Ethics, Politics and Justice in Dante

Edited by Giulia Gaimari and Catherine Keen

ISBN: 9781787352278

Publication: June 27, 2019

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What is this?

Ethics, Politics and Justice in Dante presents new research by international scholars on the themes of ethics, politics and justice in the works of Dante Alighieri, including chapters on Dante’s modern ‘afterlife’.

Together the chapters explore how Dante’s writings engage with the contemporary culture of medieval Florence and Italy, and how and why his political and moral thought still speaks compellingly to modern readers. The collection’s contributors range across different disciplines and scholarly traditions – history, philology, classical reception, philosophy, theology – to scrutinise Dante’s Divine Comedy and his other works in Italian and Latin, offering a multi-faceted approach to the evolution of Dante’s political, ethical and legal thought throughout his writing career.

Certain chapters focus on his early philosophical Convivio and on the accomplished Latin Eclogues of his final years, while others tackle knotty themes relating to judgement, justice, rhetoric and literary ethics in his Divine Comedy, from hell to paradise. The closing chapters discuss different modalities of the public reception and use of Dante’s work in both Italy and Britain, bringing the volume’s emphasis on morality, political philosophy, and social justice into the modern age of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.

Praise for Ethics, Politics and Justice in Dante

'Excellent essays on a number of themes and specific instances related to education, law, speech, private and public moral codes, current events, and book learning in Dante’s own historical context and beyond.'
Speculum

'[The] two culminating chapters offer stimulating reflections on Dante’s enduring accessibility and how he can still speak to audiences today. ...The volume offers new methodological approaches to consider Dante’s depictions and understandings of ethics, politics, and justice, offering fresh readings on both popular and less widely considered passages of Dante’s poetic works.'
Bibliotheca Dantesca: Journal of Dante Studies

Giulia Gaimari was a Wolfson Postgraduate Scholar at UCL, where she recently obtained her PhD. Her research interests focus on Dante’s knowledge and employment of classical philosophy; on medieval encyclopaedic and didactic culture, on civic rhetoric and ideals; and on the representation of souls in medieval otherworldly visions and travels. She has published articles on themes ranging from the representation of the blessed souls in the Commedia, to aspects of Dante’s ethical and political thinking.

Catherine Keen is Associate Professor in the Italian Department at University College London. She is currently Senior Co-Editor of the journal Italian Studies. Her research interests cover Dante’s Commedia and his minor works, especially relating to his thought on politics and exile, themes addressed in her monograph on Dante and the City (2003). She has also published on the early Italian lyric tradition, with a special interest in the poetry of Cino da Pistoia, and on translation and reception of classical literature in Duecento and Trecento Italy, particularly the works of Cicero and of Ovid.

1. Introduction: ‘Justice in the Heart’
Giulia Gaimari and Catherine Keen
2. On Grammar and Justice: Notes onConvivio, II. xii. 1–7
Anna Pegoretti
3. A Classicizing Friar in Dante’s Florence. Servasanto da Faenza, Dante, and the Ethics of Friendship
Nicolò Maldina
4. An Ethical and Political Bestiary in the First Canto of Dante’sComedy
Giuseppe Ledda
5. Lust and the Law: Reading and Witnessing inInfernoV
Nicolò Crisafi and Elena Lombardi
6. More than an Eye for an Eye: Dante’s Sovereign Justice
Justin Steinberg
7. ‘Ritornerò profeta’: TheEpistleof St James and the Crowning of Dante’s Patience
Filippo Gianferrari
8. Ethical Distance and Political Resonance in Dante’sEclogues
Sabrina Ferrara
Two Reflections on Dante’s Political and Ethical Afterlives
9. Dante’sFortuna: an Overview of Canon Formation and National Contexts
Catherine Keen
10. Responses to Dante in the New Millennium
Claire E. Honess and Matthew Treherne

'Excellent essays on a number of themes and specific instances related to education, law, speech, private and public moral codes, current events, and book learning in Dante’s own historical context and beyond.'
Speculum

Bibliotheca Dantesca: Journal of Dante Studies

Format: Open Access PDF

4 B&W illustrations

ISBN: 9781787352278

Publication: June 27, 2019