Dante / Edition 1

by Nick Havely

Overview

A comprehensive guide to Dante’s life and literature, with an emphasis on his Commedia. This text looks at the influences that shaped Dante’s writing, and the reception of his work by later readers, from the 14th century to the present.

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• Introduces Dante through four main approaches: the context of his life and career; his literary and cultural traditions; key themes, episodes and passages in his own work, especially the Commedia; and the reception and appropriation of his work by later readers, from the fourteenth century to the present
  
• Written by an expert Dante scholar
  
• Provides new translations of substantial passages from Dante’s poems and from the world of his contemporaries
  
• Includes explanatory diagrams of Dante’s 'other-worlds', and a section of illustrations by medieval and modern artists
  
• Builds a vivid and complex picture of Dante's imagination, intellect and literary presence
  
• Helpful bibliographies include relevant web resources
  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780631228523
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	08/06/2007
Series:	Wiley Blackwell Guides to Literature , #11
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.93(d)

About the Author

Nick Havely has taught courses on Dante and on medieval literature for over thirty years at the University of York. His published work on Italian trecento poetry began with a volume of translations: Chaucer's Boccaccio: Sources for Troilus and the Knight's and Franklin's Tales (1980; reissued 1992) and includes Dante's Modern Afterlife: Reception and Response from Blake to Heaney (1998) and Dante and the Franciscans: Poverty and the Papacy in the 'Commedia' (2004). He has recently been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for his next project, which is a study entitled Dante in the English-Speaking World, from the Fourteenth Century to the Present.

Table of Contents

List of Plates and Diagrams.

Acknowledgements.

Introduction: How to Use This Book.

Abbreviations.

Chronology of Significant Events, c.1200–1321.

Map: Dante’s Italy, c.1300.

Landmarks of a Life.

From the Baptistery to the Ponte Vecchio.

Learning in Florence.

From Florence to San Godenzo.

Landscapes of Exile.

Texts and Traditions.

Books, Authors, Libraries, Media.

Pagan Culture.

The Bible.

Faith Seeking Understanding: Christian Traditions of Thought before Dante.

Saints, Contemplatives, Visionaries.

History, Politics, Science.

The Mother Tongue and the New Style.

Reading Dante.

Seeking Guidance.

Writing the City.

Confronting the Church.

Imagining Sin and Sainthood.

Understanding Love.

The Shadow of the Argo: Travel, Poetics, Language.

Postscript: Dante’s Readers.

Chronology of Significant Events in Dante’s Afterlife, 1322–2006.

Commentary, Criticism, Canonization.

Picturing and Performing the Commedia.

Controversy, Conflict, Crime.

Purgatorio: Poetics and Politics.

A Conversation about the Paradiso.

Glossary of Literary Terms.

Works Cited.

Electronic Resources.

Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“All-in-one book covers everything … .Written in clean, accessible prose. Even Dante experts will enjoy Havely’s refresher course. Vital in the library and classroom. Esssential.” Choice

Editorial Reviews

"A richly nuanced discussion that offers an excellent introduction to Dante and will be read with profit by anyone coming to the great poet for the first time.... This is a useful and informative introduction to Dante, wide in its scope and accessible in its presentation." (Notes and Queries, December 2009)

"It is a book that can be read profitably from cover to cover, or it can be used as a resource for the reader who, for pedagogical or informational purposes, wants to pick and choose." (Speculum-A Journal of Medieval Studies, April 2009)

"All-in-one book covers everything.... Written in clean, accessible prose. Even Dante experts will enjoy Havely's refresher course. Vital in the library and classroom. Essential." (CHOICE, July 2008)

From the Publisher