American Dante Bibliography for 1959

Anthony L. Pellegrini

This bibliography is intended to include the Dante translations published in this country in 1959, and all Dante studies and reviews published in 1959 that are in any sense American. The latter criterion is construed to include foreign reviews of Dante publications by Americans. 

 

Translations

Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy. Illustrated by Umberto Romano. Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Books/ Doubleday and Company, 1959.

Essentially a re-issue, omitting the color plates, of the original edition published in 1946 under the imprint of Doubleday and Company. The illustrations retained are line drawings. There is a section of notes to the text, which, though not actually identified, is the translation by Henry F. Cary.

Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. I. Inferno. With translation and comment by John D. Sinclair. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.

This is a paperback edition identical to the hard-cover edition of 1948. The translation, in prose, with the original Italian on opposite pages, is based on the critical text of the Società Dantesca Italiana; “the few departures . . . from that text are limited to readings adopted either in Moore’s or Casella’s texts.” Each canto is very briefly annotated and followed by a “Note,” or commentary. In a preface, Mr. Sinclair acknowledges his indebtedness to major recent commentaries and studies, from Scartazzini to Croce, from which he has quoted freely. There is a short note on Dante’s Hell and a diagram of the punitive system.


Dante Alighieri. “The Purgatorio: Canto II, by Dante Alighieri.” Translated by John CiardiNew World Writing 15 (1959): 144-151. ”Mentor Books,” MT 260.

Pre-printing of another portion of Mr. Ciardi’s translation of the Purgatorio now in progress. (See 76th Report, 39-40.) This canto is prefaced by a short summary and followed by brief annotations.

Dante Alighieri. “Purgatorio, Canto VI: A New Translation.” Translated by John Ciardi. Massachusetts Review, I (1959): 176-182.

This canto is prefaced by a short summary, without annotations. (See preceding item.)

Dante Alighieri. “Seven poems.” In Lyrics of the Middle Ages, edited by Hubert Creekmore (New York: Grove Press, 1959).

Contains three canzoni, three sonnets, and a sonetto rinterzato in translations by Rossetti, Shelley, and Howard Nemerov. Each section, by language, of the anthology is introduced by a brief historical note.

 

Studies

R. M. Adams. “Literature and Belief Again.” Hudson Review, XII (1959): 151-156.

Contends it is wrong to try to read Dante’s Comedy as George P. Elliott proposes in his “Getting to Dante” (Hudson Review, XI, 597-611. See 77th Report, 45.), and rejects the necessity of taking the poem literally or of bringing to it a sense of sin. Professor Adams insists one simply read aesthetically, exercising the literary imagination, and not seek in the poem a moral order to simplify modern problems. (A rebuttal by Mr. Elliott follows. See below.)

Erich AuerbachScenes from the Drama of European Literature: Six Essays. New York: Meridian Books, 1959. “Meridian Books,” M63.

Contains Professor Auerbach’s well-known study, ”Figura,” which includes an illustration of the “figural” principle as applied to the Divina Commedia, and “Saint Francis of Assisi in Dante’s Commedia,” which focuses on Dante’s allegorical vita, in Paradiso XI, of the saint as an imitation of Christ, with an explication of the supporting image of Lady Poverty as his bride. The two essays are translated from the original German text in Professor Auerbach’s Neue Dantestudien (Istanbul, 1944). The English version of the second essay first appeared in Italica, XXII (1945).

C. S. BaldwinMedieval Rhetoric and Poetic (to 1400), Interpreted from Representative Works. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1959.

Contains a section on “The Poetic Composition of the Divina Commedia” (pp. 269-280) as the individual achievement of a great poet who went far beyond the limitations of medieval poetic by ignoring the latter. Dante’s own poetic may be defined as “vividness of charged simplicity in expression carried forward in a composition of progressive movement.” This work is reprinted from the original edition published by the Macmillan Company (New York) in 1928.

T. G. BerginIl Canto IX del ‘Paradiso’. Rome: Signorelli, 1959. (“Nuova ‘Lectura Dantis’, edited by Siro A. Chimenz.)

This is a detailed explication of the prophecy-laden canto, which is found to be one of Dante’s less successful, but nevertheless very interesting. Professor Bergin clarifies the many historical and other references and examines further aspects of the canto, such as its structural symmetry, linguistic artifices, including neologisms and flossy phrasing, mediaeval rhetoric, and display of erudition. (This “lectura” is adapted from an unpublished essay of Professor Bergin’s and translated into Italian by Professor Chimenz.)

Anthony BluntThe Art of William Blake. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. “Bampton Lectures in America,” 12.

Contains a final chapter on “The Last Phase: Jerusalem, The Book of Job, and Dante,” including a brief commentary (pp. 87-91) on Blake’s illustrations to the Divine Comedy. The author points out the conflict between Blake’s enthusiasm for Dante and his disapproval of Dante’s doctrines. There are eleven Dantean illustrations (including two by Flaxman for comparison) reproduced in black-and-white plates.

William Bowsky. “Dante’s Italy: A Political Dissection.” Historian, XXI (1959): 82-100.

Describes the political situation in Italy in Dante’s time, with particular reference to the city-states and their relations with the papacy and the empire.

Mieczyslaw Brahmer. “Dante, le grand émigré, et le romantisme polonais.” In Comparative Literature: Proceedings of the Second Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, edited by W. P. Friederich (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 617-624. “University of North Carolina Studies in Comparative Literature,” 23/24.

Outlines briefly the strong Dantean influence in the Polish romantics, especially Mickiewicz, S owacki, Krasinski and Norwid, and also the recent contemporary Jean Lecho, who, as political exiles and expatriates, in varying degree identified with the Florentine poet-exile as a type of romantic hero.

R. J. ClementsThe Peregrine Muse: Studies in Renaissance Comparative Literature. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959. “University of North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures,” 31.

Contains a study (pp. 98-112) on “Marguerite de Navarre and Dante,” slightly revised from its original form in Italica, XVIII (1941), 37-50. The author demonstrates that the ascendancy of Dante over the thought of Marguerite was not considerable, as previously claimed by scholars. While her principal poems contain elements of Dantean inspiration, the evidence shows that, far from understanding Dante, she had only a distorted opinion of him, knowing only the first few cantos of the Inferno and perhaps the end of the Paradiso, and very likely even learned her modified terza rima from a French source. Acquaintance with Dante’s masterpiece may have contributed to her taste for and technique of visions, but this Italianizing poetess of the French Renaissance must have thought of Dante rarely.

Sister M. Cleophas, R. S. M. “Ash Wednesday: The Purgatorio in a Modern Mode.” Comparative Literature, XI (1959): 329-339.

Contends that just as T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Four Quartets are modeled on Dante’s Inferno and Paradiso, respectively, Ash Wednesday parallels the Purgatorio in tone and spiritual structure. All elements in the composition unite to dramatize modern man’s excessive hesitation to renounce the world for the regeneration of his soul.

C. T. Davis. “Remigio de’ Girolami and Dante: A Comparison of Their Conceptions of Peace.” Studi Danteschi, XXXVI (1959): 105-136.

As a contribution to the still inadequate analysis of the contemporary philosophical and theological atmosphere that Dante breathed, the author examines the ideas on peace and related political matters of Remigio de’ Girolami, one of the first writers to apply Aristotelian conceptions to the problems of the Italian city-state, and points out the close parallels in Dante, who applied them to the problem of the Empire. The study is followed by the text of Remigio’s De bono pacis, reproduced from the Cod. Conv. Soppressi C. 4.940, ff. 106v-109r, Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence.

G. P. Elliott. “Literature and Belief Again.” Hudson Review, XII (1959): 156-160.

In this rebuttal to Professor Adams’ contentions (Ibid. See above.), Mr. Elliott expresses agreement on the suspension of disbelief in reading Dante’s Comedy and on the possibility of reading it aesthetically, without heed to its non-literary meanings; but he reaffirms his own conviction that one’s appreciation of the poem is enhanced by a general agreement with Dante’s moral order.

John Freccero. “Dante’s Firm Foot and the Journey without a Guide.” Harvard Theological Review, LII (1959): 245-281.

Holding Dante’s Comedy allegorically as an embodied vision of an itinerarium mentis ad Deum, Professor Freccero examines the prologue scene, focusing particularly on the wayfarer’s piè fermo (Inferno I, 30) and his thwarted efforts to proceed up the piaggia diserta. An examination of patristic and scholastic writings reveals that, according to traditional Aristotelian physiology, the left foot, considered less agile than the right, was known as the “firm foot.” In his attempt to drag himself up the slope with his right foot leading and his left foot, or piè fermo, lagging behind, Dante-wayfarer is seen to reflect a defective will, since allegorically this “firm foot” represents the left foot of the soul, to which, by analogy, thirteenth-century theologians attributed feet, corresponding to the soul’s twin powers of movement, the intellectus and the affectus, or the apprehensive and appetitive faculties. When Dante-wayfarer sees the light at the top of the mount, the intellective power of his soul has undergone a conversion from ignorance and sin; but he is still lame in the soul’s other “foot,” the affectus, or appetite, in its triple aspect of the concupiscent, irascible, and rational, reflected in the three areas of the wolf, lion, and leopard. To set straight the soul’s lame left foot and effect progress beyond these three symbolical beasts to the summit and salvation, the wayfarer must have divine assistance with guidance over the longer journey representing the justification of the will.

J. G. Fucilla and Sergio Pacifici. “Annual Bibliography for 1958. Italian Language and Literature.” PMLA, LXXIV (May 1959) 2: 213-234.

Contains a substantial list of selected Dante studies published both here and abroad (pp. 216-218).

A. H. Gilbert. “Translator or Betrayer? Some Translators of Dante.” In Comparative Literature: Proceedings of the Second Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association, edited by W. P. Friederich (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959), 263-272. “University of North Carolina Studies in Comparative Literature,” 23/24.

Discusses the translation of verse in general and of Dante’s Comedy in particular, with special reference to the examples of Longfellow and Dorothy L. Sayers. The author observes that for reproducing content, the prose version, free of metrical strictures, offers maximum value, though verse translations are often better because given more labor. To reproduce Dante in verse, the English verse must equal Dante’s; but any translation has some value when prompted by love of the poet.

Dorothy H. Gillerman. “Trecento Illustrators of the Divina Commedia.” 77th Annual Report of the Dante Society (1959): 1-40.

Studies, in reproduction, a number of Trecento illustrated manuscripts of the Divina Commedia, grouping them according to the primary schools of illumination, which also largely coincide with areas of Dante’s influence in Italy, viz., Florence, Bologna, Naples, Lombardy. The author discusses especially the following manuscripts: Palatino 313, Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence; Vaticano 4776, Rome; Codice Filippino, Bibl. Oratoriana, Naples; Add. 19587, British Museum; Trivulziano 1076, Milan; and Marciano, Class IX, 276, Venice. She concludes (1) that despite the secondary importance of miniature painting in Florence, the influence of Florentine illustrators seems to predominate in the development of early Dante iconography, and (2) that the latter reveals two tendencies, one toward literal interpretation and another toward illustration of scenes interpolated from the text.

H. H. Golden and S. O. SimchesModern Italian Language and Literature: A Bibliography of Homage Studies. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959.

Registers a number of Dante studies that might otherwise go unnoticed.

R. M. Haywood. “Inferno, I, 106-108.” Modern Language Notes, LXXIV (1959): 416-418.

On a parallel with his reading of humilem, as “lying low on the horizon,” in Virgil’s  Aeneid, III, 521-524recalled here by Dante, the author submits a similar interpretation of Dante’s phrase quell’umile Italia, understanding the “horizon” as temporal rather than geographical. Thus, Dante would be referring to the future imperial Italy of his political hopes, fulfilment of which required, as with the Trojans and Rome, time and further struggle.

Edwin HonigDark Conceit: The Making of Allegory. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1959.

Contains considerable reference, passim, to Dante in the general context of the book, which “explores the methods and ideas that go into the making of literary allegory.” Indexed.

R. B. HoveyJohn Jay Chapman, An American Mind. New York: Columbia University Press, 1959. British edition London: Oxford University Press, 1959.

Contains several references passim to Chapman’s interest in Dante and to his translations from the Comedy, and in particular, surveys the critics’ favorable reception of Chapman’s book, Dante (1927). Indexed.

R. S. Loomis, Editor. Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages: A Collaborative History. London: Oxford University Press, 1959.

The chapter on “Arthurian Influences on Italian Literature,” by Antonio Viscardi, contains a short discussion (pp. 422-424) of the Arthurian elements in Dante’s works, consisting primarily of the prose Lancelot tale, on the basis of which, evidently, “Dante assigned to the langue d’oïl the primacy as the language of prose narrative.” Further passing references to Dante appear in a chapter on “The Vulgate Cycle,” by Jean Frappier. Indexed.

W. H. Marshall. “A Note on ‘Prufrock.’ “ Notes and Queries, VI (1959): 188-189.

While acknowledging the Dantean echo in Eliot’s poem noticed by Eugene Arden (Notes and Queries, N. S., V [1958], 363-364 [See 77th Report, 42]), the author rejects Professor Arden’s implication of salvation for Prufrock, since the latter’s situation is pathetic, not tragic, according to Eliot’s ironic method, and, unlike Dante, he has not achieved humility with his self-doubt.

J. C. Mathews. “James Russell Lowell’s Interest in Dante.” Italica, XXXVI (1959): 77-100.

Assesses and documents in detail Lowell’s interest in, and knowledge of, Dante’s works and also in the literary background of Dante. Professor Mathews summarizes Lowell’s famous essay on Dante, which was his “longest and most ambitious essay in criticism”; indexes the many allusions to Dante in Lowell’s own writings; and concludes with a brief review of Dante’s quite limited influence on Lowell’s poetry.

F. O. MatthiessenThe Achievement of T. S. Eliot: An Essay on the Nature of Poetry. Third Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. “Galaxy Books,” 22.

Chapter on Eliot’s later work by C. L. Barber. Paperback edition, identical to the hard-cover edition of 1958. (See 77th Report, 48.)

J. A. Mazzeo. “Convivio IV, xxi and Paradiso XIII: Another of Dante’s Self-Corrections.” Philological Quarterly, XXXVIII (1959): 30-36. 

Shows, in context of the philosophical background, how Dante’s thought changed with respect to the conditions necessary for the creation of the perfect human being. In the Convivio Dante held that whenever natural conditions were perfect, the Holy Spirit conferred its gifts on the recipient and a perfect, God-like human being resulted; but in the Paradiso he held that nature always operates defectively and can never of itself create the perfect conditions to induce the Holy Spirit to give the maximum of its gifts. Only the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit, in short, can create the perfect human being, as in the cases of Adam and Christ, which were unique.

Rocco Montano. “La Poesia di Dante: II. Il Purgatorio.” Delta (1959) 18-19: 1-85.

This entire issue of Delta is devoted to a pre-printing of the second part of a general volume being prepared by Professor Montano on Dante’s thought and work.

W. R. Moses. “The Pattern of Evil in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Georgia Review, XIII (1959): 161-166.

Without attempting to indicate any influence of Dante on Clemens, but appealing to the universality of both, the author traces a provocative parallel between the progressive experience of evil in Huck’s adventures and that of Dante’s journey through Hell.

Giulio Natali. “Versi brutti di Dante.” Italica, XXXVI (1959): 17-27.

Examines a number of imperfect verses in the Divina Commedia, without attempting to minimize or rationalize them away. Professor Natali finds an explanation for these defects in the “abuse of art”: alongside the poet in Dante stood also the medieval rhetorician, who, in striving for the beautiful, was bound to fall occasionally into artifice, extravagance, and even ugliness.

Ned O’Gorman. “Reading Dante with Ionians.” Commonweal, LXXI (1959): 70.

A composition of 29 verses inspired by Dante’s Comedy, ending on the note: “from this poem we learned / the possibilities of praise” [of God].

A. L. Pellegrini. “American Dante Bibliography for 1958.” 77th Annual Report of the Dante Society (1959): 41-63.

With brief analyses.

Maria Piccirilli. “Dante’s Mysterious Lady.” Vassar Alumnae Magazine, XLIV (May 1959) 5: 4-8.

Finds support for the early commentators’ identification of Dante’s Matelda (Purgatorio XXVIII), symbol of the perfect active life, with the Countess Mathilde of Canossa (†lll5) in a reexamination of the documentary evidence, particularly in the Vita Metrica Sancti Anselmi by Rangerius, who regarded Mathilde a “Lady of Peace,” and in the Vita Mathildis by Domnizio, who regarded her a “custodian of justice,” and also in the continuing fame she enjoyed as a legendary figure in Dante’s time, when she was even recognized by certain jurists as a supreme arbitrator. (This article is a condensed version of the author’s paper originally delivered as a “Vassar Scholar’s Lecture” at Vassar College in the fall of 1958.)

Ezra PoundLo spirito romanzo. Trans. Sergio Baldi. Florence: Vallecchi, 1959. “Collana Cederna.”

Italian edition of Pound’s well-known work, originally published in 1910 as The Spirit of Romance: An Attempt to Define Somewhat the Charm of the Pre-Renaissance Literature of Latin Europe (London, Dent and Sons) and re-issued in a “revised edition” in 1952 under the short title (Norfolk, Conn., New Directions Books; and London, Peter Owen). The book contains a general essay on “Dante,” written from Pound’s particular standpoint of a non-philologist holding to the contemporaneity of all masterworks of art. There is further reference to Dante, passim, especially in connection with Arnaut Daniel. Indexed.

Sheila Ralphs. Etterno Spiro: A Study in the Nature of Dante’s Paradiso. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1959.

“The purpose of this essay is to consider something of the significance and interrelationship of a number of words and images which appear to be very important in Dante’s presentation of Paradise.” The author focuses especially on Dante’s words and imagery for expressing the movement to, and enjoyment of, blessedness; the function of the Son and the Holy Spirit in making and perfecting the created order; the process of growth in vision, and consequently in love, on the way to Paradise; and Paradise as a participating in the Divine nature by the gift of the spirit. The four short chapters are: I. “L’intenzione dell’arte”; II. ”Il pan delli angeli”; III. Lumen gloriae; and IV. Etterno spiro. Original edition: Manchester (England), Manchester University Press, 1959. (“Publications of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Manchester, No. 10.”)

A. M. Salerno. “Political Passion and Paternal Love: An Interpretation of the Role of Farinata and Cavalcanti in the Tenth Canto of Dante’s Inferno.” Thought Patterns, VI (1959): 127-165.

This close reading of Inferno X, with considerable reference to the commentaries of Benvenuto da Imola, De Sanctis, Barbi, and Casella, contains provocative interpretations of several long-debated points, for example, the poet’s treatment of heresy in the canto, Cavalcanti’s love for his son, the latter’s disdain for Virgil, and the matter of prescience and ignorance in the lost souls. The author concludes that the canto can indeed be named after its strong central character, Farinata, but that his dramatic portrayal is achieved only by the presence of Dante himself posing as a political opponent and by the enhancing stage effect of the Cavalcanti episode. He sees Farinata not only as representing his own past glorious self, but also as reflecting important qualities of Dante’s character.

Martha Hale ShackfordAn Introduction to Dante’s “The New Life.” Natick, Mass.: Suburban Press, 1959.

Summarizes the Vita Nuova as prelude to the Divine Comedy, with general observations setting the author’s thought and work in historico-literary context and emphasizing the perpetual inspiration that Beatrice was for Dante. (A booklet of 20 pages.)

C. S. SingletonDante Studies 2: Journey to Beatrice. London: Oxford University Press, 1959.

British paperback edition identical to the American edition, Harvard University Press, 1958. (See 77th Report, 52-53, and see below, under Reviews.)

S. G. P. Small. “Virgil, Dante and Camilla.” Classical Journal, LIV (1959): 295-301.

Analyzing the character of Camilla in the Aeneid, the author finds a clear explanation for Dante’s associating her with Turnus, Euryalus and Nisus (Inferno I, 106-108): because of their vainglorious, bloodthirsty and self-assertive character, all four, two Italians and two Trojans, had to die to make possible the new and lowly Italy.

J. M. Steadman. “The God of Paradise Lost and the Divina Commedia.” Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, CXCV (1959): 273-289.

Contends that critics have been unfair in judging Milton’s masterpiece inferior to Dante’s. For the two works represent quite different approaches to the concept of God and different poetic treatments, each superbly suited to its own context. Milton’s anthropomorphic and “theologizing” divinity was perfectly appropriate in a heroic poem treating the fall of man and emphasizing God’s Providence; while Dante’s veiled representation of the deity was perfectly in keeping with the logical conclusion of the “Comedy,” viz., the Beatific Vision. Professor Steadman therefore insists the contrast in Dante’s and Milton’s representations of deity merely provides a basis for discussing their respective techniques, not for rating one poet superior to the other.

W. A. Strauss. Dante’s Belacqua and Beckett’s Tramps.” Comparative Literature, XI (1959): 250-261.

Examines Samuel Beckett’s obsession with the figure of Dante’s Ante-Purgatory, particularly the phenomenon of helplessness and expectancy in Belacqua, and their influence in his works from Murphy and Molloy to the play En attendant Godot, in which man’s fate of hopeless expectancy in the universe is poignantly staged. But there is a radical difference between Dante’s and Beckett’s conception of the purgatorial experience: where Belacqua’s waiting will eventually end with entry into Purgatory proper and ultimate spiritual fulfilment, Beckett’s abysmal despair conceives the world as a purgatory of “vegetation,” in which man’s fate is to wait eternally in unresolved expectation.

Allen TateCollected Essays. Denver: Alan Swallow Publishing, 1959.

Contains “The Symbolic Imagination: The Mirrors of Dante,” pp. 408-431.

Austin Warren. “An Expatriate in Boston.” University of Toronto Quarterly, XXVIII (1959): 134-148.

Presents a biographical sketch of Thomas W. Parsons (1819-1892), New England poet and lifelong student and translator of Dante, who in his Anglophilism, Anglo-catholicism and devotion to Dante lived alienated and withdrawn from his time. Charles Norton considered Parsons, along with Longfellow and Lowell, one of the “three most eminent lovers and disciples of Dante in America.”

W. L. Weismantel. “Dante’s Inferno: The First Land Use Model.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, XXV (1959): 175-179.

Attacks two articles on techniques for forecasting land use, by comparing a city planned on a land use model, or “LUMP city,” with Dante’s Inferno: both have the form of concentric circles and the residents of both have lost choice.

E. H. WilkinsThe Invention of the Sonnet and Other Studies in Italian Literature. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1959.

Contains eleven Dante studies (Chapters III-XIII), of which the following were previously published, as indicated by the author in each instance: “Dante and the Mosaics of His Bel San Giovanni”; ”Dante’s Scheme of Human Life” (here considerably revised); “The Prologue of the Divine Comedy”; ”Reminiscence and Anticipation in the Divine Comedy”; ”Guinizelli Praised and Corrected”; “Salutation and Revelation” (first published as “The Literal Meaning of the Unveiling of Beatrice” and here much revised); “Dante’s Celestial Scaleo: Stairway or Ladder?”; “Blake’s Drawing of Dante’s Celestial Scaleo”; and “The Jackson Dante.” The two remaining Dante studies are new: “Gradual Approach in the Divine Comedy,” which points out, as a derivation from memories of real-life observation, Dante’s very effective technique of gradual approach to new sights, sounds, and experiences at strategic points of his poetic journey, where perceptions at first imperfect or mistaken are succeeded by perceptions of greater, and finally perfect, clarity; and “Cantos, Regions, and Transitions in the Divine Comedy,” in which is analyzed, with a diagram, Dante’s artistically effective technique of varying his canto structure in the poem after having begun by fitting an entire episode within each single canto in Inferno III-VI—a procedure that would soon have proved monotonous.

E. C. Witke. “The River of Light in the Anticlaudianus and the Divina Commedia.” Comparative Literature, XI (1959): 144 156.

Examines the river of light in the Anticlaudianus and in Paradiso XXX with reference to the tradition of mediaeval light metaphysics and to the distinction between the referential or analogical and the intuitive types of mediaeval symbology; and concludes that the two light images, while evincing some similarity, are essentially different, in that Alanus’ river of light, symbolizing the Trinity, belongs to the first type of symbol and Dante’s river of light, symbolizing the courts of heaven, belongs to the second.

 

Reviews

Dante AlighieriThe Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Mary Prentice Lillie, trans. San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1958. Reviewed by:

Michele De FilippisItalica, XXXVI (1959): 230-231;

Dudley Fitts, N. Y. Times Book Review (5 April 1959): 28.

Erich AuerbachLiteratursprache und Publikum in der lateinischen Spätantike und im Mittelalter. Bern: Francke Verlag, 1958. Reviewed by:

F. M. WassermannBooks Abroad, XXXIII (1959):153-154;

E. C. WitkeSpeculum, XXXIV (1959): 440-443.

Hans BaronThe Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955. Reviewed by:

            August BuckZeitschrift für Romanische Philologie, LXXV (1959): 156-161.

G. A. BorgeseDa Dante a Thomas Mann. “I Quaderni dello ‘Specchio.’” Giulio Vallese, trans. Milan: Mondadori, 1958. Reviewed by:

Joseph CinquinoItalica, XXXVI (1959): 303-304;

Italo MaioneLe Parole e le Idee, I (1959): 26-30.

C. P. BrandItaly and the English Romantics: The Italianate Fashion in Early Nineteenth-Century England. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1957. Contains a chapter on “Dante,” pp. 49-72. Reviewed by:

            Jean H. HagstrumItalica, XXXVI (1959): 149-150.

C. T. DavisDante and the Idea of Rome. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957. Reviewed by:

T. G. BerginItalian Quarterly, III (Spring 1959) 9: 59-68;

Enrico De’ NegriRomanic Review, L (1959): 68-70;

E. H. KantorowiczSpeculum, XXXIV (1959): 103-109.

Francesco De SanctisDe Sanctis on Dante. Essays edited and translated by Joseph Rossi and Alfred Galpin. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957. Reviewed by:

            [Anon.], London Times Literary Supplement (25 Sept. 1959): 548;

            Colin HardieModern Language Review, LIV (1959): 142.

Ruth M. FoxDante Lights the Way. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Company, 1958. Reviewed by:

            E. A. SynanManuscripta, III, (1959): 177-178.

E. H. KantorowiczThe King’s Two Bodies: A Study Mediaeval Political Theology. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957. Reviewed by:

            F. M. PowickeMedium Aevum, XXVIII (1959): 50-53.

Ulrich LeoSehen und Wirklichkeit bei Dante, mit einem Nachtrag über das Problem der Literaturgeschichte. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1957. Reviewed by:

            J. A. ScottRomance Philology, XIII (1959): 106-107.

Nevio MatteiniIl Più antico oppositore politico di Dante, Guido Vernani da Rimini: Testo critico del “De Reprobatione Monarchiae.” Padua: Cedan, 1958. (First treatise refuting Dante’s Monarchia.) Reviewed by:

            Helene WieruszowskiSpeculum, XXXIV (1959): 314-316.

J. A. MazzeoStructure and Thought in the “Paradiso.” Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958. Reviewed by:

[Anon.], London Times Literary Supplement (25 Sept. 1959): 548;

T. G. BerginItalian Quarterly, III (Spring 1959) 9: 59-68;

Vincenzo CioffariItalica, XXXVI (1959): 296-298;

John FrecceroModern Language Notes, LXXIV (1959): 460-465;

N. J. PerellaRomance Philology, XIII (1959): 105-106;

John ScottJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, XVII (1959): 399-400;

C. S. SingletonRomanic Review, L (1959): 55-59;

Edward WilliamsonSpeculum, XXXIV (1959): 485-490.

Penguin Book of Italian Verse. George R. Kay, ed. Contains Selected Poems by Dante. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1958. Reviewed by:

Glauco CambonPoetry, XCIV (1959): 350-354;

Giovanni CecchettiComparative Literature, XI (1959): 262-268;

G. P. Orwen, in Modern Language Journal, XLIII (1959): 256;

Giuseppe ZappullaItalica, XXXIV (1959): 236-238.

Ezra PoundSaggi letterari: Literary Essays of Ezra Pound. A cura e con introduzione di Thomas Stearns EliotNemi D’Agostino, trans. Milan: Garzanti, 1957. Reviewed by:

            Renato BarilliConvivium, XXVII (1959): 367-370.

Mario PrazThe Flaming Heart: Essays on Crashaw, Machiavelli, and Other Studies in the Relations between Italian and English Literature from Chaucer to T. S. Eliot. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1958. Reviewed by:

Morse AllenCesare Barbieri Courier, I (1959) 2: 19.

R. L. StilwellYearbook of Comparative and General Literature, VIII (1959): 60-61.

Georg RabuseDer kosmische Aufbau der Jenseitsreiche Dantes: Ein Schlüssel zur Göttlichen Komödie. Graz-Köln: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1958Reviewed by:

            H[elmut] H[atzfeld]Comparative Literature, XI (1959): 356-357.

Augustin RenaudetHumanisme et Renaissance. Geneva: Droz, 1958. (Contains critical pieces on G. Vinay’s edition of Dante’s Monarchia and on A. Pézard’s Dante sous la pluie de feu.) Reviewed by:

            R. E. TaylorRenaissance News, XII (1959): 49-50.

Erich von RichthofenVeltro und Diana: Dantes mittelalterliche und antike Gleichnisse nebst einer Darstellung ihrer Ausdrucksformen. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1956. Reviewed by:

            T. G. BerginRomance Philology, XIII (1959): 185-188.

Elizabeth von Roon-BassermannDante und Aristoteles: Das “Convivio” und der mehrfache Schriftsinn. Freiburg: Herder, 1956. Reviewed by:

            Aldo ScaglioneRomance Philology, XII (1959): 431-432.

C. S. SingletonDante Studies 2: Journey to Beatrice. London: Oxford University Press, 1959. Reviewed by:

[Anon.], London Times Literary Supplement (25 Sept. 1959): 548;

T. G. BerginItalian Quarterly, III (Spring 1959) 9: 59-68;

Helmut HatzfeldModern Language Journal, XLIII (1959): 354-355;

H. W. HilbornQueen’s Quarterly, LXVI (1959): 350-351.

Bernard StamblerDante’s Other World: The ‘Purgatorio’ as Guide to the ‘Divine Comedy.’ New York: New York University Press, 1957. Reviewed by:

            John FrecceroModern Language Notes, LXXIV (1959): 273-275.

Benvenuto TerraciniPagine e appunti di linguistica storica. Florence: Le Monnier, 1957. (Contains five chapters dealing with Dante problems: one with the De Vulgari Eloquentia, two with the Vita Nuova, and two with the Convivio.) Reviewed by:

            R. L. PolitzerItalica, XXXVI (1959): 147-149.

Maurice ValencyIn Praise of Love: An Introduction to the Love-Poetry of the Renaissance. New York: Macmillan, 1958. Reviewed by:

D. C. AllenRomanic Review, L (1959): 205-207;

T. G. BerginItalian Quarterly, III (Spring 1959)9: 59-68;

Morris Bishop, N. Y. Times Book Review (1 March 1959): 12;

T. C. ChubbSpeculum, XXXIV (1959): 694-695;

Grace FrankModern Philology, LVI (1959): 277-278;

R. A. FraserSouth Atlantic Quarterly, LVIII (1959): 619-621;

T. A. KirbyShakespeare Quarterly, X (1959): 614-615;

Louis MartzYale Review, XLVIII (1959): 442-444;

J. V. MirolloHistory of Ideas News Letter, V (1959): 18-20.

Aldo ValloneLa Critica dantesca nell’Ottocento. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1958. Reviewed by:

            Vincent LucianiItalica, XXXVI (1959): 298-300.

Domenico VittoriniThe Age of Dante: A Concise History of Italian Culture in the Years of the Early Renaissance. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1957. Reviewed by:

            Helene WieruszowskiRenaissance News, XII (1959): 47-49.

Domenico VittoriniHigh Points in the History of Italian Literature. New York: David McKay Company, 1958. Reviewed by:

            R. J. MondelliRenascence, XI (1959): 105-106.

E. H. WilkinsThe Invention of the Sonnet and Other Studies in Italian Literature. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1959. Reviewed by:

J. G. FucillaModern Philology, LVII (1959): 122-125;

Edward WilliamsonRenaissance News, XII (1959): 263-265.