Dante and the Origins of Italian Literary Culture

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Medieval
Cover of the book Dante and the Origins of Italian Literary Culture by Teodolinda Barolini, Fordham University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Teodolinda Barolini ISBN: 9780823227051
Publisher: Fordham University Press Publication: August 25, 2009
Imprint: Fordham University Press Language: English
Author: Teodolinda Barolini
ISBN: 9780823227051
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Publication: August 25, 2009
Imprint: Fordham University Press
Language: English

In this book, Teodolinda Barolini explores the sources of Italian literary culture in the figures of its lyric poets and its “three crowns”: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Barolini views the origins of Italian literary culture through four prisms: the ideological/philosophical, the intertextual/multicultural, the structural/formal, and the social.

The essays in the first section treat the ideology of love and desire from the early lyric tradition to the Inferno and its antecedents in philosophy and theology. In the second, Barolini focuses on Dante as heir to both the Christian visionary and the classical pagan traditions (with emphasis on Vergil and Ovid). The essays in the third part analyze the narrative character of Dante’s Vita nuova, Petrarch’s lyric sequence, and Boccaccio’s Decameron. Barolini also looks at the cultural implications of the editorial history of Dante’s rime and at what sparso versus organico spells in the Italian imaginary. In the section on gender, she argues that the didactic texts intended for women’s use and instruction, as explored by Guittone, Dante, and Boccaccio—but not by Petrarch—were more progressive than the courtly style for which the Italian tradition is celebrated.

Moving from the lyric origins of the Divine Comedy in “Dante and the Lyric Past” to Petrarch’s regressive stance on gender in “Notes toward a Gendered History of Italian Literature”—and encompassing, among others, Giacomo da Lentini, Guido Cavalcanti, and Guittone d’Arezzo—these sixteen essays by one of our leading critics frame the literary culture of thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Italy in fresh, illuminating ways that will prove useful and instructive to students and scholars alike.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

In this book, Teodolinda Barolini explores the sources of Italian literary culture in the figures of its lyric poets and its “three crowns”: Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Barolini views the origins of Italian literary culture through four prisms: the ideological/philosophical, the intertextual/multicultural, the structural/formal, and the social.

The essays in the first section treat the ideology of love and desire from the early lyric tradition to the Inferno and its antecedents in philosophy and theology. In the second, Barolini focuses on Dante as heir to both the Christian visionary and the classical pagan traditions (with emphasis on Vergil and Ovid). The essays in the third part analyze the narrative character of Dante’s Vita nuova, Petrarch’s lyric sequence, and Boccaccio’s Decameron. Barolini also looks at the cultural implications of the editorial history of Dante’s rime and at what sparso versus organico spells in the Italian imaginary. In the section on gender, she argues that the didactic texts intended for women’s use and instruction, as explored by Guittone, Dante, and Boccaccio—but not by Petrarch—were more progressive than the courtly style for which the Italian tradition is celebrated.

Moving from the lyric origins of the Divine Comedy in “Dante and the Lyric Past” to Petrarch’s regressive stance on gender in “Notes toward a Gendered History of Italian Literature”—and encompassing, among others, Giacomo da Lentini, Guido Cavalcanti, and Guittone d’Arezzo—these sixteen essays by one of our leading critics frame the literary culture of thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Italy in fresh, illuminating ways that will prove useful and instructive to students and scholars alike.

More books from Fordham University Press

Cover of the book Ecological Form by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Stasis Before the State by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Renaissance Posthumanism by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book The Naked Communist by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Talking the Walk & Walking the Talk by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Divinanimality by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Portrait by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Fighting Authoritarianism by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Traditions of Eloquence by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Heartbeats in the Muck by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Europe and Empire by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Roman Catholicism in the United States by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Technologies of Life and Death by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book From a Nickel to a Token by Teodolinda Barolini
Cover of the book Racial Fever by Teodolinda Barolini
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy