Table of Contents
Abbreviations ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Preface: In fondo, una serietà terribile xix
Part I Preliminary Considerations
Chapter 1 Historical Considerations 3
Florence between the Guelphs and Ghibellines (1215-79) 3
Florence between the Blacks and the Whites (1279-1302) 9
The Descent and Demise of Henry VII (1302-13) 21
Chapter 2 Biographical Considerations 27
Susceptibility and the Significant Encounter (1265-93) 27
Care, Conflict and Catastrophe (1293-1302) 46
Far-Wandering and the Agony of Exile (1302-21) 55
Part II The Early Years: From Dante da Maiano to the Vita nova
Chapter 1 Preliminary Remarks: Love and Love-Intelligence 75
Chapter 2 Literary Hinterland: From Provençal to the stilo de la loda 82
Chapter 3 Literary Apprenticeship and a Coming of Age 114
Dante guittoniano 114
Dante cavalcantiano 121
Dante and the Rose: The Fiore and the Detto d'amore 133
Dante guinizzelliano 159
Chapter 4 The Vita nova 173
Preliminary Remarks: Antecedent Utterance and an Essay in Authoring 173
Love Seeking and Seeking Not Its Own 184
Conclusion: New Life and a Commedia a minore 201
Part III The Middle Years: The Moral and Allegorical Rime, the Convivio, the De vulgari eloquentia and the Post-Exilic Rime
Chapter 1 Compassionate Lady of the Casement and a Woman of Stone: The Pre-Exilic Rime 209
Chapter 2 The Convivio 235
Preliminary Remarks: Magnanimity, Possibility and Impossibility 235
Course of the Argument 236
Axes of Concern in the Convivio 264
Language, Form and Function: An Essay in Beauty, Being and Becoming 277
Conclusion: Being and Becoming as Yet in Waiting 285
Chapter 3 The De vulgari eloquentia: Language, Literature and the Ontologization of Art 287
Chapter 4 The Post-Exilic Rime 313
Part IV The Final Years: The Commedia, the Political Letters and the Monarchia, the Questio, Cangrande and the Eclogues
Chapter 1 The Commedia 323
Standing Alone in Respect of That Which Matters Alone: Dante, Cino and the Solitary Way 323
The Commedia à la lettre 327
An Anthropology and Ethic: Love and Love-Harvesting 377
The Dialectics of Being: A Difficult Dimensionality 384
A Phenomenology of Existence: The Mood as Mediator 414
Dante and Significant Journeying 436
Immanent Eschatology and the Triumph of the Image 459
Chapter 2 The Monarchia and the Political Letters 479
Chapter 3 The Questio de situ aque et terre, the Letter to Cangrande della Scala and the Eclogues 523
Afterword: A Coruscation of Delight 542
Select Bibliography 547
Index of Names 569