Lectura Dantis

by Mandelbaum, Allen; Oldcorn, Anthony; Ross, Charles

• ISBN13: 9780520212701
• ISBN10: 0520212703
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

The California Lectura Dantis is the long-awaited companion to the three-volume verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum of Dante'sDivine Comedy. Mandelbaum's translation, with facing original text and with illustrations by Barry Moser, has been praised by Robert Fagles as "exactly what we have waited for these years, a Dante with clarity, eloquence, terror, and profoundly moving depths," and by the late James Merrill as "lucid and strong . . . with rich orchestration . . . overall sweep and felicity . . . and countless free, brilliant, utterly Dantesque strokes." Charles Simic called the work "a miracle. A lesson in the art of translation and a model (an encyclopedia) for poets. The full range and richness of American English is displayed as perhaps never before." This collection of commentaries on the first part of theComedyconsists of commissioned essays, one for each canto, by a distinguished group of international scholar-critics. Readers of Dante will find thisInfernovolume an enlightening and indispensable guide, the kind of lucid commentary that is truly adapted to the general reader as well as the student and scholar.

Table of Contents

Introduction Dante in His Age	1	(8)
Allen Mandelbaum
The Hard Begin	9	(16)
Letterio Cassata
Dante's Authority	25	(11)
Robert Hollander
The Gate of Hell	36	(14)
Eugenio N. Frongia
A Melancholy Elysium	50	(13)
Manlio Pastore Stocchi
The Fierce Dove	63	(21)
Paolo Valesio
Florence, Ciacco, and the Gluttons	84	(17)
Maria Picchio Simonelli
The Weal of Fortune	101	(10)
Philip R. Berk
Fifth Circle: Wrathful and Sullen	111	(12)
Caron Ann Cioffi
The Harrowing of Dante from Upper Hell	123	(13)
Amilcare A. Iannucci
Farinata and Cavalcante	136	(14)
Robert M. Durling
Malice and Mad Bestiality	150	(15)
Alfred A. Triolo
The Violent against Their Neighbors	165	(13)
Vittorio Russo
The Violent against Themselves	178	(7)
Giorgio Petrocchi
Capaneus and the Old Man of Crete	185	(12)
John A. Scott
The Canto of Brunetto Latini	197	(16)
Dante Della Terza
From Other Sodomites to Fraud	213	(12)
Susan Noakes
Geryon's Downward Flight; the Usurers	225	(13)
Paolo Cherchi
Introduction to Malebolge	238	(24)
James Nohrnberg
Simoniacs	262	(13)
Charles T. Davis
True and False See-ers	275	(12)
Teodolinda Barolini
Controversial Comedy	287	(10)
Steve Ellis
Poets as Scoundrels	297	(9)
Giuliana Carugati
The Painted People	306	(10)
Tibor Wlassics
Thieves and Metamorphoses	316	(12)
Joan M. Ferrante
The Perverse Image	328	(20)
Anthony Oldcorn
Ulysses: Persuasion versus Prophecy	348	(9)
Giuseppe Mazzotta
False Counselors: Guido da Montefeltro	357	(11)
Jennifer Petrie
Scandal and Schism	368	(10)
Thomas Peterson
Such Outlandish Wounds	378	(14)
Lino Pertile
Dante among the Falsifiers	392	(14)
Robert M. Durling
The Giants: Majesty and Terror	406	(7)
Massimo Mandolini Pesaresi
Amphion and the Poetics of Retaliation	413	(11)
John Ahern
Count Ugolino and Others	424	(8)
Edoardo Sanguineti
Lucifer	432	(9)
Remo Ceserani
Bibliographical Note and Suggestions for Further Reading	441	(8)
Contributors	449	(4)
Index	453