Classics, Medieval & Renaissance 2012 - University of Toronto ...

LITERATURE
NEW
The Biblical Dante
V. Stanley Benfell
The Biblical Dante explores Dante’s understanding
of biblical truth and its significance for the poet and
his readers. In this work, V. Stanley Benfell presents
a series of close readings of passages where Dante
not only cites the Bible extensively, but also explicitly
considers its status as scripture and as a true text.
In the first part of the study, Benfell examines
some of Dante’s minor works and the Paradiso to
show how his notion of textual truth differs markedly
from our present-day conceptions. In the second
part, Benfell turns to the Commedia’s first two canticles,
where Dante’s vision for a just society is put forth more
overtly, and his use of the Bible is key to revealing that
vision.
V. Stanley Benfell is an associate professor in the
Department of Humanities, Classics, and Comparative
Literature at Brigham Young University.
‘I learned a great deal from The Biblical Dante, a
major contribution to the field of Dante studies.
Each of the chapters in this book is strong, combining
thoughtful analysis with insightful close reading.’
William Stephany, University of Vermont
(Toronto Italian Studies)
336 pp / 6 x 9 / 2011
Cloth 978-1-4426-4274-4 $75.00 (£52.99)
NEW
Dante and Augustine
Linguistics, Poetics, Hermeneutics
Simone Marchesi
At several junctures in his career, Dante paused to
consider the process of writing and what it means
to be a writer: How does language, in particular
‘poetic language,’ work Can poetry be translated
What is the relationship between a text and its commentary
Who controls the meaning of a literary
work In Dante and Augustine, Simone Marchesi
re-examines these questions in light of the influence
that Augustine’s reflections on similar issues exerted
on Dante’s sense of his task as a poet. Marchesi
goes beyond traditional inquiries, allowing Dante to
emerge as a versatile thinker, committed to a radical
defence of poetry and yet always ready to reconsider,
revise, and rewrite his own positions on matters of
linguistics, poetics, and hermeneutics.
Simone Marchesi is an associate professor in the Department
of French and Italian at Princeton University.
‘Dante and Augustine delights as a well-constructed,
elegantly argued, and intellectually coherent study
of Dantean ideas through the lens of Augustinian
theory.’
Teodolinda Barolini, Columbia University
(Toronto Italian Studies)
304 pp / 6 x 9 / 2011
Cloth 978-1-4426-4210-2 $70.00 (£48.99)
NEW
Dante’s Tenzone with Forese Donati
The Reprehension of Vice
Fabian Alfie
Dante’s poetic correspondence (or tenzone) with
Forese Donati, a relative of his wife’s, was rife with
crude insults: the two men derided one another
on matters ranging from sexual dysfunction and
cowardice to poverty and thievery. Rather than disregarding
this correspondence, in his Commedia
Dante repeatedly acknowledged and evoked the
memory of his youthful put-downs.
Dante’s Tenzone with Forese Donati explores
the lasting impact of these early sonnets on Dante’s
writings and Italian literary culture, notably in the work
of Boccaccio. Fabian Alfie examines derision as an
ethical dimension of literature that both facilitated
the reprehension of vice and encouraged ongoing
debate about the true nature of nobility.
Fabian Alfie is a professor of Italian in the Department
of French and Italian at the University of Arizona.
‘This is first-class philological scholarship – substantial,
erudite, and enduringly valuable.’
Steven Botterill, University of California at Berkeley
(Toronto Italian Studies)
240 pp / 2 illustrations; 14 charts / 6 x 9 / 2011
Cloth 978-1-4426-4223-2 $55.00 (£38.99)
34 University of Toronto Press