DOCSLIB.ORG

Dante and His Circle, with the Italian Poets Preceding Him (1100-1200

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Dante and His Circle, with the Italian Poets Preceding Him (1100-1200 HANDBOUND AT THE UNI\TERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive in 2007 witli funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/danteliiscirclewiOOrossuoft /[^ K^^J DANTE AND HIS CIRCLE. r^ /jj DANTE AND HIS CIRCLE WUH THE ITALIAN POETS PRECEDING HIM (l lOO— I200— 1300) A COLLECTION OF LYRICS TRANSLATED IN THE ORIGINAL METRES BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETII PART T. DANTE'S VITA NUOVA. ETa I POETS OF DANTE'S CIRCLE PART n. rOETS CHIEFLY BEFORE DANTE A NE W EDITION WITH PREFACE BY WILLIAM M. ROSSETTI ELLIS AND ELVEY LONDON 1892 All rights reserved PRINTED BV HAZRLL, WATSON, AND VINBY, LD. LONDON AND AVLESBUKY. y PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI published in 1861 his book The Early Italian Poets, which is the first form of the present book named Dante and his Circle. Ever since its first publication this series of translations has occupied, I think, a somewhat peculiar position ; partly as being the only form in which a large portion of the poems here treated are available for English readers; and partly because the Italian compositions have so special a character of their own, and the translator has entered so keenly into their spirit, and has reinforced this with so manifest a ^ poetic tone and savour proper to himself, that the ^fc versions have taken rank as a sort of cross between Hptranslated and original work. They have been accepted ^F as bringing the English reader as close to the mediaeval ^^ Italians as he is ever likely to be brought ; and also as ^introducing him to the tone and quality of Rossetti's own mind and hand in poetic production. While they serve as a kind of epilogue to the Italian trecento, they serve likewise as a kind of prologue to Rossetti's per- sonality among English poets. V If he had not under- taken the translations, and had not given them the development which they here assume, some substantial h vi PREFACE. traits in hie own poetry would be less intelligibly marked and less securely recognisable. In the Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossctti, pub- lished under my editorship in two volumes at the end of 1886, Dante and his Circle occupies the greater part of the second volume. The original poems occupy in like manner the greater part of the first volume. These latter were reprinted in a separate form in 1890 ; and it is now thought that there may perhaps be room for a similar separate form of Dante and his Circle. Any person who may possess these two works in this state of reissue will be entitled to say that he owns the great bulk of the writings upon which the literary reputation of Rossetti depends ; though it is a fact that the Collected Works comprise in addition a considerable variety of other writings, chiefly in prose, which require to be taken into account by any such readers as are disposed for an accurate or complete study of him. In my Preface to the Collected Works I have given a few details, which I shall here slightly amplify, regard- ing Dante and his Circle. Our father, Gabriele Rossetti, was a native of Vasto, in the Abruzzi. Being exiled from his own country in consequence of having taken a part in the liberal movement which led to the short- lived Neapolitan constitution of 1820-21, he settled in London towards 1824; and at once immersed himself in Dantesque studies. Of these the principal results were four books : the Inferno of Dante, with a Comento Analitico, 1826; Sullo Spirito Antipapale che produsse la Riforma, 1832 ; 11 Mistero dell' Amor Platonico del Medio Evo, 1840; and La Beatrice di Dante, 1842. In all these works the dominant conception is that Dante, and PREFACE. vii Other writers his contemporaries or successors, were 'religious and political reformers, leagued together in a secret society having some substantial analogy to free- masonry ; and that their writings have an esoteric signi- ficance and value highly different and divergent from their exoteric meaning. Whether he was right or wrong in this view I shall in no wise debate ; but will affirm that he was at any rate ingenious, subtle, and laboriously diligent. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was born in London in May 1828, and who from his earliest years spoke Italian with our father just as he spoke English with other people, was thus breathing a Dantesque '. intellectual atmosphere as soon as his perceptions began to expand to any matters of the mind. Never- theless he did not, in the years of childhood or of early boyhood, take any particular interest in Dante—this may have begun towards the year 1843, soon after he had left school, and commenced study as a painter : neither did he at any time show the least tendency to- wards adopting, or even towards scrutinising, the alle- gorical, non-natural, or abstruse interpretations which kour father put upon Dante and the Italian Mediaeval and [Renaissance writers. To the younger Rossetti the [interest of Dante was the interest of his poetry and his [sentiment : he was quite inclined to take it on trust [that Dante truly meant what he plainly—or sometimes ^what he not very plainly, yet still apparently and osten- sibly—said. Having once rallied with ardent zest to the great Florentine, he pursued the study of that line of poetic literature, as represented by Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoja, and other writers who figure in the present volume; and from reading he soon went on to trans- viii PREFACE. lating. To the best of my recollection, the great majority of these translations must have been executed in the years 1846 to 1848; some of them may be even a little earlier, others probably as late as 1850, but I should say very few belong to any date subsequent to that. He found his materials partly at home, and partly in the library of the British Museum, which he haunted with much assiduity for the purpose. After completing his version of the Vita Nuova—which was probably neither the first nor the last of the translations—he projected bringing it out with etched illustrations from designs of his own ; for meanwhile he was producing, in his profession as a painter, several water-colour and other illustrations of the kind. This project, however, fell - through, from want of time and lack of opportunity or encouragement ; and finally, early in 1861, the volume of The Early Italian Poets was published without any illustrations by Messrs. Smith & Elder—Mr. Ruskin, with his usual liberality, coming forward to advance or guarantee the requisite funds. As to the relation be- tween The Early Italian Poets, issued in 186 r, and Dante and his Circle, issued by Messrs. Ellis & White in 1874, the Prefaces written by my brother may be con- sulted for any necessary details. The only other scheme of Italian translation which he ever seriously enter- tained applied to the poems of Michelangelo Buonarroti. Towards 1873 ^e re-studied these poems, and was greatly bent upon turning them into English : but after all he did not carry out, nor I think did he ever begin, this work. Wm. M. Rossetti. London, February 1892. »»- DANTE AND HIS CIRCLE With the Italian Poets preceding Him. (lIOO— 1200— 13CX).) A COLLECTION OF LYRICS. TRANSLATED IN THE ORIGINAL METRES. PART L Dante's Vita Nuova, etc. Poets of Dante's Circle. PART II. Poets chiefly pefore Dante, TO MY MOTHER I DEDICATE THIS NEW EDITION OF A BOOK PRIZED BY HER LOVE. Advertise7iient to the Edition of 1874. V this (originally In re-entitling and re-arranging book published in 1861 as The Early Italian Poets,) my object has been to make more evident at a first glance its important relation to Dante. The Vita Nuova, together with the many among Dante's lyrics and those of his contemporaries which elucidate their personal intercourse, are here assembled, and brought to my best ability into clear connection, in a manner not elsewhere attempted even by Italian or German editors. Preface to the First Edition (1861). NEED not dilate here on the characteristics of the I first epoch of Italian Poetry ; since the extent of my translated selections is sufficient to afford a complete view of it. Its great beauties may often remain un- approached in the versions here attempted ; but, at the same time, its imperfections are not all to be charged to the translator. Among these I may refer to its limited range of subject and continual obscurity, as well as to its monotony in the use of rhymes or frequent substitution of assonances. But to compensate for much that is incomplete and inexperienced, these poems possess, in their degree, beauties of a kind which can never again exist in art ; and offer, besides, a treasure of grace and variety in the formation of their metres. Nothing but a strong impression, first of their poetic value, and next of the biographical interest of some of them (chiefly of those in my first division), would have inclined me to bestow the time and trouble which have resulted in this collection. Much has been said, and in many respects justly, against the value of metrical translation. But I think it would be admitted that the tributary art might find I PREFACE xiii a not illegitimate use in the case of poems which come down to us in such a form as do these early Italian ones. Struggling originally with corrupt dialect and imperfect expression, and hardly kept alive through centuries of neglect, they haveTeached that last and worst state in which the coup-de-grdce has almost been dealt them by clumsy transcription and pedantic super- structure.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Hell of a City: Dante's Inferno on the Road to Rome ([email protected]) DANTE's WORKS Rime (Rhymes): D.'S Lyrical Poems, Cons
    A Hell of a City: Dante’s Inferno on the Road to Rome ([email protected]) DANTE’S WORKS Rime (Rhymes): D.'s lyrical poems, consisting of sonnets, canzoni, ballate, and sestine, written between 1283 [?] and 1308 [?]. A large proportion of these belong to the Vita Nuova, and a few to the Convivio; the rest appear to be independent pieces, though the rime petrose (or “stony poems,” Rime c-ciii), so called from the frequent recurrence in them of the word pietra, form a special group, as does the six sonnet tenzone with Forese Donati: http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/rime.html (Testo critico della Societa' Dantesca Italiana; Florence: Societa' Dantesca Italiana, 1960. Edited by Michele Barbi. Translated by K. Foster and P. Boyde.) Vita nova (The New Life): Thirty-one of Dante's lyrics surrounded by an unprecedented self-commentary forming a narrative of his love for Beatrice (1293?). D.'s New Life, i.e. according to some his 'young life', but more probably his 'life made new' by his love for Beatrice. The work is written in Italian, partly in prose partly in verse (prosimetron), the prose text being a vehicle for the introduction, the narrative of his love story, and the interpretation of the poems. The work features 25 sonnets (of which 2 are irregular), 5 canzoni (2 of which are imperfect), and 1 ballata: http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/vnuova.html (Testo critico della Società Dantesca Italiana; Florence: Società Dantesca Italiana, 1960. Edited by Michele Barbi. Translated by Mark Musa.) In the Vita Nuova, which is addressed to his 'first friend', Guido Cavalcanti, D.
    [Show full text]
  • Pavannes and Divisions
    EZ RA PO UND C AMER A PO RT R AIT BY E H [ . O . O PPE. LO NDO N] PAV A N N E S A N D D IV IS IO N S EZ RA PO U ND NEW RK D PF MC M YO ALFRE A. KNO XVIII 1918 B C O PYR IG HT , , Y EZ RA PO UND Pu bli sh ed Ju ne 1 91 8 “ JUL i918 Certain o f th ese sketches and essays have appeared in “ F R ” “ ” Poetry, The ortnightly eview, The New Age , ” ” “ R F -ist The Quarterly eview , The uture , The Ego , “ R w o f e and The Little evie , to the editors which p ri o di cals the author wishes to make du e ack n o wledg men t . CONTENTS ’ JOdin dran ath Mawh wo r s Occupation An Anachron ism at Chinon Religio Aux Etu ves de Wiesbaden ’ L Homm e Moyen Sensuel Pierrots Stark Realism Twelve Dialogues o f Fonten elle I Alexander and Phrine II Dido and St rat o n ice 111 Anacreon and Ari stotle IV Homer and ZE SOp V Soc rates and Montaign e V I Charles V and Erasmus — V II Agnes Sorel R oxel an e VIII Brutus and Faustina IX Helen and Fulvia X Seneca and Scarron XI S R o f trato , aphael Urbino XII Bom b ast es Parac elsus and Mok ere A Retros pect ’ A Few Do n ts Prolegomena CONTENTS Remy de Gourmon t I II Fo rd Madox Hu etf er an d the Pro se Tradition in Verse Th R e ev .
    [Show full text]
  • Lyrical Quest Father and Sons
    Lyric Quests Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti we do not find is a concerted attempt to direct people in the the verse of a lesser forebear, as he effects his own lesser tran- living of their everyday lives, or to provide an anatomy of sition. 45 The passage from love poetry to moral poetry is a morals as Giraut does within the limits of the chivalric code crucial one, with a direct bearing on the Comedy; as the initiator and does within a much larger Christian and civic of that passage, the launcher of that transition, Guittone is here scheme.- The category of poet of rectitude is in fact not available implicitly recognized-as the only one of Dante's lyric precur- to the lyric poets of the Comedy; rather, they may aspire to a sors who could actively imagine, if not the Comedy itself, at poetics of erotic conversion, like Folquet. The two lyric poets least the space that the Comedy would later fill. in Dante's lexicon who require such a category, Giraut and Guittone, are rejected out of hand, their authority as precursors denied, their presence in the Comedy entirely negative. Within Fathers and Sons: Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti this general picture, however, we find one possible textual echo with some suggestive implications. The Comedy's first invo- If, in the Comedy, Guittone is a presence, repeatedly vilified, cation to the Muse, a alto ingegno, or m'aiutate; / Cavalcanti is an absence, just as systematically denied his due. a mente che scrivesti cia ch'io vidi, I qui si parra la tua nobi- We have already touched on Cavalcanti's pivotal role as Dante's litate" ("0 Muses, 0 high genius, help me now; 0 memory that early mentor, his first freely chosen vernacular poetic aucta- wrote down what 1 saw, here will your nobility appear" [Inf, ritas.
    [Show full text]
  • Donna Me Prega” and Dino’S Glosses
    Heliotropia 2.1 (2004) http://www.heliotropia.org Boccaccio, Cavalcanti’s Canzone “Donna me prega” and Dino’s Glosses he enigmatic, indeed disturbing figure of Guido Cavalcanti (1259– 1300) exercised the imagination of his contemporaries, especially of T his fellow poets. Without naming him once, Dante talks about Guido in his youthful work, the Vita nuova, telling us that Cavalcanti was the “primo de li miei amici” (VN III), and that he was one of those who replied poetically to Dante’s first sonnet. Dante also refers to Guido’s senhal, Gio- vanna/Primavera (VN XXIV). The whole of Dante’s treatise, as a specifi- cally vernacular composition, is dedicated to this first friend (VN XXX). Amongst Dante’s Rime, also, there is a companionship sonnet addressed to Cavalcanti, “Guido, i’ vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io,” to which the older poet responded in verse. The most memorable mention by Dante occurs in canto X of Inferno, where Guido is the “grand absent,” asked after by his damned father, Ca- valcante de’ Cavalcanti. The accent in the exchange is on Guido’s implied “altezza d’ingegno,” shared with Dante (X.59), and his disdain for some- thing — unspecified — which Dante by now was pursuing (poetry? theol- ogy?). The poet later resurfaces as an allusion in Purgatorio XI.97–99, where, in an object lesson in humility, literary primacy is passed through the Guidos, presumably from Guinizelli through Cavalcanti, and on to (perhaps) Dante himself. Guido Orlandi, who wrote the enquiry sonnet, “Onde si move e donde nasce Amore?” which occasioned Cavalcanti’s famous reply, the doctrinal canzone “Donna me prega,” paints a picture of the poet in “Amico, i’ saccio ben che sa’ limare,” stressing Guido’s verbal prowess, but also his consid- erable intellectual ambition, verging on vanity.
    [Show full text]
  • Love-Poems-Dante-Excerpt
    Other books by DANTE ALIGHIERI published by Alma Classics The Divine Comedy Translated by J.G. Nichols Rime Translated by Anthony Mortimer and J.G. Nichols Vita Nuova Translated by Anthony Mortimer Also published by Alma Classics Life of Dante by Giovanni Boccaccio Complete Poems by Guido Cavalcanti Sonnets by Cecco Angiolieri Love Poems Dante Alighieri Translated by Anthony Mortimer and J.G. Nichols ALMA CLASSICS alma classics ltd London House 243–253 Lower Mortlake Road Richmond Surrey TW9 2LL United Kingdom www.almaclassics.com This edition of Dante’s Love Poems first published by Alma Classics in 2014 The translations from Rime, Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy first published in separate volumes by Alma Classics in 2009, 2011 and 2012 respectively. Translations © the translators, as indicated at the end of each poem Extra material © J.G. Nichols Notes © Anthony Mortimer and J.G Nichols Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY isbn: 978-1-84749-345-3 All the pictures in this volume are reprinted with permission or pre sumed to be in the public domain. Every effort has been made to ascertain and acknowledge their copyright status, but should there have been any unwitting oversight on our part, we would be happy to rectify the error in subsequent printings. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or other- wise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.
    [Show full text]
  • Guido Cavalcanti (1255-1300) Donna Me Prega Cavalcanti Was An
    Rime Guido Cavalcanti (1255-1300) Donna me prega Cavalcanti was an important member of the famous poetic movement known as Dolce Stil Novo. Inspired by the medieval troubadour tradition, his canzone anatomizes love using a metaphysical vocabulary of grief and transfiguration. Cavalcanti believed that the individual soul is mortal and that poetry can resurrect our deadened sensorium. Sight is an important poetic faculty, which fuels the passion and takes possession of the two lovers. XXVII - Donna me prega, - per ch'eo voglio dire Donna me prega, - per ch'eo voglio dire d'un accidente - che sovente - è fero ed è si altero - ch'è chiamato amore: sì chi lo nega - possa 'l ver sentire! Ed a presente - conoscente - chero, 05 perch'io no sper - ch'om di basso core a tal ragione porti canoscenza: ché senza - natural dimostramemto non ho talento - di voler provare là dove posa, e chi lo fa creare, 10 e qual sia sua vertute e sua potenza, l'essenza - poi e ciascun suo movimento, e 'l piacimento - che 'l fa dire amare, e s'omo per veder lo pò mostrare. In quella parte - dove sta memora 15 prende suo stato, - sì formato, - come diaffan da lume, - d'una scuritate la qual da Marte - vène, e fa demora; elli è creato - ed ha sensato - nome, d'alma costume - e di cor volontate. 20 Vèn da veduta forma che s'intende, che prende - nel possibile intelletto, come in subietto, - loco e dimoranza. In quella parte mai non ha pesanza perché da qualitate non descende: 25 resplende - in sé perpetual effetto; non ha diletto - ma consideranza; sì che non pote largir simiglianza.
    [Show full text]
  • Guido Guinizzelli
    Guido Guinizzelli: Pivotal Poet of Medieval Italian Literature By Peter Lucia, B.A., M.A. As ever, dedicated to Angela De Vito-Lucia Copyright © 2020, Peter Lucia All rights reserved ISBN: 0-9741139-4-8 ISBN 13: 978-0-9741139-4-4 Peter Lucia Projects, Tinton Falls, NJ This work originated in an honors essay by Peter Lucia, Italian Department, Columbia University, 1984 Cover illustration adapted from La Dame de Coeur, Bibliothèque de France, Christine de Pizan. Épître d’Othéa. Paris, vers 1406. !2 Sections Index Introduction 3 Note on the Translations 5 The Poems, Translations and Commentary 7 Two Fine Translations of Guinizzelli’s Poems 85 Bibliography 89 !3 Introduction Guido Guinizzelli di Magnano was born about 1230 in Bologna and died in Monselice in 1276. His importance in Italian literature is that his small body of poems (only about twenty) represents the link between two styles: that of the so-called “Sicilian School,” which represents the official origin of Italian literature (to which one adds a nod to the various poets of central Italy and the still older French troubadours), and that of the Dolce Stil Nuovo (the “Sweet New Style”), which gave Italy its first truly elevated poetry. Actually, among his twenty poems only a few award him his singular position: they caught the eye of Dante, the movement’s most distinguished representative, who was inspired by Guinizzelli’s exulted use of the common tongue (the vernacular or Il volgare) in service of an advanced spiritualization of Love— and his application a kind of scientific rationale to the workings of it all.
    [Show full text]
  • Poetry Without End: Reiterating Desire in Petrarch's Rvf 70 and 23
    Poetry Without End: Reiterating Desire in Petrarch’s Rvf 70 and 23 Manuele Gragnolati and Francesca Southerden Our article focuses on two canzoni from Petrarch’s Rerum vulgarium fragmenta or Canzoniere, Rvf 23, “Nel dolce tempo de la prima etade,” and Rvf 70, “Lasso me, ch’io non so in qual parte pieghi.”1 By reading them comparatively, we aim to set up a dialogue between the concepts of return and conversion and to explore the relationship between the form of the texts and the subjectivity it shapes. In particular, we are interested in investigating how Petrarch blurs the distinction between beginnings and ends and how, defying conclusion, his lyric poetry gives form to a sort of masochistic pleasure. Rvf 70 is an intertextual canzone (and part-cento) that culminates in an explicit textual return of the poet’s own poem 23, the so-called canzone delle metamorfosi, in which the poetic subject undergoes a series of transformations explicitly modelled on Ovid. The incipit of canzone 23, “Nel dolce tempo de la prima etade,” forms the final line of canzone 70 and is the last in a series of quotations of the incipits of earlier poems, each of which closes one of the stanzas of Petrarch’s poem and reconstructs what Franco Suitner has termed “il retroterra della lirica romanza” [“the hinterland of romance lyric”].2 All the incipits closing the five stanzas relate to a concept of love as essentially tyrannical, obsessive, and compulsive. The first stanza ends with the incipit of the Occitan poem now thought to be by Guillem de Saint Gregori, “Drez et rayson es qu’ieu ciant e· m demori,” which Petrarch attributed to Arnaut Daniel and which embodies a paradoxical form of desire that involves subjecting oneself to love even to the point of death, and finding pleasure in it.3 The other incipits belong to the Italian lyric tradition.
    [Show full text]
  • Polemiche Letterarie Nella Lirica Italiana Del Duecento*
    Polemiche letterarie nella lirica italiana del Duecento* Simone MARCENARO Departamento de Filoloxía Galega Área de Filoloxía Románica Universidade de Santiago de Compostela [email protected] RESUMEN El articulo pretende delinear el tema de la “polémica literaria” en la lírica italiana del XIII siglo, conside- rando los núcleos más representativos que marcan los debates de argumento literario, desde los poetas sicilianos hasta las experiencias de los “Stilnovisti” e de Dante. La actitud contrastiva en el ámbito meta- poético se atesta casi exclusivamente en los sonetos dialógicos (“tenzoni”), a partir de los que es posible esbozar el canon literario contemporáneo, evidenciando la influencia de modelos poéticos de grande importancia, como Guittone d’Arezzo o Guido Guinizzelli. La polémica, además, se realiza en la inmensa mayoría de los casos según una actitud “seria”, que excluye el vituperium o los núcleos burlescos de los poetas “comico-realistici”, cuya ausencia resalta en un panorama, el de la lírica románica medieval, en que este tipo de debates entran en cambio con frecuencia en los géneros propiamente satíricos. Palabras clave: lírica italiana del XIII siglo; tenzones; sonetos; polémica literaria; Poetas sicilianos; Guittone d’Arezzo; Guido Guinizzelli; Bonagiunta da Lucca; Cino da Pistoia; Guido Cavalcanti; Dante. Literary polemics in the XIIIth century’s Italian lyric poetry ABSTRACT The article deals with the theme of literary polemics in the Italian lyric poetry of the XIIIth century, focusing on the most representative and the most relevant aspects of the literary debate: from Sicilian lyric poetry to Dolce stil novo and Dante. The contrastive attitude in the metaliterary sphere is to be found almost exclusively in dialogical sonetti (“tenzoni”): analyzing their texts proves helpful in describing the contemporary literary canon and allows to point out the influence of major poetic models such as Guit- tone d’Arezzo or Guido Guinizzelli.
    [Show full text]
  • Hispania, Italia and Occitania: Latin and the Vernaculars, Bilingualism Or Multilingualism?
    chapter 1 Hispania, Italia and Occitania: Latin and the Vernaculars, Bilingualism or Multilingualism? Arie Schippers Romance Vernaculars From medieval times in Italy, the Romance vernaculars and their literatures stood opposite Latin, which was the official, Church and literary language. Dante Alighieri’s Latin work De vulgari eloquentia is a testimony to this linguis- tic situation. The work describes the situation in Italy and is to a large extent the justification of the place that Dante’s poetry school occupied in the overall picture. But the situation in Italy—the cradle of Latin—does not stand in iso- lation from the rest of southern Europe, such as Hispania (Arabic al-Andalus and the region of present-day Spain and Portugal) and their respective litera- tures, and Occitania, the region where the oldest vernacular lyric of medieval Europe manifested itself, mainly in the love poetry of the troubadours. Occitan The linguistic space of Occitania was originally around Toulouse, in the Languedoc, in Provence and in Aquitania, the region that today we call the Midi. Occitania is a relatively new name for the region where Occitan was spoken. The name is derived from the word oc (Latin hoc), which means ‘yes’. The earlier terms Provence, Provençal, or Languedoc or Aquitania were not sufficient to denote the linguistic region. Today, however, the language from the north of France called langue d’oïl (Latin hoc illud / hoc ille) dominates the whole area that we call the Midi or southern France. There are some specific language pockets where Occitan dialects are still spoken, for example in the Aran valley in Spain, where the Aranese Occitan dialect is an officially rec- ognized language.1 Moreover, there is a certain artificial revival of forms of 1 In Val d’Aran teaching at elementary schools starts with three years of Aranes.
    [Show full text]
  • Page 1 of 4 “Circle 6, Canto 10” Guy P. Raffa Heresy Dante Opts for the Most Generic Conception of Heresy--The Denial Of
    “Circle 6, Canto 10” Guy P. Raffa Heresy Dante opts for the most generic conception of heresy--the denial of the soul's immortality (Inf. 10.15)--perhaps in deference to spiritual and philosophical positions of specific characters he wishes to feature here, or perhaps for the opportunity to present an especially effective form of contrapasso: heretical souls eternally tormented in fiery tombs. More commonly, heresy in the Middle Ages was a product of acrimonious disputes over Christian doctrine, in particular the theologically correct ways of understanding the Trinity and Christ. Crusades were waged against "heretical sects," and individuals accused of other crimes or sins--e.g., witchcraft, usury, sodomy--were frequently labeled heretics as well. Heresy, according to a theological argument based on the dividing of Jesus' tunic by Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:35), was traditionally viewed as an act of division, a symbolic laceration in the community of "true" believers. This may help explain why divisive, partisan politics is such a prominent theme in Dante's encounter with Farinata. Set in a northern Italian monastery, Umberto Eco's best-selling novel The Name of the Rose (1980)--made into a film (1986) starring Sean Connery, Christian Slater, and F. Murray Abraham--provides a learned and entertaining portrayal of heretics and their persecutors only a few decades after the time of Dante's poem. Farinata Farinata cuts an imposing figure--rising out of his burning tomb "from the waist up" and seeming to "have great contempt for hell"--when Dante turns to address him in the circle of the heretics (Inf.
    [Show full text]
  • Rewriting Dante: the Creation of an Author from the Middle Ages to Modernity
    Rewriting Dante: The Creation of an Author from the Middle Ages to Modernity by Laura Banella Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date: _______________ Approved: ___________________________ Martin G. Eisner, Supervisor ___________________________ David F. Bell, III ___________________________ Roberto Dainotto ___________________________ Valeria Finucci Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2018 ABSTRACT Rewriting Dante: The Creation of an Author from the Middle Ages to Modernity by Laura Banella Department of Romance Studies Duke University Date: _________________ Approved: ___________________________ Martin G. Eisner, Supervisor ___________________________ David F. Bell, III ___________________________ Roberto Dainotto ___________________________ Valeria Finucci An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Romance Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2018 Copyright by Laura Banella 2018 Abstract Rewriting Dante explores Dante’s reception and the construction of his figure as an author in early lyric anthologies and modern editions. While Dante’s reception and his transformation into a cultural authority have traditionally been investigated from the point of view of the Commedia, I argue that these lyric anthologies provide a new perspective for understanding how the physical act of rewriting Dante’s poems in various combinations and with other texts has shaped what I call after Foucault the Dante function” and consecrated Dante as an author from the Middle Ages to Modernity. The study of these lyric anthologies widens our understanding of the process of Dante’s canonization as an author and, thus, as an authority (auctor & auctoritas), advancing our awareness of authors both as entities that generate power and that are generated by power.
    [Show full text]