically.

Sodi, Risa B. A Dante of Our Time: Primo Levi and Auschwitz. New York–Bern–Frankfurt am Main–Paris: Peter Lang, 1990. 112 p. (American University Studies. Series II: Romance Languages and Literature, Vol. 134.) 

Traces the influence of Dante’s Inferno on Primo Levi, and particularly on the twentieth–century Italian author’s Holocaust narrative, Se questo è un uomo (1947) and his last book of essays I sommersi e i salvati (1986). Among the many links between Dante and Levi, Sodi explores the nature and definition of justice, the importance and “weight of memory on a person’s soul,” and the conception of a sort of neutral zone “for Levi, la zona grigia, for Dante, ghe realm of the neutral sinners—where categories of victims and oppressors, sinners and saints blur ever so slightly but decisively.” Contents: Introduction; I. Al di qua del bene e del male: Justice in Dante’s Inferno and in Primo Levi’s First and Last Books; II. Neither in bono nor in malo: The Grey Zone and the Neutral Sinners; III. Obliviscence and Reminiscence: Memory and the Memory of Offense; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Sowell, Madison U. “Brunetto’s Tesoro in Dante’s Inferno.” In Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 60–71. 

Reevaluates an old problem with some fresh insights, gained through the analysis of the specific textual relationship of the Tesoretto with the first thirty verses of Inferno I.

Sowell, Madison U. “Dante in English: Recent Translations and Commentaries.” In Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea, LXV, No. 256 (1990), 83–92. 

Discusses representative passages from a number of English translations of the Comedy, beginning with that of John Ciardi. Although expressing a preference for Mark Musa’s translation, Sowell explains his decision to use a bilingual edition for teaching the Comedy to beginners. His own practice is to use the translations of Allen Mandelbaum, Charles Singleton, and John Sinclair respectively for each of the three canticles.

Sowell, Madison U. (Joint author). See Ralph G. Hall, “On Dante and “Cursus”...

Spearing, A. C. “Troilus and Criseyde: The Illusion of Allusion.” In Exemplaria, II, No. 1 (1990), 263–277. 

Allusion as a rhetorical device can be divided into two main categories: strong and weak. Strong suggests that readers need to recognize the context and exact circumstances of the allusion’s referent in order to respond accurately to the text at hand. Weak suggests a more general knowledge of the allusion’s referent, one in which readers need only recognize the source and a few general facts surrounding it. Chaucer primarily utilizes references to Dante as weak allusions, asking modern audiences to be aware of how much or, in this instance, how little knowledge of Dante’s text would have been readily available to Chaucer’s audience.

Took, John. “Dante and the Confessions of Augustine.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 360–382. 

Like his Christian predecessors, Dante was an existentialist. However, unlike them, and like Augustine, he pursues his inquiry “from within.” His works represent the point of view of one not merely contemplating an idea, but struggling to come to terms with it, just as we find Augustine struggling to come to terms with the events of his life in the Confessions.

Trovato, Mario. “Dante’s Poetics of Good: From Phenomenology to Integral Realism.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 232–256. 

Bontade, or goodness, in Dante’s work has received little serious attention. Constituting the substratum for many of Dante’s works, goodness can best by explicated by first examining its definition in the Convivio, second by defining the genealogical tree of “good,” and third by noting how good functions in the Vita nuova, the Convivio, the De vulgari eloquentia, and the Divine Comedy.

Trovato, Mario. “Dante’s Stand against “l’errore de l’umana bontade”: Bonum, Nobility and Rational Soul in the Fourth Treatise of the Convivio.” In Dante Studies, CVIII (1990), 79–96. 

Argues that “in the fourth treatise [Dante] is attempting to correct erroneous philosophical opinions regarding the nature of the intellectual soul” believing “that Dante is addressing and refuting such cultural centers as the University of Bologna, whose masters were teaching and writing texts inspired by Averroistic thought.” According to Trovato, Dante drew many of his notions from Albertus Magnus (De Natura boni, De bono, De anima, and De natura et origine animae) and, particularly that “the most noble form in nature is the intellectual soul which is personal, and, like any form individualized into matter, is a synonym for good.” He continues: “By equating the concepts of ‘goodness,’ ‘nobility,’ and ‘human soul,’ Dante’s treatise turns out to be substantially different from those in which nobility was considered only as honest behavior (probitas morum) or as a rational way of living.” The article attempts to provide answers to the following questions: “What is not nobility” What constitutes “umana bontade”? Are all men noble to the same degree? If not, what makes them differ in nobility? How does nobility manifest itself? What is the role of virtue in the framework of nobility?”

Valesio, Paolo. “La vena ermetica della Commedia.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 278–299. 

A typical characteristic of hermeticism is the dealing with phantasmatic beings, and we can find several of them described in the Comedy, like the “shadows” of Hell and Purgatory (midway between the spiritual and the material) or like frate Alberigo, who is in Hell while his body is still alive on the Earth. It is thus possible to find in the Comedy both a strict adherence to the official tenets of metaphysics and also a condescension for a phantasmatic theology of hermetic and popular provenience, and the latter topic has still to be investigated in depth.

Verdicchio, Massimo. “Croce Reader of Dante.” In Dante Studies, CVIII (1990), 97–112. 

Verdicchio notes that “Croce’s reading of the Divina Commedia has to be evaluated within the parameters set by him in the Estetica of 1902 and in terms of the distinction of symbol and allegory which he makes there between the artistic and the non–artistic” and intends not only to “redress a ‘wrong’ reading of Croce but to reassess the substance of a critical reading of Dante” so that Croce’s contribution to Dante studies may be clarified and better understood. Verdicchio concludes that this “contribution...goes beyond the assertion that the Commedia should be read as poetry and not according to arbitrary historical and cultural factors, that is, according to an allegory of reading that attributes it meanings not its own. Croce’s contribution is to have identified the poetry of the Commedia with allegory and to have opened the way for an investigation of its poetic nature in the mode of poetic allegory.”

Verdicchio, Massimo. “The Rhetoric of Enumeration in Petrarch’s Trionfi.” In Petrarch’s “Triumphs”..., 135–146. 

Analyzes Petrarch’s rhetorical use of enumeration in the Trionfi and contrasts it to Dante’s generally synechdochal use of catalogues in the Divine Comedy.

Wallace, David. “Chaucer’s Body Politic: Social and Narrative Self–Regulation.” In Exemplaria, II, No. 1 (1990), 221–240. 

Argues that an “interchange of political and literary metaphors seems essential to social and literary self–regulation”; in the Comedy “the text envisions itself as a journey through a series of political systems,” and at the end “all such systems are figured as leaves of a single volume scattered through the universe.” Political and literary life are indistinguishable for Dante. The author uses as an illustration Dante’s meeting with Guido da Montefeltro in Inferno XXVII, arguing that the devil–logician who drags Guido off mirrors Boniface’s promise, exposing its fallacy: i.e., the devil has placed repentance in rhetorical and historical sequence before will, just as Boniface has placed absolution before penance. Thus, history, at least for this devil, “can be restricted to the analysis of linguistic terms.” Guido is damned by the deficiencies of the language he has “learned within religious institutions.”

Wallace, David, ed. Beatrice Dolce Memoria, 1290–1990: Essays on the “Vita Nuova” and the Beatrice–Dante Relationship. Special issue of Texas Studies in Literature and Language, XXXII, No. 1 (1990). 

Contains essays by John Ahern, Steven Botterill, Robert Pogue Harrison, Robin Kirkpatrick, John Kleiner, James H. McGregor, Susan Noakes, Joy Hambuechen Potter, and R. A. Shoaf. Each essay is listed separately in this bibliography under the individual author’s name.

Watts, Barbara Jane. “Studies in Sandro Botticelli’s Drawings for Dante’s Inferno.” In Dissertation Abstracts International, LI, No. 2 (1990), 326–A. 

Doctoral Dissertation, University of Virginia, 1989. 318 p.

Wetherbee, Winthrop. “Romance and Epic in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale.” In Exemplaria, II, No. 1 (1990), 303–328. 

Examines the “tentative spirituality” of Dante’s Statius whose Thebaid, via Boccaccio’s Teseida, Chaucer continues in the Knight’s Tale. Chaucer, like Boccaccio, dissents from Dante’s “anti–historical . . . appropriation of classical poetry to Christian ends.” In the Thebaid “the medieval poets discovered a dual perspective on epic experience, a strong sense of historical inevitability and political necessity balanced by an obsession with beauty of what history destroys and a faltering sense of its spiritual value.” In his depiction of Statius, Dante emphasizes his tendency to identify with his female characters in “isolated moments of sympathy and intuitive vision.” Statius’ most important contribution is his account of the “formation of the human embryo and the creation and afterlife of the soul,” the most striking feature of which is its “total omission of strictly human experience.” Though Statius’ own shade is “formed by very human feelings...we are given no earthly context for these feelings.” Thus, “for the purpose of Statius’ discourse, the soul has no history.” Statius is limited in that his instincts, like those of his female characters, are “reduced to the vessel of a higher inspiration which gives them a transcendent significance but does not redeem their human component.”

Wlassics, Tibor. “Crux and Context in Dante’s Comedy.” In Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 300–313. 

Regardless of how the audience of the Divine Comedy might view the question of how the text should be interpreted, it seems clear Dante calls for readmitting the Author to the status of Privileged Reader.

Zupan, Patricia. “The New Dantean Alba: A Note on Paradiso X, 139–148.” In Lectura Dantis, VI (1990), 92–99. 

Discusses the image of the clock, bride and bridegroom at the end of Paradiso X as the product of Dante’s blending together erotic and religious themes from the Provençal albas: Falquet de Romans’ “Vers Dieus,” Cerverí de Girona’s “Aixi con cel,” and Giraut de Bornelh’s “Reis Glorios.” 

 

Reviews

Alighieri, Dante. The Banquet. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Christopher Ryan. Saratoga, Calif.: ANMA Libri, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 114.) Reviewed by:

            Theodore J. Cachey Jr., in Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 442–445.

Armour, Peter. The Door of Purgatory. A Study of Multiple Symbolism in Dante’s “Purgatorio.” Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983. Reviewed by:

            Luca Rossi, in La Fusta, VIII, No. 1 (1990), 148–150.

Barolsky, Paul. Michelangelo’s Nose: A Myth and Its Maker. University Park and London: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990. Reviewed by:

Ernest B. Gilman, in University of Hartford Studies in Literature, XXII, Nos. 2–3 (1990), 98–101.

Bloom, Harold. Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 119.) Reviewed by:

Steven Helmling, in Kenyon Review, XII, No. 3 (1990), 154–168;

Marcus Wilson, in Philosophy and Literature, XIV, No. 2 (1990), 396–401.

Brunetto Latini. “Libro del tesoro”. Versión castellana de “li livres dou Tresor.” Edición y estudio de Spurgeon Baldwin. Madison, Wisconsin: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1989. Reviewed by:

            Curt J. Wittlin, in La Corónica, XVIII, No. 2 (1990), 107–109.

Cassell, Anthony K. Dante’s Fearful Art of Justice. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984. (See Dante Studies, CIII, 144.) Reviewed by:

Christopher Kleinhenz, in Italian Culture, VIII (1990), 194–197;

Giuseppe Tardiola, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCIV, ser. VIII, No. 3 (settembre–dicembre), 170–172.

Chiappo, Leopoldo. Dante y la Psicología del Infierno. Lima, Perú: Atlas S. A., 1983. Reviewed by:

            Mary Emily Becker, in Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 144–146.

Cipolla, Gaetano. Labyrinth: Studies on an Archetype. New York: Legas, 1987. (See Dante Studies, CVI, 128.) Reviewed by:

            Penelope Reed Doob, in Italica, LXVII, No. 2 (1990), 229–231.

Corsi, Sergio. Il “modus digressivus” nella “Divina Commedia.” Potomac, Md.: Scripta Humanistica, 1987. (See Dante Studies, CVI, 129.) Reviewed by:

            Marianne Shapiro, in Italica, LVII, No. 2 (1990), 231–234.

D’Angelo, Rosetta. Il poemetto dell’Intelligenza. Urbino: Edizioni Quattro Venti, 1990. Reviewed by:

            Vera Golini, in Annals of Scholarship, VII, No. 3 (1990), 343–346.

Dante e la bibbia. Atti del Convegno Internazionale promosso da “Biblia.” Firenze, 26–27–28 settembre 1986. Edited by Giovanni Barblan. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1988. (See Dante Studies CVII, 131–133.) Reviewed by:

Roberto Gigliucci, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCIV, Nos. 1–2 (1990), 246–247.

Dante e le forme dell’allegoresi. Edited by Michelangelo Picone. Ravenna: Longo, 1987. (See Dante Studies, CVI, 130.) Reviewed by:

            David P. Bénéteau, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XI, No. 1 (1990), 146–147.

Dante Today. Edited by Amilcare A. Iannucci. Special issue of Quaderni d’Italianistica, X, Nos. 1–2 (Spring–Fall). Reviewed by:

M[ario] M[arti], in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, CLXVII, fasc. 540 (1990), 613–614.

Del Greco Lobner, Corinna. James Joyce’s Italian Connection: The Poetics of the Word. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 127.) Reviewed by:

            Mary T. Reynolds, in James Joyce Quarterly, XXVII, No. 3 (1990), 665–668.

De Rachewiltz, Siegfried. De Sirenibus: An Inquiry into Sirens from Homer to Shakespeare. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1987. (See Dante Studies, CVI, 132.) Reviewed by:

            Anne Lake Prescott, in Envoi, II, No. 1 (1990), 57–60.

Eco, Umberto. The Aesthetics of St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. by Hugo Breden. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988. Reviewed by:

            William Wilson, in Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 154–156.

Edwards, Robert R. The Dream of Chaucer: Representation and Reflection in the Early Narratives. Durham, N.C., and London: Duke University Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 128.) Reviewed by:

Carol F. Heffernan, in Studies in the Age of Chaucer, XII (1990), 277–278;

            Ronald B. Herzman, in Envoi, II, No. 2 (Autumn, 1990), 307–311;

Robert M. Jordan, in Journal of English and Germanic Philology, LXXXIX, No. 3 (1990), 399–401.

L’espositione di Bernardino Daniello da Lucca sopra la Comedia di Dante. Edited by Robert Hollander and Jeffrey Schnapp, with Kevin Brownlee and Nancy Vickers. Hanover, N.H., and London: University Press of New England, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 129.) Reviewed by:

Mario Marti, in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, CLXVII, fasc. 538 (1990), 285–288;

Aldo Vallone, in Annali d’Italianistica, VIII (1990), 454–455.

Freccero, John. Dante: La poetica della conversione. Translated by Corrado Calenda. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1989. 358 p. Reviewed by:

Mauro Cursietti, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCIV, ser. VIII, No. 3 (1990), 152–155;

            Anna Longoni, in Strumenti critici, n.s. V, fasc. 2 (1990), 280–286.

Giovannetti, Luciana. Dante in America: Bibliografia 1965–1980. Ravenna: Longo, 1987. (See Dante Studies, CVI, 134.) Reviewed by:

            Christopher Kleinhenz, in Italica, LVII, No. 2 (1990), 240–241.

Guinizelli, Guido. The Poetry of Guido Guinizelli. Edited and Translated by Robert Edwards. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1987. (See Dante Studies, CVI, 135.) Reviewed by:

            Vincent Moleta, in Italica, LXVII, No. 2 (1990), 247–250.

Guzzardo, John G. Dante: Numerological Studies. New York: Peter Lang, 1987. (See Dante Studies, CVI, 135.) Reviewed by:

Victoria Kirkham, in Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 146–148;

Ilona Klein, in Italian Culture, VIII (1990), 189–190;

Massimo Seriacopi, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCIV, ser. VIII, No. 3 (1990), 158;

Marcellina Troncarelli, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCIV, ser. VIII, Nos. 1–2 (1990), 249.

Harrison, Robert Pogue. The Body of Beatrice. Baltimore, Md., and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988. (See Dante Studies, CVII, 139–140.) Reviewed by:

Jo Ann Cavallo, in Italian Culture, VIII (1990), 187–189;

Cristina Della Coletta, in Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 152–154;

            Robert R. Edwards, in Envoi, II, No. 2 (Autumn, 1990), 336–344;

María Rosa Menocal, in Romanic Review, LXXXI, No. 2 (1990), 275–277;

Thomas C. Stillinger, in Italica, LXVII, No. 3 (1990), 403–406.

Hollander, Robert. Boccaccio’s Last Fiction: “Il Corbaccio.” Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988. (See Dante Studies, CVII, 141.) Reviewed by:

Anthony K. Cassell, in Forum Italicum, XXIV, No. 2 (1990), 289–292;

Dina Consolini, in Envoi, II, No. 1 (1990), 91–94;

            Paola Vecchi Galli, in Studi sul Boccaccio, XIX (1990), 279–281;

Tommaso Giartosio, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCIV, ser. VIII, No. 3 (1990), 208–209.

Holloway, Julia Bolton. Brunetto Latini: An Analytical Bibliography. London: Grant and Cutler, 1986. Reviewed by:

            Baudouin Van Den Abeele, in Les lettres romanes, XLIV, No. 4 (1990), 391–392.

Holloway, Julia Bolton. The Pilgrim and the Book: A Study of Dante, Langland and Chaucer. New York–Bern–Frankfurt am Main–Paris: Peter Lang, 1987. (See Dante Studies, CVI, 137.) Reviewed by:

            James Simpson, in Medium Aevum, LIX, No. 1 (1990), 144.

Hyde, Thomas. The Poetic Theology of Love. Cupid in Renaissance Literature. Newark: University of Delaware Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1986. (See Dante Studies, CV, 151.) Reviewed by:

            S. K. Heninger Jr., in Comparative Literature, XLII, No. 4 (1990), 367–368.

L’idea deforme: Interpretazioni esoteriche di Dante. Edited by Maria Pia Pozzato. Introduzione di Umberto Eco. Postfazione di Alberto Asor Rosa. Milano: Bompiani, 1989. Reviewed by:

            Francesco Guardiani, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XI, No. 1 (1990), 163.

Kelly, Henry Ansgar. Tragedy and Comedy from Dante to Pseudo–Dante. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 137.) Reviewed by:

            Mario Marti, in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, CLXVII, fasc. 538 (1990), 303.

Kleinhenz, Christopher. The Early Italian Sonnet: The First Century (1220–1321). Lecce: Milella, 1986. (See Dante Studies, CV, 152.) Reviewed by:

Louis Chalon, in Le Moyen Age, XCVI, No. 2 (1990), 370–371;

Francesco Guardiani, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XI, No. 2 (1990), 314–316.

Lectura Dantis, I, No. 1 (Fall, 1987). Reviewed by:

            Steven Botterill, in Romance Philology, XLIII, No. 3 (1990), 491–492.

Lectura Dantis, IV (Spring, 1989). Reviewed by:

            [unsigned], in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, CLXVII, fasc. 538 (1990), 303.

Lectura Dantis Newberryana, I. Lectures presented at the Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill., 1983–1985. Edited by Paolo Cherchi and Antonio C. Mastrobuono. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1988. (See Dante Studies, CVII, 147–148.) Reviewed by:

            Lawrence Baldassaro, in Envoi, II, No. 1 (1990), 54–57.

Lynch, Kathryn L. The High Medieval Dream Vision: Poetry, Philosophy, and Literary Form. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988. (See Dante Studies, CVII, 148.) Reviewed by:

Stefania D’Ottavi, in Medium Aevum, LIX, No. 2 (1990), 299–302;

John V. Fleming, in Envoi, II, No. 1 (1990), 118–121;

Constance B. Hieatt, in Journal of English and Germanic Philology, LXXXIX, No. 2 (1990), 212–213;

            Harry F. Williams, in Romance Quarterly, XXXVII, 3 (1990), 354–355.

Macdonald, Ronald R. The Burial–Places of Memory: Epic Underworlds in Vergil, Dante, and Milton. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987. (See Dante Studies, CVI, 139.) Reviewed by:

            K. W. Gransden, in Modern Language Review, LXXXV, No. 1 (1990), 131–132.

Manganiello, Dominic. T. S. Eliot and Dante. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Reviewed by:

            Alzina Stone Dale, in Christianity and Literature, XXXIX, No. 3 (Spring, 1990), 343–345.

Mastrobuono, Antonio C. Dante’s Journey of Sanctification. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway. (See above, under Studies.) Reviewed by:

            David Goldfarb, in Italian Journal, IV, No. 6 (1990), 64–65.

Mazzotta, Giuseppe. The World at Play in Boccaccio’s “Decameron.” Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986. (See Dante Studies, CV, 154–155.) Reviewed by:

            H. Wayne Storey, in Speculum, LXV, No. 1 (1990), 194–196.

McDannell, Colleen, and Bernhard Lang. Heaven: A History. New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 1988. (See Dante Studies, CVII, 151.) Reviewed by:

            William Luther White, in Christianity and Literature, XXXIX, No. 2 (1990), 200–201.

Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c. 1100–c.1375: The Commentary Tradition. Edited by A. J. Minnis and A. B. Scott, with the assistance of David Wallace. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. Reviewed by:

            Deborah Parker, in Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 148–150.

Menocal, María Rosa. The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987. (See Dante Studies, CVI, 141.) Reviewed by:

            Dwayne E. Carpenter, in Romance Quarterly, XXXVII, No. 2 (1990), 217–218.

Montano, Rocco. Dante’s Thought and Poetry. Chicago, Illinois: Gateway, 1988. (See Dante Studies, CVII, 151.) Reviewed by:

            Jo Ann Cavallo, in Envoi, II, No. 2 (Autumn, 1990), 419–423;

            Janet Levarie Smarr, in Comparative Literature Studies, XXVII, No. 3 (1990), 249–252.

Noakes, Susan. Timely Reading: Between Exegesis and Interpretation. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1988. (See Dante Studies, CVII, 151–152.) Reviewed by:

            A. J. Minnis, in Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 142–144.

Oppenheimer, Paul. The Birth of the Modern Mind: Self, Consciousness, and the Invention of the Sonnet. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 142–143.) Reviewed by:

            Richard Moore, in American Book Review, XII, No. 5 (1990), 30.

Payne, Roberta L. The Influence of Dante on Medieval English Dream Visions. New York–Bern–Frankfurt am Main–Paris: Peter Lang, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 143–144.) Reviewed by:

            R. A. Shoaf, in Studies in the Age of Chaucer, XII (1990), 320–322.

Porcelli, Bruno. Dante maggiore e Boccaccio minore: strutture e modelli. Pisa: Giardini, 1987. Reviewed by:

            Christopher Nissen, in Italica, LXVII, No. 1 (1990), 76–77.

Reynolds, Barbara. The Passionate Intellect: Dorothy L. Sayers’ Encounter with Dante. Kent, Ohio, and London: Kent State University Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 145–146.) Reviewed by:

            Corinna Salvadori Lonergan, in Tuttitalia, I (Summer, 1990), 47–48;

            Nancy M. Tischler, in Christianity and Literature, XXXIX, No. 2 (1990), 207–208.

Rowe, Donald W. Through Nature to Eternity: Chaucer’s “Legend of Good Women.” Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1988. (See Dante Studies, CVII, 155.) Reviewed by:

            Lisa J. Kiser, in Modern Philology, LXXXVII, No. 3 (February), 291–293;

            [unsigned], in Medium Aevum, LIX, No. 1 (1990), 182.

Russell, Jeffrey Burton. The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. Reviewed by:

            Leonard R. N. Ashley, in Christianity and Literature, XXXIX, No. 2 (Winter), 201–202.

Salm, Peter. Pinpoint of Eternity: European Literature in Search of the All–Encompassing Moment. Lanham, Maryland–New York–London: University Press of America, 1986. (See Dante Studies, CVII, 175.) Reviewed by:

            Raymond Adolph Prier, in Philosophy and Literature, XIV, No. 2 (1990), 415–416

Saly, John. Dante’s Paradiso: The Flowering of the Self. New York: Pace University Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 146–147.) Reviewed by:

            John G. Demaray, in Envoi, II, No. 2 (Autumn, 1990), 433–437;

            Marianne Shapiro, in Lectura Dantis, VI (1990), 150–153.

Schnapp, Jeffrey T. The Transfiguration of History at the Center of Dante’s “Paradise.” Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986. (See Dante Studies, CV, 158.) Reviewed by:

Steven Botterill, in Comparative Literature, XLII, No. 4 (1990), 365–367;

Donna Mancusi–Ungaro, in Italian Culture, VIII (1990), 190–194.

Schumacher, Thomas L. The Danteum: A Study in the Architecture of Literature. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Architectural Press, 1985. (See Dante Studies, CVI, 156.) Reviewed by:

            H. Wayne Storey, in Italica, LXVII, No. 2 (1990), 256–258.

Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature. Edited by Julian Wasserman and Lois Roney. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1989. Reviewed by:

Laura L. Howes, in Critical Texts, VII, No. 1 (1990), 69–75;

Leonard Michael Koff, in Journal of English and Germanic Philology, LXXXIX, No. 4 (October, 1990), 533–535.

Smarr, Janet Levarie. Boccaccio and Fiammetta: The Narrator as Lover. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986. (See Dante Studies, CV, 159.) Reviewed by:

Albert Russell Ascoli, in Romance Quarterly, XXXVII, No. 2 (1990), 251–254;

Tommaso Giartosio, in Rassegna della letteratura italiana, XCIV, ser. VIII, No. 3 (1990), 208–209.

Sodi Risa B. A Dante of Our Time: Primo Levi and Auschwitz. New York: Peter Lang, 1990. (See above, under Studies.) Reviewed by:

            Antonio Franceschetti, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XI, No. 2 (1990), 335.

Spitzer, Leo. Representative Essays. Edited by Alban K. Forcione, Herbert Lindenberger, and Madeline Sutherland. With a Foreword by John Freccero. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1988. Reviewed by:

            Donald W. Bleznick, in Hispania, LXXIII, No. 1 (1990), 94–95.

Tambling, Jeremy. Dante and Difference: Writing in the ‘Commedia’. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Reviewed by:

Ronald B. Herzman, in Studies in the Age of Chaucer, XII (1990), 327–331;

Alan Nagel, in Philological Quarterly, LXIX, No. 4 (1990), 516–518.

Taylor, Karla. Chaucer Reads “The Divine Comedy.” Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1989. (See Dante Studies, CVIII, 151–152.) Reviewed by:

Nicholas R. Havely, in Studies in the Age of Chaucer, XII (1990), 331–333;

            Paul Piehler, in Christianity and Literature, XXXIX, No. 3 (Spring, 1990), 330–332;

Howard H. Schless, in Envoi, II, No. 1 (1990), 206–207.

Vance, Eugene. Mervelous Signals: Poetics and Sign Theory in the Middle Ages. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986. (See Dante Studies, CV, 161.) Reviewed by:

            Mark Parker, in Lectura Dantis, VII (1990), 151–152.

Vallone, Aldo. Strutture e modulazioni nella Divina Commedia. Firenze: Olschki, 1990. Reviewed by:

            Amilcare A. Iannucci, in Quaderni d’italianistica, XI, No. 2 (1990), 332.