The Oxford Handbook of Dante

Description

The Oxford Handbook of Dante contains forty-four specially written chapters that provide a thorough and creative reading of Dante's oeuvre. It gathers an intergenerational and international team of scholars encompassing diverse approaches from the fields of Anglo-American, Italian, and continental scholarship and spanning several disciplines: philology, material culture, history, religion, art history, visual studies, theory from the classical to the contemporary, queer, post- and de-colonial, and feminist studies. The volume combines a rigorous reassessment of Dante's formation, themes, and sources, with a theoretically up-to-date focus on textuality, thereby offering a new critical Dante. The volume is divided into seven sections: 'Texts and Textuality'; 'Dialogues'; 'Transforming Knowledge'; Space(s) and Places'; 'A Passionate Selfhood'; 'A Non-linear Dante'; and 'Nachleben'. It seeks to challenge the Commedia-centric approach (the conviction that notwithstanding its many contradictions, Dante's works move towards the great reservoir of poetry and ideas that is the Commedia), in order to bring to light a non-teleological way in which these works relate amongst themselves. Plurality and the openness of interpretation appear as Dante's very mark, coexisting with the attempt to create an all-encompassing mastership. The Handbook suggests what is exciting about Dante now and indicate where Dante scholarship is going, or can go, in a global context. Cover The Oxford Handbook of Dante Copyright Dedication Contents Notes on Contributors Editions and Translations List of Illustrations Introduction: Dante Unbound: A Vulnerable Life and the Openness of Interpretation Part I: Texts and Textuality Chapter 1: The Author Introduction Dante-Poetand Dante-Character Dante and Authority Dante and Autobiography Chapter 2: Memory The Vita Nova and the Book of Memory The Convivio and the Memory of the Gift The Art of Memory in the Commedia, or Impassioned Memory Chapter 3: Reading Chapter 4: The Materiality of the Text and Manuscript Culture Chapter 5: The Manuscript Tradition, or on Editing Dante On Manuscripts and Editing Commedia: On Stemmatology and Geography Lyric Poems: From Poem to Book? Vita nova and Convivio: On Text Divisions and Why the Archetype Matters Beyond Editing: ‘Reception Philology’ and Back to the Author Chapter 6: Commentary (both by Dante and on Dante) By Dante On Dante Chapter 7: Digital Dante Part II: Dialogues Chapter 8: The Classics ‘Authoritative’ Authors Reading in the Middle Ages 1: Horace (and the Latin Comedians) ‘The Good Guides’ ‘You Are My Auctor’ Reading in the Middle Ages 2: The Auctores Maiores Conclusion Acknowledgements Chapter 9: Roman de la Rose What is the Rose? The ‘Rose-Event’ and the (Possible) Dante An Uninterrupted Dialogue (Rose and the ‘Authentic’ Dante) Hand-to-Hand Combat Chapter 10: Troubadours Chapter 11: Early Italian Lyric Dante as Love Poet The Vita nuova: Traversing Cavalcanti Purgatorio XXIV and XXVI: Before the ‘Dolce stil novo’ Chapter 12: Comic Culture Chapter 13: Visual Culture Part III: Transforming Knowledge Chapter 14: Encyclopaedism Introduction Encyclopaedia as a Genre and its Evolution in the Middle Ages The Convivio—An Encyclopaedic Text? Encyclopaedism and the Commedia Chapter 15: Medicine Chapter 16: Visual Theory Visual Theory in the Convivio Visual Theory in the Vita Nova Visual Theories in the Commedia Chapter 17: The Law Chapter 18: Politics A Political Life Dante’s ‘Political’ Corpus: Texts and Contexts Church and Empire Cities Conclusion Chapter 19: Philosophy and Theology A Philosopher in Paradise Dante’s Encounter with Philosophy The Convivio: A ‘Messianic’ Project of Philosophical Divulgation The Addressees of the Convivio Philosophy and its Limits Averroism or Anti-Averroism? Physiology and Physiognomy of Nobility From the Convivio to the Commedia Chapter 20: Religion Renewal Prayer Lady Poverty Chapter 21: Poetry AUIEO: The Mark of the Poet Poetry and the Preservation of Language The Reach of Vernacular Poetry A Sweet New Style Part IV: Space(s) and Places Chapter 22: Florence and Rome A Linear Path? From ‘Florence’ to ‘Rome’ in the Commedia From ‘Florence’ to ‘Rome’ in Dante’s Life From City-Stateto the Universal Monarchy From the Guelph to the Ghibelline Party Tales of Two Cities Disembodied Cities (1292–1294) Hated Cities (1303) Mythical Cities (1304–1307) Political Cities (1311) Future Cities (1314 or 1315) Ancient Cities (1316–1321) A Circular Path? Chapter 23: Civitas/Community The Semantics of Dante’s Civitas The Problems of Dante’s Civitas Dante’s New Civitas Chapter 24: The Mediterranean Chapter 25: The East The East in Cartography Dante’s Political East: Failed History Islamic Learning The Fictional East a) Fictive Islam b) The East as outside the Christian World: An Honored Horizon c) The East as Source of ‘Wonders’ Chapter 26: Exile Exile and Authorship The Lessons of Exile Exile and Pilgrimage Exile, the Earthly and the Heavenly City Chapter 27: Travelling/Wandering/Mapping Mapping Dante Acknowledgements Chapter 28: Dante’s Other Worlds Part V: A Passionate Selfhood Chapter 29: Eschatological Anthropology Chapter 30: Language Chapter 31: The Mystical Chapter 32: Bodies on Fire Part VI: A Non-Linear Dante Chapter 33: The Master Narrative and its Paradoxes Going Forward: Representations of the Future Branching out: Alternative Lives Overlapping Paths: Paradoxes Conclusion Chapter 34: Conversion, Palinody, Traces ‘The girl who steps along’: Beatrice as Gradiva Words and Footprints: Vestiges in the Commedia (Non) Sequitur: Conversion and Imitation Retracing Our Steps: Back to Pompeii Acknowledgements Chapter 35: The Lyric Mode In Search of a Lyric Mode Beyond Measure: Pleasure, Excess, and the Lyric Mode Pleasure Unlimited: A Lyric Mode in the Paradiso Chapter 36: Errancy: A Brief History of Dante’s Ferm Voler Part VII: Nachleben Chapter 37: Translations The Nineteenth Century The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries Acknowledgements Chapter 38: Dante and the Performing Arts Lectura Dantis Stage Performance (with some Remarks on the Visual Arts) From the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries Dante at the Turn of the Century Dante in the Twentieth Century Chapter 39: Dante on Screen The Literal Dante: Inferno (Francesco Bertolini and Adolfo Padovan, Milano Films, 1911) Allusive: Post-WarItalian Cinema’s Dante Structural: Zorn’s Lemma (1970) as Dantean Text Conclusion Chapter 40: Modernist Dante Introduction Sullenness: Samuel Beckett Resistance: Djuna Barnes Fatigue: Virginia Woolf Conclusion Chapter 41: Dante and the Shoah Chapter 42: Dante in Caribbean Poetics: Language, Power, Race ‘Short History of Dis’, or Kingston as Postcolonial ‘House of Grief’ ‘Nation Language’: Theorizing Caribbean Vernacular Poetry with Dante Lorna Goodison: Thinking Power and Rhetoric through Dante Conclusion Acknowledgements Chapter 43: Queering Dante Chapter 44: A Decolonial Feminist Dante: Imperial Historiography and Gender Introduction Feminist Dantes The Decolonial Feminist Turn in Gender and Sexuality Studies Those who do not Understand History are Condemned to Repeat it The Visual vs the Verbal Archive Reading the Basilica of Santa Prassede How the Church Became Roman Reading the Commedia’s Historiography Index of Passages Cited from Dante’s Works Index of Names Index of Concepts and Places