The Circle of Our Vision: Dante's Presence in English Romantic PoetryThe sudden and spectacular growth in Dante's popularity in England at the end of the eighteenth century was immensely influential for English writers of the period. But the impact of Dante on English writers has rarely been analysed and its history has been little understood. Byron, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Blake, and Wordsworth all wrote or painted while Dante's work - its style, project, and achievement commanded their attention and provoked their disagreement. The Circle of Our Vision discusses each of these writers in detail, assessing the nature of their engagement with the Divine Comedy and the consequences for their own work. It explores how Romantic poets understood Dante, what they valued in his poetry and why, and sets them in the context of contemporary commentators, translators, and illustrators (including Henry Fuseli and John Flaxman), both in England and Europe. Romantic readings of the Divine Comedy are shown to disturb our own ideas about Dante, which are based on Victorian and Modernist assumptions. An important contribution to Romantic and Dante scholarship, The Circle of Our Vision also presents a reconsideration of the concept of 'influence' in general, using the example of Dante's presence in Romantic poetry to challenge Harold Bloom's belief that the relations between poets are invariably a fight to the death. |
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Page 49
... eternal damnation.26 That consensus became more difficult to sustain as Evangelical views became more influential . The possible truth of Dante's doctrine pressed more forcefully on his readers because the idea of Hell's existence was ...
... eternal damnation.26 That consensus became more difficult to sustain as Evangelical views became more influential . The possible truth of Dante's doctrine pressed more forcefully on his readers because the idea of Hell's existence was ...
Page 73
... Eternal ' , which is both ' above all ' the others and pre- eminent within them . The sequential structure of Coleridge's sen- tence seeks to realize the ' translucence of the Eternal through and in the Temporal ' . " Coleridge's ...
... Eternal ' , which is both ' above all ' the others and pre- eminent within them . The sequential structure of Coleridge's sen- tence seeks to realize the ' translucence of the Eternal through and in the Temporal ' . " Coleridge's ...
Page 196
... eternal . By contrast , Petrarch's vision of Laura explains the past and makes it partake in the eternal realm . Because it views the consolations of love more sceptically , The Triumph of Life considers the third circle of Heaven , the ...
... eternal . By contrast , Petrarch's vision of Laura explains the past and makes it partake in the eternal realm . Because it views the consolations of love more sceptically , The Triumph of Life considers the third circle of Heaven , the ...
Contents
Illustrating Dante | 39 |
Symbols in | 68 |
Morti li morti e i vivi parean | 119 |
Copyright | |
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allegory appear argues attention Beatrice becomes Blake Blake's Blake's illustrations Boyd Byron Cambridge canto Cary Cary's translation circle Coleridge Coleridge's Commedia continues contrast creates Critical damned Dante Alighieri Dante and Virgil Dante's Dantean divine Divine Comedy Don Juan Earthly Paradise English Essays eternal exile eyes Fall of Hyperion Farinata feelings Flaxman's Friend Fuseli's gentleness Heaven Hell Henry Fuseli human Hunt's ibid imagination implies Inferno Italian John John Keats Juan's judgement Keats Keats's Leila light lines London McGann Milton narrator nature numbers Oxford Paolo and Francesca passage pause perception poem poet poetic poetry political Purgatorio reader reading reveals rhyme Rimini Rollins Romantic Rousseau S. T. Coleridge Sapegno Schlegel seems sense Shelley Shelley's sorrow soul stanza Story of Rimini sublime symbolic sympathy T. S. Eliot terza rima thought tion Toynbee Triumph truth Ugolino Virgil vision vols waking dream Warton William Blake Wordsworth writing