Italian Literature Commons^™

The Middle Of The Middle: Purgatory, Pilgrimage, And Human And Plant Mobility In A Time Of Climate Crisis, Stephen S. Collis

The Goose

This paper, adapted from a talk given for the Institute of the Humanities at Simon Fraser University on April 26 2023, explores intersecting issues taken up by an in-progress long poem I am currently writing. That long poem, “The Middle,” explores questions of climate displacement, migration, and refuge via a writing-though of Dante’s Purgatorio—itself a poem of pilgrimage. A further context for both the poem and the paper about the poem is an ongoing project of walking in solidarity with refugees, asylum seekers, and immigration detainees that the author has been involved with since 2015. In seeking to “override …

What Our Hearts Crave For: An Examination Of The Paradoxical Attraction To Dante’S Inferno, Ketzalt E. Marquez

Honors Projects

This paper serves to analyze and explain why audiences are attracted to stories with elements of Horror in them, using Dante’s Inferno as the vehicle for this conversation, as the Inferno’s setting is in the worse possible place imaginable. Horror narratives arise feelings of fear and disgust in its audiences through the use of monsters, as audiences relate to the fear and disgust the positive characters in the narratives are feeling because of the monster’s presence. Since these emotions arise in a safe space, such as in literature or film, where the source of the emotions is not endangering the …

The Structure Of Human Redemption As Demonstrated In Dante's The Divine Comedy, Erick S. Flores

Student Research

Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy is renowned all around the globe for its impact on literary history as a whole. This research paper delves into the structure of human redemption as portrayed in Dante's epic masterpiece. Through a comprehensive analysis of the narrative structure, allegory, and symbolism, employed by Dante, this study illuminates the underlying framework that guides the protagonist and readers on a transformative journey through the afterlife. By examining the divisions of Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, this paper reveals the hierarchical nature of sin, the ever-progressive path of spiritual growth, and the ultimate attaining of salvation and understanding …

Exploring Dante’S Sources Online: Interactive Reading, Visualizations, And The Study Of Dantean Intertextuality In The Digital Age, Julie Van Peteghem

Publications and Research

Dante’s Commedia is a highly allusive text, and readers throughout time have noted the many parallels between Dante’s verses and those of others. Now that the text of the Commedia and various scholarly and artistic interpretations of the poem (commentaries, translations, illuminated manuscripts) have become accessible online, also the concordance, the lists of parallel passages in Dante’s poem and other works, has become a digital resource. In this essay I explore the study of Dante’s sources in a digital environment mainly through the Intertextual Dante project and its Dante-Ovid edition, published on Digital Dante. Intertextual Dante visualizes moments of …

Beatrice: A Representation Of Christ, Michelle Wincell

Augsburg Honors Review

Everyone is subject, at some time in life, to an astonishment of the mind resulting from an awareness of something wonderful. Such an awareness creates awe and curiosity and makes one want to know more. In Dante's life, it was simply the sight of the Italian girl Beatrice that moved him to such a state. Beatrice was the image that inspired all of his work and increased his worship and knowledge of God. She was an image of many things, in particular, virtue, redemption, new life, light and God are symbolized. But her representation as a Christ figure is most …

Dante's Dream: A Jungian Psychoanalytical Approach, Gwenyth E. Hood

Research in Medieval and Early Modern Culture

An artist or mystic can refresh and revive a culture’s imagination by exploring his personal dream-images and connecting them to the past. Dante Alighieri presents his Divine Comedy as a dream-vision, investing considerable energy in establishing and alluding to its dates (starting Good Friday, 1300). Modern readers will therefore welcome a Jungian psychoanalytical approach, which can trace both instinctual and spiritual impulses in the human psyche.

Francesca's Sweet Lament: An Operatic Adaptation Of Canto V From Dante's Inferno, Javen Cristina Lara

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College

Il Giudizio Universale Tra La Scolastica Medievale E La Divina Commedia Di Dante, Amanda R. Latrenta

Theses and Dissertations

In The Divine Comedy, Dante presents his readers with an interpretation of The Last Judgement. Although this interpretation bears distinct markers of Dante’s originality, it also closely aligns with medieval scholastic writings on the phenomenon. This thesis examines how Dante’s interpretation aligns with or diverges from medieval theology.

Strangely Dark, Unbearably Bright: From The Volto Santo To The Veronica And Beyond In The Divine Comedy, Alexa Sand

Art and Design Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Dante’S Divine Comedy: A Pastoral Subversion, Katie Francom

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This paper attempts to widen the scholarly understanding of Dante’s use of pastoral modes within The Divine Comedy. By examining typical pastoral themes, Dante’s use of Virgil as a guide, and the presence of pastoral themes within the Comedy, this paper will ultimately assert that Dante completely reshapes the pastoral genre, taking it from its typically pagan history and giving it new, Christian meaning. By so doing he makes his beautifully artistic story into an enlightening spiritual journey for the reader.

Everyone’S Their Own Worst Critic Or How I Learned Not To Fear The End, Audrey Belle Rosenblith

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Jean Genet, author ofThe Balcony, and Dante Alighieri, author of Inferno, have more in common than you might think. For one thing, they were both obsessed with death.

The Vestibule (a devised theater piece) was made to examine this obsession with (and fear of) death further.

Art is a tool we can use to confront our fear of death. All people fear death.

The Political Persecution Of A Poet: A Detail Of Dante's Exile, Jason Ader

A with Honors Projects

Durante degli Alighieri, known throughout the world as simply Dante, was a fourteenth century Italian poet, philosopher, literary theorist, and politician. He is best known for his epic Commedia, which was later dubbed The Divine Comedy. Commedia is generally considered the greatest Italian literary work and a masterpiece of world literature. Due to the turbulent political atmosphere of his time and place, Dante spent over a third of his life living in exile. This paper will explore the details of Dante's exile and the influence that it had upon his work.

Dante’S Understanding Of The Two Ends Of Human Desire And The Relationship Between Philosophy And Theology, Jason Aleksander

Faculty Publications

I discuss Dante’s understanding that human existence is “ordered by two final goals” and how this understanding defines philosophy’s and theology’s respective scopes of authority in guiding human conduct. I show that, while Dante devalues the philosophical authority associated with the traditional Aristotelian emphasis on the significance of contemplative activity, he does so in order to highlight philosophy’s ethico-political authority to guide human conduct toward its “earthly beatitude.” Moreover, I argue that, although Dante subordinates earthly beatitude to spiritual beatitude, he nonetheless maintains that philosophy’s authority to reveal a path to spiritual beatitude requires its fundamental independence from theology.

The Gulag Archipelago: From Inferno To Paradiso, David Matual

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

It is apparent from the title of his novel The First Circle and from various details there and in other works that Alexander Solzhenitsyn is familiar with at least the imagery of Dante's Divine Comedy. One direct and several indirect references to it also suggest a Dantean subtext in his longest and most ambitious project, The Gulag Archipelago. Indeed, the loci of the Comedy—Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—are transformed in the Gulag into metaphorical representations of the various stages in the development of man's consciousness—and especially Solzhenitsyn's consciousness—during the ordeals of arrest, inquest, imprisonment, …