italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
Dear Adrienne,
For a sound philological commentary on the opening cantos I recommend the
following:
MAZZONI Francesco
Saggio di un nuovo commento alla _Divina Commedia_. Inferno
-- canti I-III. Firenze: Sansoni, 1967, vii-457 pp.
Mazzoni does not offer much insight into the problems of allegory -- his
approach to allegory is decisionistic (in part influenced by a Crocean
rejection of 'abstract allegorizing') rather than investigative --, but I
think that his litteral commentary is still one of the best you can get.
For overviews of past scholarship you might try:
CASSELL Anthony K.
Inferno I. Foreword by Robert Hollander. With a new transla-
tion of the canto by Patrick Creagle and Robert Hollander,
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989
(= Lectura Dantis Americana, 1), xxxi-249 pp.
JACOFF/STEPHANY
Rachel Jacoff / William A. Stephany, Inferno II. With a new
translation by Patrick Creagle and Robert Hollander. Phila-
delphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989 (= Lectura
Dantis Americana, 2), xxiii-144 p.
Unlike Mazzoni, they do not comment on the text verse by verse, but focus
on what the authors regard as the crucial passages and problems, and when
discussing these they also present at some lenght the views of the
preceding commentary tradition.
As a seminal essay interpreting the prologue scene in the light of
Augustine's concept of the "region of unlikeness", I recommend John
Freccero, _Dante's Prologue Scene_, in: Dante Studies 84 (1966), p.1-25,
reprinted in id., Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel Jacoff,
bridge (Mass.): Harvard UP, 1986, chap. 1. I myself have not yet seen, but
you might try:
HALLOCK A. H.
Dante's "selva oscura" and other obscure "selvas". In: Forum
Italicum 6 (1972), p.57-78
SOWELL Madison U.
Brunetto's _Tesoro_ in Dante's _Inferno_. In: Lectura Dantis
7 (1990), p.60-71
GORNI Guglielmo
Dante nella selva. Il primo canto della Commedia. Parma:
Pratiche, c1995 (= Lezione di poesia, 7)
Others will be more able than I to supply you with references regarding the
significance of Dante's selva in modern art and literature. What comes to
my mind is Maurice Blanchot's novel _Thomas l'obscur_, but in this case the
intertextual relations with Dante's opening scene are based rather on the
"lago del cor" than on the "selva", see Rainer Stillers, _Zur Pra"sens
Dantes in der Moderne: Danteske Strukturen bei Blanchot_, in: Deutsches
Dante-Jahrbuch 65 (1990), p.53-75
Best wishes for your project,
Otfried
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