The Ancient Flame: Dante and the Poets

318 Pages·2008·3.697 MB·English

by  Winthrop Wetherbee

The William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante Studies
Theodore J. Cachey and Christian Moevs, Series Editors W
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“Winthrop Wetherbee’s study of Dante’s relationship to the classical Latin poets—Vergil,
Ovid, Lucan, Statius—is a genuine tour de force. Drawing upon an expert knowledge of
these four Latin authors and tracking Dante’s manifold uses of them from the beginning t
of the Commedia straight through to the end, Wetherbee produces something like a ‘total
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reading’ of the poem’s classicism. This is a significant achievement by one of our leading
medievalists.” e
—Albert Russell Ascoli, Terrill Distinguished Professor, University of California, Berkeley
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“In The Ancient Flame, Winthrop Wetherbee brings together two longstanding passions,
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Roman epic and Dante’s Divine Comedy; his study wonderfully illuminates both. Wether-
c
bee presents a Dante who opened himself as fully as possible to the forces that shaped the
poetic worlds of his pagan forebears. In Vergil he experienced the tragedy of history, the i
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constraints of life in a universe ruled by inexorable fate, where virtue and piety were never and
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far from fury. In Lucan he witnessed the anger and despair that would mark the damned in
Hell, and a moral inflexibility that qualifies the worthiness of Cato in Purgatory. In Ovid t Potheets

Dante felt the sweep and the shortfall of humanity and imagination in the classical age. In
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Statius he registered the impulse of an era to transcend what it could not fully understand.
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Comprehensive and unfailingly sensitive, The Ancient Flame is as poetically responsive a
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reading of the Divine Comedy and Latin literature as we have ever had.”
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—Warren Ginsberg, Knight Professor of Humanities, University of Oregon
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Wetherbee’s fresh, illuminating approach departs from the usual treatment of classical
poets in Dante criticism, which assigns them a merely allegorical function. Their true im-
portance to Dante’s project is much greater. As Wetherbee meticulously shows, Dante’s
use of the poets is grounded in an astute understanding of their historical situation and
a deeply sympathetic reading of their poetry. A stunning contribution by a distinguished
medievalist, Wetherbee’s investigation of the poem’s classicism makes possible an ethi-
cal and spiritual but non-Christian reading of Dante, one that will spur new research and
become an indispensable tool for teaching the Commedia.
Winthrop Wetherbee is Professor of English and Avalon Foundation Professor in the
Humanities, Emeritus, at Cornell University.
University of Notre Dame Press Winthrop Wetherbee
Notre Dame, IN 46556 (cid:42)(cid:52)(cid:35)(cid:47)(cid:14)(cid:18)(cid:20)(cid:27)(cid:26)(cid:24)(cid:25)(cid:14)(cid:17)(cid:14)(cid:19)(cid:23)(cid:25)(cid:14)(cid:17)(cid:21)(cid:21)(cid:18)(cid:19)(cid:14)(cid:18)
www.undpress.nd.edu (cid:42)(cid:52)(cid:35)(cid:47)(cid:14)(cid:18)(cid:17)(cid:27)(cid:17)(cid:14)(cid:19)(cid:23)(cid:25)(cid:14)(cid:17)(cid:21)(cid:21)(cid:18)(cid:19)(cid:14)(cid:17)
Cover art: From the film Didone non e morta of Lina 90000
Mangiacapre (Daniela Silverio). Photo by Jo Mangone, 1987.
Copyright Associazione Le Tre Ghinee/Nemesiache.
Cover design: Margaret Gloster 9 780268 044121
Wetherbee_The Ancient Flame.indd1 1 1/17/08 2:07:01 PM
The Ancient Flame
THE WILLIAM AND KATHERINE DEVERS
SERIES IN DANTE AND MEDIEVAL
ITALIAN LITERATURE
Zygmunt G. Baranéski, Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., and Christian Moevs, editors
Simone Marchesi, associate editor
Ilaria Marchesi, assistant editor
——————
VOLUME 8
Accountingfor Dante: Urban Readers and Writers in Late Medieval Italy
Justin Steinberg
VOLUME 7
Experiencing the Afterlife: Soul and Body in Dante and Medieval Culture
Manuele Gragnolati
VOLUME 6
Understanding Dante
John A. Scott
VOLUME 5
Dante and the Grammar of the Nursing Body
Gary P. Cestaro
VOLUME 4
The Fioreand the Detto d’Amore:A Late 13th-Century Italian Translation of the
Roman de la Rose,attributable to Dante
Translated, with introduction and notes,
by Santa Casciani and Christopher Kleinhenz
VOLUME 3
The Design in the Wax: The Structure of the Divine Comedy and Its Meaning
Marc Cogan
VOLUME 2
TheFiorein Context: Dante, France, Tuscany
edited by Zygmunt G. Baranski and Patrick Boyde
VOLUME 1
Dante Now: Current Trends in Dante Studies
edited by Theodore J. Cachey, Jr.
F
The
ANCIENT LAME
Dante
and the Poets
WINTHROP WETHERBEE
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
Copyright © 2008 by University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Reprinted in 2011
Designed by Wendy McMillen
Set in 10.8/14.2 Dante by Four Star Books
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wetherbee, Winthrop, 1938–
The ancient flame : Dante and the poets / Winthrop Wetherbee.
p. cm.—(The William and Katherine Devers series in Dante studies)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-268-04412-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-268-09659-5 (web pdf)
1.Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321—Criticism and interpretation.
2.Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321—Knowledge—Literature. I. Title.
PQ4427.C53W484 2008
851'.1—dc22
2008000420
This book is printed on recycled paper.
Le passé n’est pas fugace, il reste sur place.
Proust

Contents
About the William and Katherine Devers Series ix
Preface xi
1 Introduction: Dante and Classical Poetry 1
2 Vergil in the Inferno 25
3 Lucan and Vergil: Judgment and Poetic Authority in Dis 61
4 Cato’s Grotto 97
5 Ovid and Vergil in Purgatory 117
6 Statius 159
7 Lust, Poetry, and the Earthly Paradise 203
8 Paradiso 227
Bibliography 279
Index of Passages Discussed 291
General Index 295

about the william and katherine
devers series in dante and
medieval italian literature
The William and Katherine Devers Program in Dante Studies at the University
of Notre Dame supports rare book acquisitions in the university’s John A. Zahm
Dante collections, funds visiting professorships, and supports electronic and print
publication of scholarly research in the field. In collaboration with the Medieval
Institute at the university, the Devers program initiated a series dedicated to the
publication of the most significant current scholarship in the field ofDante stud-
ies. In 2011, the scope of the series was expanded to encompass thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century Italian literature.
In keeping with the spirit that inspired the creation of the Devers program,
the series takes Dante and medieval Italian literature as focal points that draw to-
gether the many disciplines and lines of inquiry that constitute a cultural tradition
without fixed boundaries. Accordingly, the series hopes to illuminate this cultural
tradition within contemporary critical debates in the humanities by re flect ing both
the highest quality of scholarly achievement and the greatest diversity of critical
perspectives.
The series publishes works from a wide variety of disciplinary viewpoints
and in diverse scholarly genres, including critical studies, commentaries, editions,
reception studies, translations, and conference proceedings of exceptional im-
portance. The series enjoys the support of an international advisory board com-
posed of distinguished scholars and is published regularly by the University of
Notre Dame Press. The Dolphin and Anchor device that appears on publications
of the Devers series was used by the great humanist, grammarian, editor, and ty-
pographer Aldus Manutius (1449–1515), in whose 1502 edition of Dante (second
issue) and all subsequent editions it appeared. The device illustrates the ancient
proverb Festina lente,“Hurry up slowly.”
Zygmunt G. Baran´ski, Theodore J. Cachey, Jr.,
and Christian Moevs, editors