Dante in Translation
Published: Fall 2008
Description
The course is an introduction to Dante and his cultural milieu through a critical reading of the Divine Comedy and selected minor works (Vita nuova, Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia, Epistle to Cangrande). An analysis of Dante’s autobiography, the Vita nuova, establishes the poetic and political circumstances of the Comedy’s composition. Readings of Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise seek to situate Dante’s work within the intellectual and social context of the late Middle Ages, with special attention paid to political, philosophical and theological concerns. Topics in the Divine Comedy explored over the course of the semester include the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; love and knowledge; and exile and history.
Course Takeaways
- Topics in the Divine Comedy explored over the course of the semester include the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; love and knowledge; and exile and history.
Meet the Instructors
Giuseppe Mazzotta is the Sterling Professor of Humanities for Italian at Yale University. He specializes in medieval literature but his publications address all periods of Italian literature and culture and include Dante, Poet of the Desert: History and Allegory in the Divine Comedy; The World at Play in Boccaccio’s Decameron; Dante’s Vision and the Circle of Knowledge; The Worlds of Petrarch; The New Map of the World: the Poetic Philosophy of Giambattista Vico; and Cosmopoiesis: The Renaissance Experiment. Recent editorial projects include Critical Essays on Dante and the Norton edition of Dante’s Inferno.
Full Biography
