Dante: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) - Softcover

Hainsworth, Peter; Robey, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0199684774 ISBN 13: 9780199684779

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2015

Synopsis

In this Very Short Introduction, Peter Hainsworth and David Robey take a different approach to Dante, by examining the main themes and issues that run through all of his work, ranging from autobiography, to understanding God and the order of the universe. In doing so, they highlight what has made Dante a vital point of reference for modern writers and readers, both inside and outside Italy. They emphasize the distinctive and dynamic interplay in Dante's writing between argument, ideas, and analysis on the one hand, and poetic imagination on the other.

Dante was highly concerned with the political and intellectual issues of his time, demonstrated most powerfully in his notorious work, The Divine Comedy. Tracing the tension between the medieval and modern aspects, Hainsworth and Robey provide a clear insight into the meaning of this masterpiece of world literature. They highlight key figures and episodes in the poem, bringing out the originality and power of Dante's writing to help readers understand the problems that Dante wanted his audience to confront but often left up to the reader to resolve.

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About this title

About the Author

Peter Hainsworth lectured in Italian at Hull and Kent Universities before moving to Oxford in 1979. He remained there until he retired in 2003. He has published widely on medieval and modern Italian literature, including Petrarch the Poet (Routledge, 1986). He reviews regularly for the Times Literary Supplement.

David Robey lectured in Italian at Oxford University before becoming Professor of Italian at Manchester and then Reading Universitties. He has published on 15th-century Italian humanism, language and style in Dante and Renaissance narrative poetry, the computer analysis of literature, and modern critical theory. He is the author of a computer-based study on Sound and Structure in Dante's 'Divine Comedy' (OUP, 2000), and an extensive data resource on Sound and Metre in Italian Narrative Verse.

Peter Hainsworth and David Robey co-edited the Oxford Companion to Italian Literature (2002), and were joint authors of Italian Literature: A Very Short Introduction (2012).

Review

this work deftly explores aspects of Dante that were variously enlightened * Independent, Christopher Hirst * There is something almost uncanny about how this book makes the work of a long-dead poet from another culture come alive... this book imparts knowledge as well as encouraging us to find it ourselves. * Guardian, Nicholas Lezard * The authors are much to be praised for not allowing the brevity of their volume to overdetermine or unjustly foreclose what Dante's text leaves to his reader's judgement and sensibilties. * Heather Webb, The Times Literary Supplement * Swift-moving, decisive, sensitive and suggestive * The Manchester Review * The authors are much to be praised for not allowing the brevity of their volume to undermine or unjustly foreclose what Dante's text leaves to his reader'a judgement and sensibilities. * Fortean Times, Heather Webb *

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0199684774
• ISBN 13: 9780199684779
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 144