Gianfranco Contini

An Idea of Dante Gianfranco Contini

Translated by Stephen Sartarelli. This volume brings together all of Gianfranco Contini's essays on Dante. The collection opens with his Introduction to the Rime of Dante, a text he wrote in 1938 that has remained a point of reference for Dantean exegesis ever since. It is followed by a close reading of a famous sonnet from La vita nuova; a portrait of Dante as both character and poet in the Divine Comedy; an essay on Dante's relevance to our times; a comprehensive critical survey he calls One Interpretation of Dante; a methodological analysis titled Philology and Dantean exegesis; a guide to the poetry of Cavalcanti, to his relations with Dante, and to his presence in the Divine Comedy; and close readings of two Cantos of the Divine Comedy, Inferno III and Paradiso XXVIII. A series of commentaries on specific questions concludes the volume, which stands as an ideal introduction to the Dantean universe.

Literary Nonfiction.