Abstracts
Abstract
This essay traces the parallels between Vita nuova 19 and the impasse at the gate of the City of Dis in Inferno in order to propose Medusa and Beatrice as diametrically opposed figures. Whereas Beatrice activates the intellect and catalyzes internal reflection and conversion, Medusa deactivates the intellect and obstructs reflection and conversion. Moreover, contextualizing the Medusa figure within the wider approach to the gate in Inferno 8 and 9 reveals the figure to be linked to the forging of the poet’s novel apostrophic mode of reader engagement inaugurated in those cantos. Dante weaves into both of these episodes a philosophical / theological discourse of light and darkness, drawing upon Aristotelian sources filtered through Guido Guinizzelli, as well as the Pauline dialectic of light and darkness in 2 Corinthians. Moreover, Dante the poet unfolds the Medusa / Beatrice binary alongside his development of his novel apostrophic mode, thus laying out the parallel actions of viewer and reader, both of which depend upon healthy intellects capable of absorbing and reflecting divine light in a way that brings about conversion.
Keywords:
- Dante Alighieri,
- Medusa,
- Beatrice,
- Apostrophe,
- Inferno 9,
- La vita nuova
Download the article in PDF to read it.
Download
Appendices
Bibliography
- Ahern, John. “The Reader on the Piazza: Verbal Duels in Dante’s Vita Nuova.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language, vol. 32, 1990, pp. 18–39, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40754917.
- Alighieri, Dante. La Divina Commedia. Edited by Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi, Mondadori, 1991–97.
- Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, trans. Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Bantam, 1980–1982.
- Alighieri, Dante. Vita nuova. Edited by Domenico De Robertis, Ricciardi, 1980.
- Aquinas, Thomas. Commentary on the Letters of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. Edited by J. Mortensen and E. Alarcón and translated by F. R. Larcher, Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012.
- Ardizzone, Maria Luisa. “Guido Guinizzelli’s ‘Al cor gentil’: A Notary in Search of Written Laws.” Modern Philology, vol. 94, no. 4, 1997, pp. 455–74, https://doi.org/10.1086/392429.
- Auerbach, Erich. “Dante’s Addresses to the Reader.” Romance Philology, vol. 7, no. 4, 1954, pp. 268–78.
- Baldassaro, Lawrence. “Dante the Pilgrim: Everyman as Sinner.” Dante Studies, vol. 92, 1974, pp. 63–76, https://www.jstor.org/stable/40166223.
- Balfour, Mark. “Francesca da Rimini and Dante’s Women Readers.” In Women, the Book, and the Worldly. Edited by Leslie Smith and Jayne H. M. Taylor, Brewer, 1995, pp. 71–83.
- Barolini, Teodolinda, editor. Dante’s Lyric Poetry: Poems of Youth and the Vita Nuova. Translated by Richard Lansing and Andrew Frisardi, U of Toronto P, 2014.
- Basile Kelly, Deana. “Dangerous Reciprocity in Inferno 5: Francesca as Reader, Interlocutor, and Poet.” Italian Quarterly, vol. 56, nos. 219–22, 2019, pp. 75–95.
- Basile Kelly, Deana. “Rejection of Dialogue with the Father: Vanni Fucci as Infernal Adam.” In A Garland of Gifts: Essays in Honour of Olgz Zorzi Pugliese, vol. 2. Edited by Konrad Eisenbichler and Pasquale Sabbatino, Soleil, 2021, pp. 47–68.
- Brilli, Elisa. “Purgatorio XXXII: La ‘decenne sete,’ il ‘gabbo’ e il senso della storia.” Lectura Dantis Bononiensis, vol. IX, a cura di Emilio Pasquini e Carlo Galli. Bologna: Bononia UP, 2020, pp. 97–118.
- Chiavacci Leonardi, Anna Maria, editor. La Divina Commedia. By Dante Alighieri, Mondadori, 1991–97.
- De Robertis, Domenico, editor. Vita nuova. By Dante Alighieri, Ricciardi, 1980.
- Ferrari, Chiara. “Inversions and Conversions in Dante’s Rime Petrose.” Italica, vol. 90, no. 2, 2013, pp. 153–75, https://www.jstor.org/stable/23474990.
- Franke, William. Dante’s Interpretive Journey. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1996.
- Freccero, John. Dante: The Poetics of Conversion. Edited by Rachel Jacoff, Harvard UP, 1986.
- Garfagnini, Gian Carlo, editor. Il Convivio. By Dante Alighieri, Salerno, 1997.
- Gilson, Simon. Medieval Optics and Theories of Light in the Works of Dante. Mellen, 2000.
- Glenn, Diana. Dante’s Reforming Mission and Women in the Comedy. Troubadour, 2008.
- Heilbronn, Denise. “Dante’s Gate of Dis and the Heavenly Jerusalem.” Studies in Philology, vol. 72, no. 2, 1975, pp. 167–92, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4173868.
- Huot, Sylvia. “Dante’s Poetics of Love: Some Remarks about the Commedia and Its Vernacular Context.” Quaderni d’ italianistica, vol. 4, no. 1, 1983, pp. 69– 88, https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/qua/article/view/10925/7821.
- Kirkpatrick, Robin. “Medusa.” The Dante Encyclopedia. Edited by Richard Lansing, Garland, 2000, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203834473.
- Lansing, Richard H., translator. Dante’s “Il Convivio” (“The Banquet”). Garland, 1990.
- Mansfield, Margaret Nossel. “Dante and the Gorgon Within.” Italica, vol. 47, no. 2, 1970, pp. 143–60, https://doi.org/10.2307/478331.
- Mercuri, Roberto. “Il canto x dell’Inferno.” Lectura Dantis 2002–2009, Omaggio a Vincenzo Placella per i suoi settanta anni, a cura di Anna Cerbo Napoli, Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,” II, 2011, pp. 415–29.
- Muresu, Gabriele. Tra gli arcani dell’Eden: “Purgatorio” XXXII. Bulzoni, 1992.
- Musa, Mark. Advent at the Gates: Dante’s Comedy. Indiana UP, 1974.
- Musa, Mark, trans. Dante’s “Vita Nuova.” Indiana UP, 1973.
- Padoan, Giorgio. Il lungo cammino del “poema sacro.” Studi danteschi. Olschki, 1993.
- Raffa, Guy P. Divine Dialectic: Dante’s Incarnational Poetry. U of Toronto P, 2000.
- Sapegno, Natalio, editor. La Divina Commedia, vol. 1, Inferno. By Dante Alighieri, La Nuova Italia, 1987.
- Singleton, Charles. An Essay on the Vita nuova. Harvard UP, 1958.
- Spitzer, Leo. “The Addresses to the Reader in the Commedia.” Italica, vol. 32, no. 3, 1955, pp. 143–65, https://doi.org/10.2307/477276.
- Steinberg, Justin. Accounting for Dante: Urban Readers and Writers in Late Medieval Italy. U of Notre Dame P, 2007, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvpj7crn.
- Sturm-Maddox, Sara. “The Rime Petrose and the Purgatorial Palinode.” Studies in Philology, vol. 84, no. 2, 1987, pp. 119–33, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4174263.
- Suther, Judith G., and R. V. Giffin. “Dante’s Use of the Gorgon Medusa in Inferno IX.” Kentucky Romance Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 1, 1980, pp. 69–84, https://doi.org/10.1080/03648664.1980.9931018.
- The New American Bible. Catholic Book Publishing, 1992.
- Veglia, Marco. “Beatrice e Medusa dalle ‘petrose’ alla Commedia.” Tenzone, vol. 11, 2010, pp. 105–22.
- Watt, Mary Alexandra. Dante, Columbus and the Prophetic Tradition. Routledge, 2017.