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First-Person Participation in Dante's Commedia Katherine Lucy

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First-Person Participation in Dante's Commedia Katherine Lucy First-Person Participation in Dante’s Commedia Katherine Lucy Powlesland Pembroke College August 2018 This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. i Contents Contents ................................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................ iii Abbreviations, Editions, and Translations ............................................................................................. iv Preface ................................................................................................................................................... vi Chapter 1: Reading Interactively ............................................................................................................ 8 1.1 Narratological approaches to the Commedia .............................................................................. 12 1.2 Bernard’s interaction manquée ................................................................................................... 17 1.3 Focal view switching .................................................................................................................. 22 1.4 Bernard’s object .......................................................................................................................... 27 1.5 Bernard’s double frame violation ............................................................................................... 29 1.6 From immersion to presence: a new framework for reader response criticism .......................... 32 1.7 Structure of the thesis .................................................................................................................. 39 Chapter 2: Embodiment in Context ...................................................................................................... 40 2.1 A fresh return to embodiment ..................................................................................................... 40 2.2 Medieval theory of mind ............................................................................................................. 45 2.3 Approaches to medieval cognitive theory: rhetoric, gesture, memory ....................................... 48 2.3.1 Rhetoric ................................................................................................................................ 48 2.3.2 Gesture ................................................................................................................................. 49 2.3.3 Memory ................................................................................................................................ 52 2.4 Medieval affective piety ............................................................................................................. 56 2.4.1 New medieval models of reading ......................................................................................... 56 2.4.2 Affective piety ..................................................................................................................... 59 2.5 The embodied reader ................................................................................................................... 66 2.6 Personal response and subjectivity ............................................................................................. 69 Chapter 3: Spatial Presence .................................................................................................................. 72 3.1 ‘Tu non se’ in terra’: being transported ...................................................................................... 72 3.2 Literary setting versus spatial presence ...................................................................................... 76 ii 3.3 A mortal human body in a virtual space ..................................................................................... 78 3.4 ‘Being there’: Geryon ................................................................................................................. 80 3.5 Creating ‘here’: the celestial ladder ............................................................................................ 94 Chapter 4: Social Presence .................................................................................................................. 104 4.1 Readable bodies in the Commedia ............................................................................................ 110 4.2 Narration through kinaesthetic empathy ................................................................................... 116 4.3 Progression in Purgatorio and Paradiso .................................................................................. 123 4.4 Coda: The language of praise ................................................................................................... 128 Chapter 5: Self-Presence ..................................................................................................................... 131 5.1 Narrative perspective ................................................................................................................ 133 5.1.1 A new model of narrating instances for the Commedia ..................................................... 137 5.1.2 Directing line of sight: narration through mobile camera view ......................................... 149 5.2 Narrative mediation: the continuum of invitations to participate ............................................. 157 5.2.1 The direct addresses to the reader ...................................................................................... 157 5.2.2 Narrative training ............................................................................................................... 163 5.2.3 Narration through gaps in the text: similes and ellipses..................................................... 172 Chapter 6: First-Person Participation .................................................................................................. 188 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................... 198 iii Acknowledgements I am very grateful to the Keith Sykes Fund for the generous funding of this research, and to Pembroke College for hosting my studentship. I also thank the Italian Department at the University of Cambridge for providing such a supportive, good-humoured, and enriching community in which to work. I also wish to thank Keith Sykes personally for his unfailing kindness and interest in my work, and for doing so much to foster community amongst Italian scholars at Cambridge. I was exceptionally lucky that my doctoral study coincided with the Vertical Readings in Dante’s ‘Commedia’ lecture series in Cambridge, so have been privileged to listen to and enjoy inspiring discussions with many scholars from the Dante community. In this regard, I especially wish to thank Zygmunt Barański, Peter Hawkins, Elena Lombardi, Simone Marchesi, Christian Moevs, Vittorio Montemaggi, and Matthew Treherne. I offer my deepest thanks to Robin Kirkpatrick for instilling in me a love for the Commedia in 1987. I am very grateful to Alan Blackwell, my advisor from the Faculty of Computing. Finally, I wish to thank my supervisor, Heather Webb, who has provided constant encouragement and support, and always took my ideas seriously, including when I didn’t. This thesis would never have found a home in the first place without her extraordinary support. I dedicate this thesis to my parents, and to my dear friend Bill Marshall. iv Abbreviations, Editions, and Translations The following editions, translations, and abbreviations are used throughout: Bible The Holy Bible, Douay/Rheims Version, available at <http:www.drbo.org> [last accessed 2 September 2017] Commedia La Commedia secondo l’antica vulgata, ed. by Giorgio Petrocchi, 2nd edn, 4 vols (Florence: Le Lettere, 1994) Inf. Inferno, in La Commedia Par. Paradiso, in La Commedia Purg. Purgatorio, in La Commedia Commentaries on the Commedia: The following commentaries on the Commedia are cited according to the Dartmouth Dante Project <http://dantelab.dartmouth.edu> [last accessed 30 July 2018]: Jacopo Alighieri (1322) L’Ottimo Commento (1333) Francesco da Buti (1385-1395) Anonimo Fiorentino (circa 1400) Natalino Sapegno (1955-1957) Umberto Bosco and Giovanni Reggio (1979) Ernesto Trucchi (1936) Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi (1991-1997) Robert Hollander (2000-2007) Nicola Fosca (2003-2015) The following commentary is cited from the Project Gutenberg e-book <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30766/30766-h/30766-h.htm> [last accessed 30 July 2018]: Jacopo Alighieri, Chiose alla cantica dell’Inferno di Dante Alighieri v The following commentaries are cited from the printed editions below: The Divine Comedy, trans. by Robert M. Durling, introduction and notes by Ronald L. Martínez and Robert M. Durling, 3 vols (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996-2011) The Divine Comedy, trans. and ed. by Robin Kirkpatrick, 3 vols (London: Penguin, 2006- 2007) The Divine Comedy, trans., with a commentary, by Charles S. Singleton, 3 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press/Bollingen, 1980) vi Preface This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration. This dissertation is not substantially
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