Originally published in 1977. This volume recovers the allegory in Dante's Divine Comedy and presumes that readers' deficient knowledge of or interest in allegory have led to misinterpretations of Dante's poem. None of the dozens of commentaries on the Comedy published in the first half of the twentieth century was concerned with allegory more than sporadically, says Singleton, and so these treatments directed readers' attention to the merest disjecta membra of that continuous dimension of the poem. From Singleton's perspective, the allegory of the Comedy is an imitation of Biblical allegory, which was acknowledged by thinkers in the Middle Ages but not by intellectuals during and following the Renaissance. Singleton attempts to restore the allegorical elements to the foreground of interpreting the Comedy.

1. Commedia: elements of structure.--2. Journey to Beatrice.

[The essays] are arranged to follow the order of the "Comedy," and they form the perfect companion for a reader of the poem. Throughout Freccero operates on the fundamental premise that there is always an intricate and crucial dialectic at work between Dante the poet and Dante the pilgrim. -- from cover.

The Portrait of Beatrice examines both Dante's and D. G. Rossetti's intellectual experiences in the light of a common concern about visuality. Both render, in different times and contexts, something that resists clear representation, be it the divine beauty of the angel-women or the depiction of the painter's own interiority in a secularized age. By analyzing Dante's Vita Nova alongside Rossetti's Hand and Soul and St. Agnes of Intercession, which inaugurates the Victorian genre of 'imaginary portrait' tales, this book examines how Dante and Rossetti explore the tension between word and image by creating 'imaginary portraits.' The imaginary portrait—Dante's sketched angel appearing in the Vita Nova or the paintings evoked in Rossetti's narratives—is not (only) a non-existent artwork: it is an artwork whose existence lies elsewhere, in the words alluding to its inexpressible quality. At the same time, thinking of Beatrice as an 'imaginary Lady' enables us to move beyond the debate about her actual existence. Rather, it allows us to focus on her reality as a miracle made into flesh, which language seeks incessantly to grasp. Thus, the intergenerational dialogue between Dante and Rossetti—and between thirteenth and nineteenth centuries, literature and painting, Italy and England—takes place between different media, oscillating between representation and denial, mimesis and difference, concealment and performance. From medieval Florence to Victorian London, Beatrice's 'imaginary portrait' touches upon the intertwinement of desire, poetry, and art-making in Western culture.

In Dante's Journey to Polyphony, Francesco Ciabattoni's erudite analysis sheds light on Dante's use of music in the Divine Comedy. Following the work's musical evolution, Ciabattoni moves from the cacophony of Inferno through the monophony of Purgatory, to the polyphony of Paradise and argues that Dante's use of sacred songs constitutes a thoroughly planned system. Particular types of music accompany the pilgrim's itinerary and reflect medieval theories regarding sound and the sacred. Combining musicological and philological scholarship, this book analyzes Dante's use of music in conjunction with the form and content of his verse, resulting in a cross-discipline analysis also touching on Italian Studies, Medieval Studies, and Cultural History. After moving from infernal din to heavenly harmony, Ciabattoni's final section addresses the music of the spheres, a theory that enjoyed great diffusion among the early middle ages, inspiring poets and philosophers for centuries.

In the ancient world, friendship was a virtue of great philosophical importance. Aristotle wrote extensively about it, as did Cicero. Their conception of friendship as a relationship based on reason and virtue was transformed by Christianity into a connection based on the mutual love of an individual and God. In Dante’s Idea of Friendship, Filippa Modesto offers sharp readings of the Commedia, Vita Nuova, and Convivio that demonstrate Dante’s interest in that theme. Drawing on a lucid and wide-ranging examination of the literature on friendship, she shows how he weaved together the contradictory classical and the Christian concepts of friendship into a harmonious synthesis in which friendship became a handmaiden to salvation and happiness. A fresh, perceptive interpretation of Dante’s works, Dante’s Idea of Friendship will engage medievalists, classicists, and scholars of friendship throughout the ages.

Originally published in 1977. This volume recovers the allegory in Dante's Divine Comedy and presumes that readers' deficient knowledge of or interest in allegory have led to misinterpretations of Dante's poem. None of the dozens of commentaries on the Comedy published in the first half of the twentieth century was concerned with allegory more than sporadically, says Singleton, and so these treatments directed readers' attention to the merest disjecta membra of that continuous dimension of the poem. From Singleton's perspective, the allegory of the Comedy is an imitation of Biblical allegory, which was acknowledged by thinkers in the Middle Ages but not by intellectuals during and following the Renaissance. Singleton attempts to restore the allegorical elements to the foreground of interpreting the Comedy.