There are many fine monographs from 2016, but one work that stands out for its comprehensiveness and boldness is the second volume of "vertical readings” of Dante’s Comedy. […] Its innovative approach to understanding the whole of Dante’s Comedy encourages readers to take stock of the intentio operis and autoris, to begin to consider how, as the Letter to Cangrande has it, "the purpose of the whole and the part could be multiple that is both remote and proximate”
— Anthony Nussmeier, The Year’s Work in Modern Language Studies, 249-57.
Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy is a reappraisal of the poem by an international team of thirty-four scholars. Each vertical reading analyses three same-numbered cantos from the three canticles: Inferno i, Purgatorio i and Paradiso i; Inferno ii, Purgatorio ii and Paradiso ii; etc. Although scholars have suggested before that there are correspondences between same-numbered cantos that beg to be explored, this is the first time that the approach has been pursued in a systematic fashion across the poem.
This collection – available in three volumes – offers an unprecedented repertoire of vertical readings for the whole poem. As the first volume exemplifies, vertical reading not only articulates unexamined connections between the three canticles but also unlocks engaging new ways to enter into core concerns of the poem. The three volumes thereby provide an indispensable resource for scholars, students and enthusiasts of Dante. Volume 1 and Volume 3 can also be read for free.
The volume has its origin in a series of thirty-three public lectures held in Trinity College, the University of Cambridge (2012-2016) which can be accessed at the Cambridge Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy website.
The series would not have been possible without the generosity of our sponsors: Trinity College, Cambridge; Selwyn College, Cambridge; the Italian Department, University of Cambridge; the Cambridge Italian Research Network (CIRN); and Keith Sykes.
Click here to purchase all three volumes of Vertical Readings in Dante's Comedy at a discounted rate.
Vertical Readings in Dante's 'Comedy': Volume 2
George Corbett and Heather Webb (eds) | December 2016
xiv + 290 | 1 b&w illustration | 6.14" x 9.21" (234 x 156 mm)
ISBN Paperback: 9781783742530
ISBN Hardback: 9781783742547
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781783742554
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781783742561
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781783742578
ISBN Digital (XML): 9781783746118
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0100
Subject codes, BIC: DS (Literature: history and criticism), DSC (Literary studies: poetry and poets); BISAC: LIT004200 (Literary criticism: Italian), LIT011000 (Literary criticism: Medieval); OCLC Number: 931108343.
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Acknowledgements
Editions Followed and Abbreviations
Notes on the Contributors
Introduction
George Corbett and Heather Webb
12. Centaurs, Spiders and Saints
Christian Moevs
13. ‘Would you Adam and Eve it?’
Robert Wilson
14. The Patterning of History: Poetry, Politics and Adamic Renewal
Catherine M. Keen
15. Dante’s Fatherlands
Simone Marchesi
16. Politics of Desire
Manuele Gragnolati
17. Seductive Lies, Unpalatable Truths, Alter Egos
Tristan Kay
18. Women, War and Wisdom
Anne C. Leone
19. Inside Out
Ambrogio Camozzi Pistoja
20. Prediction, Prophecy and Predestination: Eternalising Poetry in the Commedia
Claudia Rossignoli
21. God’s Beloved: From Pitch, Through Script, to Writ
Corinna Salvadori Lonergan
22. Truth, Autobiography and the Poetry of Salvation
Giuseppe Ledda
Bibliography
Index of Names
© 2016 George Corbett and Heather Webb. Copyright of individual chapters is maintained by the chapter’s author.

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George Corbett and Heather Webb (eds), Vertical Readings in Dante’s ‘Comedy’: Volume 2. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2016, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0100
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Cover image: The mosaic ceiling of the Florence Baptistery, also known as the Baptistery of Saint John (13th-15th century). Photo by Matthias Kabel, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Florence_baptistery_ceiling_mosaic_7247px.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported.
This volume has its origin in a series of thirty-three public lectures held in Trinity College, the University of Cambridge (2012-2016) which can be accessed at the ‘Cambridge Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy’ website.