An Idea of Dante

Translated by Stephen Sartarelli. This volume brings together all of Gianfranco Contini's essays on Dante. The collection opens with his Introduction to the Rime of Dante, a text he wrote in 1938 that has remained a point of reference for Dantean exegesis ever since. It is followed by a close reading of a famous sonnet from La vita nuova; a portrait of Dante as both character and poet in the Divine Comedy; an essay on Dante's relevance to our times; a comprehensive critical survey he calls One Interpretation of Dante; a methodological analysis titled Philology and Dantean exegesis; a guide to the poetry of Cavalcanti, to his relations with Dante, and to his presence in the Divine Comedy; and close readings of two Cantos of the Divine Comedy, Inferno III and Paradiso XXVIII. A series of commentaries on specific questions concludes the volume, which stands as an ideal introduction to the Dantean universe.
Literary Nonfiction.