A New Life Of Dante

Stephen Bemrose

Description

This is the first new biography in English for nearly eighty years of Italy’s foremost writer and thinker, and weaves into a single thread the whole of Dante’s life and works. Dante is an intensely philosophical writer as well as a socio-political one, and both these intimately connected aspects are kept constantly in view in this extensive discussion of his writings. As well as his masterpiece the Divina Commedia, his other works are also given considerable attention.

The aim is to make an account of Dante’s life accessible to students and to the curious and intelligent but non-specialist reader. All quotations are fully translated. This new edition has been fully revised and updated, including an updated bibliography.

Sujets

• European Studies
• Literary Criticism
• Literary Figures
• Medieval
• Edad Media
• European literature
• Divine Comedy
• Middle Ages
• Italian
• Italy
• Poetry
• My Last Duchess
• Études européennes
• The Divine Comedy
• Dante Alighieri

Informations

• Publié par: University of Exeter Press
• Date de parution: 02 mars 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780859899369
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A New Life of Dante
Stephen Bemrose is a lecturer in Italian at the University of Exeter.
Cover image: Ritratto di Dante, by Andrea del Castagno (Uffizi
Gallery, Florence). Reproduced by kind permission of the
Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali.A NEW LIFE OF DANTE
Stephen BemroseFirst published in 2000 by
University of Exeter Press
Reed Hall, Streatham Drive
Exeter EX4 4QR
UK
www.ex.ac.uk/uep/
Reprinted with revisions 2009
© Stephen Bemrose 2000, 2009
The right of Stephen Bemrose to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
Paperback ISBN 0 85989 584 X
Hardback ISBN 0 85989 583 1
Typeset in 11/13pt Sabon
by XL Publishing Services, Tiverton
Printed in Great Britain by Short Run Press Ltd, ExeterFor
KISSANPOIKAContents
Preface xi
A List of Dante’s Works, and the Editions Used in this Book xiii
Abbreviations xiv
A Guide to Further Reading in English xv
Guelph and Ghibelline, a Prefatory Note xix
1 A FLORENTINE CHILDHOOD (1265–1283) 1
2 BEATRICE AND THE VITA NUOVA (1283–1295) 6
(i) Early Influences: The Medieval Lyric; Brunetto
Latini; the Roman Poets 6
(ii) The Detto d’Amore and the Fiore 11
(iii) From Bologna to Caprona 13
(iv) Beatrice 16
(v) The Vita Nuova 17
3 THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY (1290–1296) 21
(i) Boethius and Cicero 21
(ii) Aristotelianism and the Friars 24
(iii) Dante’s Earliest Philosophical Poems 29
(iv) The Tenzone with Forese 31
(v) The Rime Petrose 33
(vi) Charles Martel 35
4 GUILDS AND GOVERNMENT: DANTE THE
POLITICIAN (1295–1300) 37
(i) The Florentine Political System 37
(ii) Giano della Bella’s Reforms 39
(iii) Dante’s Political Début 41
(iv) Guelphs and Guelphs 43
(v) Dante in the Jubilee Year 47
viia new life of dante
5 BONIFACE VIII AND THE BLACK COUP (1300–1302) 51
(i) Dante’s Last Months in Florence 51
(ii) Boniface and Celestine 53
(iii) Boniface, Charles de Valois and Florence 55
(iv) The Coup and its Aftermath 60
6 EARLY EXILE (1302–1304) 64
(i) Dante in Tuscany, Forlì and Verona 64
(ii) The De Vulgari Eloquentia 67
(iii) The Poems of Righteousness 75
(iv) Boniface and Philip IV 77
(v) Dante’s Break with the Whites 81
7 A ONE-MAN PARTY (1304–1308) 84
(i) Cino da Pistoia and the Malaspina 85
(ii) The Convivio: Book I 89
(iii) Convivio II 93
(iv) III 97
(v) Convivio IV 101
(vi) The Casentino: Dante’s last canzone 109
(vii) Lucca 111
8 THE SACRED POEM: A SURVEY OF THE DIVINE
COMEDY (1308–1321) 113
(i) Preliminaries 113
(ii) The Lost People 114
(iii) The Saved Spirits 139
(iv) The Dancing Lights 156
9 HENRY VII AND DANTE’S IMPERIAL DREAM
(1308–1313) 173
(i) A New Emperor 173
(ii) Henry’s Descent and Dante’s Fifth Letter 176
(iii) The Milan Coronation: Dante’s Letters from Poppi 179
(iv) Henry’s Foes: Florence, Clement and Robert 182
(v) After the Emperor’s Death 186
viiicontents
10 THE GENTLEMAN OF VERONA (1312–1318) 189
(i) Dante and the Cardinals: The Eleventh Letter 190
(ii) Uguccione, Florence and Dante’s Twelfth Letter 191
(iii) The Can Grande Letter 195
(iv) The Monarchia 199
11 RAVENNA (1318–1321) 207
(i) The Quaestio de aqua et terra 209
(ii) The Eclogues 211
(iii) The Mission to Venice; Dante’s Death 216
CONCLUSION 221
Notes 223
Bibliography 234
Index 241
ixPreface for the 2009 re-issue
It is now close on a decade since this book was first published. My
aim was to offer something readable, accessible and useful to a
fairly wide audience—not just university students, but any
nonspecialist reader keen to find out something, or something more,
about Dante. I think it is fair to say, on the basis of ‘feedback’ of
all sorts, that my aim has succeeded. Interest in Dante from all
angles continues unabated, and I am persuaded that the time is right
for the book to make a reappearance. The text is substantially
unaltered. Nothing has occurred in the ever-lively field of Dante
studies to move me to change my mind, and the differences from
the 2000 volume are chiefly a matter of minor correction and
clarification, bibliographical updating and a few chronological
adjustments—these last being appropriate for a book that now
belongs to the dawn of a new century, rather than the end of the
previous one. I hope that what I have written will continue to be
found useful, perhaps even stimulating or catalytic.
April 2009 SB, Exeter
Preface to the original edition
My aim in this book has been to provide an accessible account of
Dante Alighieri’s life, interwoven with considerable discussion of
his writings.
xia new life of dante
Accessible to whom? To university students certainly, but also
to any curious, intelligent, English-speaking (but non-specialist)
reader at the end of the twentieth century. Therefore, no prior
knowledge is assumed of Graeco-Roman civilization, nor of Chris -
tian history or doctrine, nor indeed of medieval Europe. Moreover
all quotations in Italian or Latin have been fully translated, the
translations being my own unless otherwise indicated.
I have tried to cover the whole of Dante’s life, and the following
areas in particular: his early career as a lyric poet and his
enthusiasm for philosophy; his involvement in the political life of Florence;
the power struggles leading to his exile; his increasingly isolated
wanderings, during which his idiosyncratic political thought
steadily evolved; his response to Emperor Henry VII’s abortive
invasion of Italy; his association with the della Scala family of
Verona; his final years in Ravenna. As to his writings, apart from
providing a broad yet selective survey of his masterpiece the Divine
Comedy, I have paid attention to his ‘minor’ works (some of them
not widely known), in particular the De Vulgari Eloquentia, the
Convivio, the Monarchia and the political letters. My aim
throughout has been to present Dante as an intensely philosophical writer
as well as a socio-political one, and to keep in view both these
aspects of his personality and work—in so far as they can be
separated.
I am of course immeasurably indebted to the work of a great
many earlier and contemporary scholars, far more so than may be
apparent from those specifically cited in the text and notes, or
included in the Bibliography. Perhaps the most important debts
have been to Barbi, Boyde, Foster, Nardi, Padoan, Petrocchi and
Took. Of those known to me personally, and who have read all or
part of the manuscript, I am especially grateful for valuable advice
and encouragement from Dr John Took of University College
London and from my Exeter colleagues Dr Mark Davie and
Professor Paul Diffley. But the greatest debt of all is expressed in
the dedication.
July 1999 Stephen Bemrose
Exeter
xiiA List of Dante’s Works
and the Editions Used in this Book
List of Dante’s Works
Rime (the Italian lyric poems; c.1283–c.1308)
*Detto d’Amore (Italian verse; c.1286)
*Fiore (sequence of Italian sonnets; 1286)
Vita Nuova (anthology of Italian lyric poems, with Italian prose
commentary; c.1293–95)
De Vulgari Eloquentia (Latin prose; 1303–4)
Convivio (Italian prose; 1304–8?)
Epistolae (Latin prose letters; 1304–c.1316)
Divina Commedia—Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso (Italian verse;
probably not begun before 1307 and completed by 1320–21)
Monarchia (Latin prose; 1317?)
Eclogues (Latin verse; 1319–21)
Quaestio de aqua et terra (Latin prose; 1320)
* attribution to Dante disputed by many experts
Editions Used in this Book
For quotations from and references to Dante the following critical
editions have been used:
Rime, ed. K. Foster and P. Boyde as Dante’s Lyric Poetry, 2 vols
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967).
Detto d’Amore and Fiore, ed. G. Contini as Il Fiore e Il Detto
d’Amore attribuibili a Dante Alighieri (Milan: Mondadori,
1984).
Vita Nuova, ed. D. De Robertis in Opere minori, 2 vols
(MilanNaples: Ricciardi, 1980), I/1, pp. 1–247.
xiiia new life of dante
De vulgari eloquentia, ed. P.V. Mengaldo in Opere minori
(MilanNaples: Ricciardi, 1979), II, pp. 3–237.
Convivio, ed. C. Vasoli and D. De Robertis in
(MilanNaples: Ricciardi, 1988), I/2, pp. xi–c; 3–1108.
Epistole, ed. A. Frugoni and G. Brugnoli in Opere minori
(MilanNaples: Ricciardi, 1979), II, pp. 505–643.
Divina Commedia, ed. G. Petrocchi as La Commedia secondo
l’antica vulgata, 4 vols (Florence: Casa Editrice Le Lettere,
2).1994
Monarchia, ed. P.G. Ricci (Milan: Mondadori, 1965).
Egloge, ed. E. Cecchini in Opere minori (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi,
1979), II, pp. 645–89.
Questio de aqua et terra, ed. F. Mazzoni in Opere minori
(MilanNaples: Ricciardi, 1979), II, pp. 691–880.
Abbreviations
The following standard abbreviations have been used:
Inf. Inferno Conv. Convivio
Purg. Purgatorio Mon. Monarchia
Par. Paradiso ED Enciclopedia dantesca
DVE De vulgari eloquentia
xivA Guide to Further Reading in English
1. The ‘Divine Comedy’
(a) Editions and Translations
The best Italian edition is La Divina Commedia, edited by U. Bosco
and G. Reggio, 3 vols. (Florence: Le Monnier, 1980). Still very
valuable is La Divina commedia, ed. N. Sapegno, 3 vols (Florence:
La Nuova Italia, 1968).
Of bilingual Italian and English versions the best is The Divine
Comedy, ed. and trans. C.S. Singleton, 6 vols (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1970–75). On a smaller scale, but still useful, is
The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, trans. J.D. Sinclair, 3 vols
(London: Oxford University Press, 1971). Of the many English
verse translations, the most helpful are the two in the Penguin
Classics series, by D. Sayers and B. Reynolds (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1949–62) and more recently by M. Musa (Harmonds -
worth: Penguin, 1984–86). In all these volumes, especially
BoscoReggio and Singleton, there is a wealth of information, and not just
for the general reader or beginner. Indispensable for those wishing
to enquire more deeply into the Comedy is the Enciclopedia
dantesca, ed. U. Bosco, 6 vols (Rome: Istituto dell’Enciclopedia
Italiana, 1970–78). For