ABSTRACT

First published in 1995. The Critical Heritage series collects together a large body of criticism on major figures in literature. Each volume presents the contemporary responses to a particular writer, enabling the student to follow the formation of critical attitudes to the writer's work and its place within a literary tradition. This collection of critical writings about Dante, many of them published here in English for the first time, tries to offer a balanced survey of the poet's reception in both time and space. Its scope therefore differs from that of its main predecessors in both English and Italian.

chapter |88 pages

Introduction

chapter |16 pages

Dante Alighieri, letter to Cangrande della Scala

1314–17 or 1319–20

chapter |4 pages

Giovanni del Virgilio, epistle to Dante

1319 or first half 1320

chapter |5 pages

Fra Guido Vernani, censure of Dante's Monarchia

Between 1327 and 1334

chapter |3 pages

Jacopo Alighieri, notes to the Inferno

Between 1322 and 1333, prob. before 1324

chapter |4 pages

Jacopo della Lana, commentary on Purgatory XXXII, 109–41

Between 1323 and 1328, or 1327 and 1333

chapter |9 pages

Guido da Pisa, Prologue to his commentary on the Inferno

1327–8, or 1328–33, or 1343–50

chapter |10 pages

Giovanni Boccaccio, life of Dante

After June 1351

chapter |9 pages

Leonardo Bruni, censure and exaltation of Dante

1401–after 1402

chapter |2 pages

Anon., Dante and the jester

c. 540

chapter |4 pages

Giovanni Delia Casa, Dante's bad example

1558 [1576]

chapter |5 pages

Giovita Scalvini, Dante and real life

1818?-1830s