Dante's Comedy is a puzzling poem because the author wanted to lead his readers to understanding by engaging their curiosity. While many obscure matters are clarified in the course of the poem itself, others have remained enigmas that have fascinated Dantists for centuries. Over the last thirty-five years, Richard Kay has proposed original solutions to many of these puzzles; these are collected in the present volume. Historical context frames Kay's readings, which relate the poem to such standard sources as the Bible, Aristotle, Aquinas, and the Latin classics, but he also goes beyond these Scholastic sources to exploit Dante's use of less familiar aspects of Latin clerical culture, including physiognomy, Vitruvian proportions, and optics, and most especially astrology. Kay explores new ways to read the Comedy. For instance, he argues that Dante has embedded references to his authorities in a continuous series of acrostics formed by the initial letters of each tercet. Again, he shows how Dante returns to the theme of each infernal canto and develops it in the parallel cantos of Purgatorio and Paradiso. Particularly worthy of note are four essays on the poem's finale in the Empyrean.

Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy is a reappraisal of the poem by an international team of thirty-four scholars. Each vertical reading analyses three same-numbered cantos from the three canticles: Inferno i, Purgatorio i and Paradiso i; Inferno ii, Purgatorio ii and Paradiso ii; etc. Although scholars have suggested before that there are correspondences between same-numbered cantos that beg to be explored, this is the first time that the approach has been pursued in a systematic fashion across the poem. This collection – to be issued in three volumes – offers an unprecedented repertoire of vertical readings for the whole poem. As the first volume exemplifies, vertical reading not only articulates unexamined connections between the three canticles but also unlocks engaging new ways to enter into core concerns of the poem. The three volumes thereby provide an indispensable resource for scholars, students and enthusiasts of Dante. The volume has its origin in a series of thirty-three public lectures held in Trinity College, the University of Cambridge (2012-2016) which can be accessed at the ‘Cambridge Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy’ website.

A wide-ranging and original study on how enigmas and riddles work in literature.

Historical context frames Richard Kay's readings of some of the enigmas in Dante's Divine Comedy. These relate the poem to such standard sources as the Bible, Aristotle, Aquinas, and the Latin classics, but also go beyond these Scholastic sources to exploit Dante's use of less familiar aspects of Latin clerical culture, including physiognomy, Vitruvian proportions, and optics, and most especially astrology. Kay explores new ways to read the Comedy, investigating acrostics, parallelisms between cantos of Purgatorio and Paradiso, and aspects of the poem's finale in the Empyrean.

This book proposes that though Hell seems a God-forsaken place, every scene, character and major image in Dantes Divine Comedy Hell, Purgatory and Paradise is associated with one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as it were lurking in the shadows. Thus every one of the hundred cantos has a dedication to a Person, and the cantos form overarching groups which are also so dedicated, making the whole poem like a vast symbolic cathedral, where every action has a secret divine dimension. These presences make it very doubtful that Dante really thinks God tortures people for eternity! For readers who may be unfamiliar with Dante, the author has made a translation, abridged, in prose and verse, thus hoping to provide an introduction to Dante for those who do not know him and a new way of reading him for those who do. The result of decades of reflection on Dante and the Trinity, Dantes Hidden God offers a fresh and challenging vision of the Commedia. Offered as an invitation to read Dante, this inventive presentation of Dantes masterpiece will intrigue readers and gives an accessible account of Paul Priests highly original ideas about the sacrato poema. Dr Matthew Treherne, Senior Lecturer in Italian, University of Leeds

Dante on View opens an important new dimension in Dante studies. The volume's interdisciplinary approach to reception brings together literary criticism, visual culture and performance studies. Dante's Commedia is re-created through the performances of readers and artists in a wide range of media. The essays analyse creative uses of the poet from medieval manuscript illumination to nineteenth and twentieth-century stage productions, from film to ballet and hyperinstruments.