Table of Contents

List of charts; List of contributors; Preface; Note on translations; Chronological table; 1. Life of Dante Giuseppe Mazzotta; 2. Dante and the lyric past Teodolinda Barolini; 3. Approaching the Vita nuova Robert Pogue Harrison; 4. The unfinished author: Dante's rhetoric of authority in the Convivio and De vulgari eloquentia Albert Russell Ascoli; 5. Dante and the empire Charles Till Davis; 6. Dante and Florence John M. Najemy; 7. Dante and the classical poets Kevin Brownlee; 8. Dante and the Bible Peter S. Hawkins; 9. The theology of Dante Christopher Ryan; 10. A poetics of chaos and harmony Joan Ferrante; 11. Introduction to Inferno John Freccero; 12. Introduction to Purgatory Jeffrey T. Schapp; 13. Shadowy prefaces: an introduction to Paradiso Rachel Jacoff; 14. Dante and his commentators Robert Hollander; 15. Dante in English David Wallace; Further reading; Index.

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Fifteen specially-commissioned essays by distinguished scholars provide an introduction to Dante that is at once accessible and challenging.