Dante’s Lyric Redemption: Eros, Salvation, Vernacular Tradition
Tristan Kay
Abstract
This book re-examines two strongly interrelated aspects of the poet’s work: the role and value he ascribes to earthly love and his relationship to the vernacular lyric tradition of his time. It contends that an account of Dante’s poetic journey that posits a stark division between earthly and divine love, and between the secular lyric poet and the Christian auctor, does little justice to his highly distinctive and often polemical handling of these categories. The book first contextualizes, traces, and accounts for Dante’s intriguing erotic commitment from the minor works to the Commedia. It hi ... More
This book re-examines two strongly interrelated aspects of the poet’s work: the role and value he ascribes to earthly love and his relationship to the vernacular lyric tradition of his time. It contends that an account of Dante’s poetic journey that posits a stark division between earthly and divine love, and between the secular lyric poet and the Christian auctor, does little justice to his highly distinctive and often polemical handling of these categories. The book first contextualizes, traces, and accounts for Dante’s intriguing erotic commitment from the minor works to the Commedia. It highlights his attempts, especially in his masterpiece, to overcome normative oppositions in formulating a uniquely redemptive vernacular poetics, one oriented towards the eternal while rooted in his affective, and indeed erotic, past. It then examines how this matter is at stake in Dante’s handling of three important lyric precursors—Guittone d’Arezzo, Arnaut Daniel, and Folco of Marseilles—and ultimately at the heart of his claims to preeminence as a vernacular author. Through a detailed reading of Dante’s engagement with these poets, the book illuminates the poet’s careful departure from a dualistic model of love and conversion and provides a new contribution to our understanding of the central and complex role played by erotic desire in his vernacular poetics.
Keywords:
Dante,
Italian literature,
medieval literature,
lyric poetry,
love and desire,
troubadour poetry,
Guittone d’Arezzo,
Arnaut Daniel,
Folco of Marseilles
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198753964 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: December 2015 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198753964.001.0001 |
