"David Gibbons provides a working definition of metaphor as it was understood in Dante’s time and, by close readings from the early lyrics to the Paradiso, gives a new, comprehensive account of Dante’s gift for this rhetorical figure. If... more
"David Gibbons provides a working definition of metaphor as it was understood in Dante’s time and, by close readings from the early lyrics to the Paradiso, gives a new, comprehensive account of Dante’s gift for this rhetorical figure. If to be a master of metaphor is, according to Aristotle, a sign of genius — and Dante was known in the sixteenth century as ‘poeta metaforicissimo’ — then Gibbons’s volume goes a long way to explaining a major facet of Dante’s creative brilliance. The heart of the book is an analysis of metaphor in the Paradiso, but the volume also reaches back to Dante’s earliest lyrics and concludes with a look forward to Petrarch’s use of this important device."
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Come macrotesto il dialogo prometeico costituisce di per sé un esempio istruttivo della riscrittura mitologica leopardiana, operante ad una serie di livelli: dal mito della ribellione umana contro la volontà divina, con tutte le... more
Come macrotesto il dialogo prometeico costituisce di per sé un esempio istruttivo della riscrittura mitologica leopardiana, operante ad una serie di livelli: dal mito della ribellione umana contro la volontà divina, con tutte le ascendenze classiche del caso, a quello più moderno del buon selvaggio rousseauiano (e non solo). In entrambi i casi si tratta, per Leopardi, di miti intesi come illusioni; ovvero di «larve», come quelle inviate da Giove sulla terra nella Storia del genere umano con c..
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... There has never been any sign of the original sonnet, and the only critic who to my knowledge has suggested a candidate for Dante's interlocutor here is Gorni, who tentatively proposes the name of Lippo Pasci de' Bardi.13... more
... There has never been any sign of the original sonnet, and the only critic who to my knowledge has suggested a candidate for Dante's interlocutor here is Gorni, who tentatively proposes the name of Lippo Pasci de' Bardi.13 There can be little doubt that the most remarkable ...
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Abstract If any credence is to be lent to Tasso's theoretical pronouncements on literary matters with regard to his own poetry, the two most significant influences on his use of metaphor were Petrarch and Dante. In his two sets of... more
Abstract If any credence is to be lent to Tasso's theoretical pronouncements on literary matters with regard to his own poetry, the two most significant influences on his use of metaphor were Petrarch and Dante. In his two sets of Discorsi, especially the later Discorsi del poema eroico, Tasso's discussion of what metaphor is and how and when to use it is sprinkled with examples from these two poets. On the whole Petrarch fares better than Dante. Whilst the metaphors used in canto XXXI of the Inferno attract Tasso's approval because they are drawn from something greater to represent something lesser, and whilst Petrarch is censured for using metaphors that are too obscure in ‘Mai non vo' più cantar’ and metaphors that are so extended as to be indistinguishable from allegory in ‘Passa la nave mia’, on many more occasions Tasso is openly critical of the Dantean and appreciative of the Petrarchan models. Almost all of the metaphors which Tasso quotes from the Paradiso, for example, receive censure: Dante's description of the sun as ‘la lucerna del mondo’, he says, ‘ci fe’ quasi sentir l'odor dell'oglio’, and the characterization of St Dominic as ‘l'amoroso drudo de la fede cristiana’ is attacked for being too artificial and cold – both criticisms, incidentally, which Della Casa had levelled earlier on in the century. Meanwhile, most of the Petrarchan examples are received favourably, even the common ‘ridono i prati’ so beloved of rhetorical manuals from antiquity onwards. Such preferences, and prejudices, are unsurprising in a century when Petrarch was fêted for his ‘marvellous’ use of metaphors, and only isolated voices praised Dante as ‘poeta metaforicissimo’. Even if Petrarch's poetry was nothing like as independent of his illustrious predecessor's influence as he would have had his readers believe, for the critic and theorist of the late Cinquecento Dante and Petrarch were competing models of how to use literary language, including metaphor, particularly in the wake of Bembo's authoritative praise of the latter and condemnation of the former.
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, Art, Italian Studies, Literature, Poetry, and 3 moreMetaphor, Allegory, and Literary studies
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... The English translation of Paolo Grossi's study of collective property in the juridical consciousness of nineteenth-century analysts has brought to the fore, albeit only too briefly, Cattaneo's contribution... more
... The English translation of Paolo Grossi's study of collective property in the juridical consciousness of nineteenth-century analysts has brought to the fore, albeit only too briefly, Cattaneo's contribution to the study of Swiss commons (Grossi 1981, 1922). ...
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The Italian in which Jessie White Mario’s Vita di Giuseppe Garibaldi is written is “near-native”, evidence, among other things, of the writer’s own stance in psychological terms. A convinced supporter of her adopted country, Jessie White... more
The Italian in which Jessie White Mario’s Vita di Giuseppe Garibaldi is written is “near-native”, evidence, among other things, of the writer’s own stance in psychological terms. A convinced supporter of her adopted country, Jessie White Mario at no stage renounced her own nationality. In the pages of this volume we hear the echo of a different voice – female, foreign – which adds to and alters the predominantly male and indigenous discourse of the Italian Risorgimento.
The work of William Dalrymple reflects a series of transformations, from straightforward travel writing, through more complex and profound encounters with the places and people of various Eastern nations, in particular India, to what most... more
The work of William Dalrymple reflects a series of transformations, from straightforward travel writing, through more complex and profound encounters with the places and people of various Eastern nations, in particular India, to what most recently might best be described as narrative history. While such depth would be out of place in tourist discourse, some of it – the historical dimension in particular – is unusual even for travel writing. Despite the increasing specialization, however, Dalrymple’s approach has if anything become less elitist in nature; he has even been known to offer his services providing guest lectures on Indian history to select tour parties. His choice of history as his preferred method of representation in theory allows his chosen cultures to represent themselves. In practice, however, it tends to result in a reduced emphasis on the other, and the figure of the first-person narrator, ostensibly relegated to the background, proves to be more resilient than anticipated. Possibly the main theme of Dalrymple’s work as a whole is his own cultural development, from callow travel writer to culturally sensitive historical commentator.