Dante put Muhammad in one of the lowest circles of Hell. At the same time, the medieval Christian poet placed several Islamic philosophers much more honorably in Limbo. Furthermore, it has long been suggested that for much of the basic framework of the Divine Comedy Dante was indebted to apocryphal traditions about a “night journey” taken by Muhammad.
Dante scholars have increasingly returned to the question of Islam to explore the often surprising encounters among religious traditions that the Middle Ages afforded. This collection of essays works through what was known of the Qur’an and of Islamic philosophy and science in Dante’s day and explores the bases for Dante’s images of Muhammad and Ali. It further compels us to look at key instances of engagement among Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
Price: $94.00
Pages: 384
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Imprint: Fordham University Press
Series: Dante's World: Historicizing Literary Cultures of the Due and Trecento
Publication Date:
01 December 2014
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780823263868
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
LITERARY CRITICISM / European / Italian, LITERARY CRITICISM / Middle Eastern, LITERARY CRITICISM / Renaissance, RELIGION / Islam / General
This volume gathers together some of the major figures in the study of Dante and Islam, including the seminal work of Cantarino and Corti, as well as ground-breaking articles such as Burman on medieval readers of the Latin Qur’an and Mallette on the figure of Muhammad. Dante’s visionary poetry is placed in the context of western reception of Arabic literature as well as the dynamic field of Mediterranean Studies. A must-read volume for scholars and students of European views of the Muslim world.---Suzanne Conklin Akbari, author of Idols in the East: European Representations of Islam and the Orient, 1100-1450
This book enlightens the impact of Arabo-Islamic civilisation on Dante and makes an important contribution to the question of mutual cultural influences among Christians, Muslims and Jews in the Middle Ages.
This is an interesting addition to the literature on Dante and his times, and Islam.---Ephraim Nissan, Quaderni di Studi Indo-Mediterranei
Jan M. Ziolkowski is Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin at Harvard University, and Director of Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. His research into the Latin Middle Ages has concentrated on the classical tradition, especially Virgil (The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years and The Virgil Encyclopedia); the grammatical and rhetorical traditions; and the relationship of folk tales and vernacular epics with Latin. In Dante scholarship an edited volume on Dante and the Greeks is in press.
