ENG/ITL
401: Dante's Divine Comedy
SPRING 1999;
T R 2:00-3:15 PM; 124 Irvin
INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Sante Matteo, Dept. of French and
Italian, 208 Irvin
OFFICE HOURS: MW 1-3 PM; tel.
529-5932; e-mail: matteos@muohio.edu
Intensive examination of
Dante's major opus in a bilingual text. Readings and discussion in
English. No prerequisites for this
course. Italian minors must read the
work in the original for credit and enroll in 401.O: The Commedia in the
Original (1 credit; TR 3:25-3:50 PM).
I. COURSE REQUIREMENTS
A. READINGS AND
DISCUSSION: Two and a half hours per week will be devoted to studying the Comedy
in class discussions. A packet of critical readings should be acquired
from the Oxford Copy Shop, as well as a list of study questions to facilitate
preparation and discussion. Regular
attendance and active participation in class discussion are crucial. After the second absence, five points will be
deducted from the participation grade for each absence.
B. ORAL REPORTS: Each
student will present four short in‑class reports: 1) done individually,
an explication of an episode or passage from the Comedy (c. 10 minutes);
2) done in groups of two students (5 min. per student), critiques of two of the
assigned critical articles, defending one, refuting the other; 3) a summary of
your term project. (See guidelines
below.)
C. PAPERS: 1) A
bi-weekly journal, consisting of short "reaction" essays (2‑page
maximum) will be due on Tuesday of alternate weeks. 2) A "research" paper or other term
project will be due four weeks before the final exam. (See attached guidelines.)
D. EXAMS: There will be
three exams: two midterm tests and a two‑hour comprehensive final
exam at the end of the course (Thurs., May 6, 12:30 PM).
II. TEXTS: The Divine
Comedy of Dante Alighieri, a verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum
(with Italian original on facing pages, 3 vols.: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso
(New York: Bantam).
A packet of required
critical articles and study questions, available from the Oxford Copy Shop.
Other books have been
placed on reserve to facilitate your study and research. (See attached list of packet contents and
books or reserve.)
III. GRADING: Each student's semester grade will
be calculated by adding the points awarded in six categories. The standard breakdown scale will apply:
93%+=A; 90-92%=A-; 87-89%=B+; 83-86%=B; 80-82%=B-; 77-79%=C+; 73-76%=C;
70-72%=C-; 67-69%=D+; 63=66%=D; 60-62%=D-.
A. Participation in the
course (attendance, daily preparation, informed discussion, etc.) (100
points)
B. Four in‑class
oral reports (4 @ 25 = 100 points)
C. Journal of brief (1‑2-page)
"reaction" papers (6 @ 25 = 150 points)
D. Mid‑term
examinations (2 @ 100 = 200 points)
E. "Research"
paper or project (200 points)
F. Final examination
(250 points)
TOTAL POINTS: 1000
READING ASSIGNMENTS for
ENG/ITL 401: Dante's Divine Comedy.
Readings are to be done before the designated class
periods. Notes should be taken on each reading to insure active,
informed participation in class discussion, particularly in answer to the study
questions for each canto.
Jan. 12 Introduction to
course
14 Inferno 1-3
19 DANTE RESEARCH ORIENTATION, Dr. Wortman; 110 KING LIBRARY, Kamm
Instruction Room
21 Inferno 4-8; JOURNAL A-1
26
" 9-13; JOURNAL B-1
28
“ 14-18
Feb. 2
“ 19-23; JOURNAL A-2
4
" 24-27; Sowell,
"Dante's Nose" (p. 17)
9
" 28-31; Cambon, "Dante's Noble Sinners" (p. 1); JOURNAL
B-2
11
" 32-34; Freccero, "Bestial Sign and Bread of Angels" (p.
9)
16 M/T switch, no class
18 TEST ON INFERNO
23
Purgatorio 1-4; JOURNAL A-3
25
" 5-7; "Dante's
Letter to Can Grande" (p. 59)
Mar. 2
" 8-10; Fergusson,
"The Fine Veil" (p. 49); JOURNAL B-3
4
" 11-15; SEMESTER
PROJECT PROPOSAL
Spring Break, Mar. 6-14
16 Purgatorio
16-20; JOURNAL A-4
18
" 21-23; Dronke, "Medieval Modes of Reading" (p. 81)
23 " 24-27; Auerbach,
"Structure of Comedy" (p. 67); JOURNAL B-4
25 " 28-30; Singleton, "Allegory"
(p. 25); PROJECT UPDATE
30
" 31-33; Croce,
"Character and Virtue of D's Poetry" (p. 129); JOURNAL A-5
Apr. 1 Paradiso
1-5
6
" 6-9; Eliot, "A
Talk on Dante" (p. 133); JOURNAL B-5
8
" 10-13; Chiarenza, "Dante's Lady Poverty" (p. 97)
13
“ 14-17; Mazzotta,
"Language of Faith" (p. 109); JOURNAL A-6
15 TEST
ON PURGATORIO AND PARADISO
20 Paradiso
18-21; Clements, "Dante After Seven Centuries" (p. 149); JOURNAL B-6;
TERM PROJECT
22
“ 22-25; Barolini,
"Detheologizing Dante" (p. 119)
27
" 26-29; Tate, "The
Symbolic Imagination" (p. 139); MAKE-UP JOURNAL
29
" 30-33; Barolini, Ferrante, Hollander,
"Why Did Dante Write the Comedy?" (p. 165)
FINAL EXAM: Thursday,
May 6, 12:30 PM
ORAL
PRESENTATIONS
I: EXPLICATION; TIME
LIMIT: 10 MINUTES; TOPIC: Choose and explicate a particularly striking passage
or episode from the day's reading or one of the study questions for the day's
cantos. NOTA BENE: You should not
summarize or try to explicate an entire canto.
Focus on a particular character, simile, image, scene; or even one verse
or expression which strikes you as particularly important or engaging. (25 points)
TUESDAY THURSDAY
Jan. 21
______________________________
26
____________________________ 28
______________________________
Feb. 2 _____________________________ 4 ________________________________
9 ____________________________ 11 ______________________________
23
____________________________ 26 _______________________________
Mar. 2
_____________________________ 4
________________________________
16
____________________________ 18
______________________________
23 ____________________________ 25 ______________________________
30
____________________________
II: ARTICLE CRITIQUE;
TIME LIMIT: 10 MINUTES: Two students choose one of the critical readings. One student will defend it, pointing out its
main ideas and strong points (5 minutes); the other student will attack and
refute it, pointing out weaknesses or mistakes in procedure, logic, ideas,
conclusions, etc. (5 minutes).
Each student must
critique two articles, defending one (signing up in the PRO column), refuting
the other (signing up in the CON column). (25 points each)
PRO CON
Feb. 4 Sowell ____________________ ____________________
9 Cambon ___________________ ____________________
11 Freccero ___________________ ____________________
25 "Can Grande" __________________ ____________________
Mar. 2 Fergusson ____________________ _____________________
18 Dronke ____________________ ____________________
23 Auerbach ____________________ ____________________
25 Singleton ____________________ ____________________
30
Croce ___________________ ____________________
Apr. 6 Eliot ___________________ ____________________
8 Chiarenza ____________________ ____________________
13 Mazzotta ____________________ ____________________
20 Clements ____________________ ____________________
22 Barolini ____________________ ____________________
27 Tate ____________________ ____________________
29 Barolini, Ferrante, Hollander _________________ ____________________
III: TERM PROJECT
SUMMARY, 10 MINUTES: Give an account of your term project: your investigation,
major research findings, conclusions.
Provide a handout for all the students in the class with an outline of
your arguments, enlightening quotations, and a bibliography of your sources.
(25 points)
TUESDAY THURSDAY
Apr.
1 _________________ ____________________
6 _________________ __________________ 8 _________________ ___________________
13 _________________
_________________
20 _________________
_________________ 22 __________________
________________
27 _________________
___________________ 29
_________________ ____________________
ENG/ITL
401 PAPER GUIDELINES
JOURNAL GUIDELINES: c. 500 words--1-2
pages--double spaced, or with wide margins for comments, DUE ALTERNATE
TUESDAYS, as indicated on the syllabus.
The class will be divided into two groups, A and B. Students in group A will hand in their
journals one week; students in group B the following week, and so on. Each student may write seven entries (1-6
plus the make-up option for Apr. 27, in case you missed one or to improve a low
score). The best six scores will
count. NOTA BENE: LATE ENTRIES
WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED!
These should be
"thought" or "reaction" essays rather than research
reports. You do not have to read other
sources, but rather should rely on your own analysis and interpretation of a
specific passage or episode of the Divine Comedy from the reading
assigned for that week. Choose a
particular episode (e.g. "Paolo and Francesca," "Dante and
Virgil at the wall of the City of Dis," the
encounter with the "Three Beasts," etc.) or a specific passage, i.e.
a limited number of verses (e.g. the sign on the Gate of Hell, the opening tercets of the poem, etc.) and explicate it in your own
terms. Pay attention to the literal as
well as the allegorical meaning(s), and to stylistic as well as narrative
aspects.
Another possible
approach is simply to take one of the study questions which you have found to
be particularly engaging and develop it into 500-word essay. The important thing is to work from the
particular to the general--focus your attention on a concrete, well defined
part of the poem, and by close analysis and interpretation suggest how it
contributes to the more general meanings of the canto and the poem as a whole.
LONG RESEARCH PAPER OR
OTHER TERM PROJECT:
This might take the form of a traditional research paper (10-12 pages,
double-spaced, plus notes and a bibliography); or it might be a more creative
project: a poem, a short story, a song--even a painting or sculpture. It might even be a group project involving
several students: a play, a video production, performance art, etc.
NOTA BENE: In any case, each student
(EVEN THOSE STUDENTS WHO DO A CREATIVE PROJECT!) will have to consult secondary
sources and do an in-depth investigation of some aspect of the Divine Comedy. The bibliography of consulted works should
include at least 3 articles, 3 books, and one or more electronic sources.
Topics of investigation
might be thematic (e.g. the role of women in the Comedy; Virgil's
function; D's numerology; D's notion of love), stylistic (e.g. D's
versification; D's use of similes; the architecture of the poem), or socio-historical
(e.g. D's politics in the DC; the idea of empire; the poem's relation to
the other arts of the period; D and the Catholic church, Islam in the poem and
in European culture in the Middle Ages).
The topic should be of genuine interest to you.
The projects will be
developed in stages according to the following schedule:
Mar. 4: Proposal:
a preliminary title and brief, one-paragraph description of the topic as well
as an initial bibliography (at least 3 articles and 3 books, not including the Divine
Comedy itself, and one or more electronic sources: a computer data base,
such as the Dartmouth Dante Project, or a Dante-related web site).
Mar. 25: Project
report: a status report on your project in outline form, indicating the
points you will cover and the organization of your argument or presentation,
and an updated and annotated bibliography (briefly stating in one
or two sentences what each article or book is about and how it relates to your
topic).
Apr. 20: Completed
project: Hand in a draft of the completed project, including notes and your
definitive bibliography. I will assign a
provisional grade. If the draft is
satisfactory and the grade is acceptable to you, you will be done. Otherwise, you will have a chance to revise
it before the end of the term.
If you choose to do a
creative project (poem, video, etc.) or a group project, each of you must
provide as an appendix a bibliography and a brief account of your research
(what works you consulted, what you got out of them, and how they contributed
to your project).
Remember: all projects,
even the creative ones, must be based on research (consultation of secondary
sources) and must be accompanied by a bibliography!
ENG/ITL 401 Dante's Divine
Comedy: CRITICAL READINGS
(Packet available at
Oxford Copy Shop; includes Study Questions).
Glauco Cambon,
"Dante's Noble Sinners: Abstract Examples of Living Characters?", p. 1
John Freccero,
"Bestial Sign and Bread of Angels: Inf. 32-33", p. 9
Madison U. Sowell,
"Dante's Nose and Publius Ovidius
Naso: A Gloss on
Inferno 25.45", p. 17
Charles S. Singleton,
"Allegory", p. 25
Kenelm Foster, "The Mind
in Love: Dante's Philosophy", p. 39
Francis Fergusson,
"The Fine Veil of Poetry", p. 49
Dante's "Letter to
Can Grande," trans. Nancy Howe, p. 59
Erich Auerbach, "The Structure of the Comedy",
p. 67
Peter Dronke, "The Commedia and the Medieval Modes of
Reading", p. 81
Marguerite Chiarenza, "Dante's Lady Poverty", p. 97
Giuseppe Mazzotta, "The Language of Faith: Messengers and
Idols", 109
Teodolinda Barolini,
"Detheologizing Dante", p. 119
Benedetto Croce, "Character
and Virtue of Dante's Poetry", p. 129
T. S. Eliot, "A
Talk on Dante", p. 133
Allen Tate, "The
Symbolic Imagination: The Mirrors of Dante", p. 139
Robert J. Clements,
"Dante After Seven Centuries", p. 149
"Why Did Dante
Write the Comedy?" Panel: Tedolinda Barolini, Joan Ferrante, Robert Hollander, p. 165
BOOKS ON RESERVE
AT KING LIBRARY
OTHER
WORKS BY DANTE:
Dante's Lyric Poems, ed. Joseph Tusiani PQ 4315.5 .T8713 1992
The De Monarchia of Dante Alighieri, ed. Aurelia Henry PQ
4315.62 .H5
Dante: The Banquet, ed. Christopher Ryan
PQ 4315.57 .R92 1989
Dante: La Vita Nuova, ed. Mark Musa, PQ 4315.58 .M8
Literary Criticism of
Dante Alighieri,
ed. R. S. Haller PQ 4315.5 .H3
CRITICAL
ANTHOLOGIES
(collections of what the editors
consider the most significant, most
influential, or
"best" articles on the Comedy):
American Critical Essays
on The
Divine Comedy,
ed. Robert J. Clements PQ 4385 .U5 C55
Cambridge Companion to
the Divine
Comedy,
ed. Rachel Jacoff PQ 4335 .C36
Critical Essays on Dante, ed. Giuseppe Mazzotta PQ 4390 .C788 1991
Dante Readings, ed. Eric Haywood PQ
4390 .D283 1987
Dante: A Collection of
Critical Essays,
ed. John Freccero PQ 4332 .F7
Dante's Divine Comedy: Modern Critical
Interpretations,
ed. Harold Bloom PQ 4390 .D284 1987
A Dante Symposium, eds. William DeSua & Gino Rizzo PQ 4362 .llB65 D357
Essays on Dante, ed. Mark Musa PQ 4390 .M87
REFERENCE
BOOKS, STUDY GUIDE:
A Concordance to the Divine Comedy, E. H. Wilkins & T.
Bergin PQ 4464 .W5PQ 4332 .F7
Dante Dictionary, Paget
Toynbee PQ 433 .T7 1968
Dante and the Medieval
Latin Tradition,
Peter Dronke PQ 4394 .D76 1986
Dante: The Divine Comedy, Robin Kirkpatrick PQ
4390 .K48 1987