Dante in the Nineteenth Century—Reception, Canonicity, Popularization

The nineteenth century saw the reinvention of Dante as a Romantic and national poet, his recognition as the canonical ‘central man of all the world’ and the Commedia’s diffusion as a widely accessible text. Addressing these aspects of Dante’s presence during a key period of his modern reception, this collection of essays draws upon a number of papers given at the international conference ‘Dante in the Nineteenth Century’, held at the University of York in July 2008, and combines the work of established experts in the field with that of younger scholars who are breaking important new ground on the subject. It is distinctive in concentrating on the reception of Dante from Romanticism through the cult of Beatrice and mid-century criticism, translation and visual art, to the development of scholarship and popularization. The volume explores diverse nineteenth-century historical, intellectual, artistic and literary contexts in the cultures of Italy, France, the British Isles and the United States.

Nick Havely is Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of York, where he has taught courses on Dante for over thirty years. He has also held teaching posts at the University of Oxford and Cornell University. His main research interests are in late medieval literature and Anglo-Italian literary relations from the Middle Ages onwards. His work on Dante and his reception includes a number of recent and forthcoming monographs and collections of essays. He is currently engaged on the study ‘Dante’s Readers in the English-Speaking World, from the fourteenth century to the present’, for which he was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2007-8.