In Dante's Wake

John Freccero

Description

Waking to find himself shipwrecked on a strange shore before a dark wood, the pilgrim of the Divine Comedy realizes he must set his sights higher and guide his ship to a radically different port. Starting on the sand of that very shore with Dante, John Freccero begins retracing the famous voyage recounted by the poet nearly 700 years ago.Freccero follows pilgrim and poet through the Comedy and then beyond, inviting readers both uninitiated and accomplished to join him in navigating this complex medieval masterpiece and its influence on later literature. Perfectly impenetrable in its poetry and unabashedly ambitious in its content, the Divine Comedy is the cosmos collapsed on itself, heavy with dense matter and impossible to expand. Yet Dante's great triumph is seen in the tiny, subtle fragments that make up the seamless whole, pieces that the poet painstakingly sewed together to form a work that insinuates itself into the reader and inspires the work of the next author. Freccero magnifies the most infinitesimal elements of that intricate construction to identify self-similar parts, revealing the full breadth of the great poem.Using this same technique, Freccero then turns to later giants of literature- Petrarch, Machiavelli, Donne, Joyce, and Svevo-demonstrating how these authors absorbed these smallest parts and reproduced Dante in their own work. In the process, he confronts questions of faith, friendship, gender, politics, poetry, and sexuality, so that traveling with Freccero, the reader will both cross unknown territory and reimagine familiar faces, swimming always in Dante's wake.

Sujets

• Sicily
• Italy
• My Last Duchess
• Sicile

Informations

• Publié par: Fordham University Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780823264308
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

I N D A N T E ’ S W A K E

This page intentionally left blank

Copyrigt ©  Fordam University Press

All rigts reserved. No part of tis publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mecanical, potocopy, recording, or any oter—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, witout te prior permission of te publiser.

Fordam University Press as no responsibility for te persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or tird-party Internet websites referred to in tis publication and does not guarantee tat any content on suc websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Fordam University Press also publises its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content tat appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Visit us online at www.fordampress.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Freccero, Jon. [Essays. Selections] In Dante’s wake : reading from medieval to modern in te Augustinian tradition / Jon Freccero ; edited by Danielle Callegari and Melissa Swain. pages cm Includes bibliograpical references and index. ISBN ---- (ardback) — ISBN ---- (paper) . Dante Aligieri, –. Divina commedia. . Dante Aligieri, –— Criticism and interpretation. . Dante Aligieri, –—Influence. I. Callegari, Danielle, editor. II. Swain, Melissa, editor. III. Title. .   '.—dc 

Printed in te United States of America

       

First edition

Contents

List of Figuresvii Prefaceix Autor’s Acknowledgmentsxi Editors’ Acknowledgmentsxiii

Sipwreck in te Prologue  he Portrait of Francesca:Inferno  Epitap for Guido  he Eternal Image of te Fater  Allegory and Autobiograpy  In te Wake of te Argo on a Boundless Sea  he Fig Tree and te Laurel  Medusa and te Madonna of Forlì: Political Sexuality in Maciavelli  Donne’s “Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”  Zeno’s Last Cigarette 

Notes Bibliograpy Index

This page intentionally left blank



   

 

 

Figures

FrontispiecetoOpera nova del magnifico cavaliero Messer Antonio Pilaremo Fregoso intitulata Cerva bianca,  Fra Angelico,he Annunciation, –  Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres,Paolo and Francesca,  Jean Vignaud,Abelard and Heloise Surprised by Abbot Fulbert,   heintersectionofpresent,past,andfutureaccordingto pseudo-Arcytas  Piero della Francesca,La Madonna della Misericordia, –  PierodellaFrancesca,La Madonna fra due Angeli, detta del Parto, –  he Pat of te Sun, after a sketc by M. A. Orr  hePatofVenus,fromJ.Wrobel,ed.,Platonis Timaeus Inter. Calcidio,  

This page intentionally left blank

Preface

As is lifetime of contributions to Dante studies as by now amply demonstrated, te work of Jon Freccero speaks for itself. Wit tis in mind, te editors of tis volume ave preferred to let Freccero do te talking, working only to facilitate a comfortable reading experience and to accommodate a diverse audience. As te autor submitted is essays to us, it was our goal to eliminate digression and frame eac piece wit clear language and a familiar apparatus, bot wit te newly presented but previously publised articles and wit is fres contribu- tions. he following essays ave been revised to reflect preferred current styles of notation and references, translations ave been inserted were in te past tey were not provided, and prasing as been occasionally retouced were necessary for clarity and wit tis wider audience in mind. he content remains oterwise uncanged from te autor’s original. It is our ope tatIn Dante’s Wakewill tus be equally enjoy- able for scolars of Dante and tose outside te field, and tat it will spark new interest for tose familiar wit Freccero’s work wile engag- ing te uninitiated. hose existing fans will immediately recognize tis as only te second time Freccero as collected is work into a single volume, and, likehe Poetics of Conversion,tis book gaters independent pieces tat combine to form a coesive wole. Several of te essays included ere ave been publised previously, but many of tese ave been substan- tially edited by te autor, and two appear in print for te first time. his resaping empasizes Freccero’s consistent metodology, in turn producing a tool tat can guide te reader from medieval to modern. he capters can be enjoyed individually witout reference to teir