Italian 462: Petrarch and Bocacchio

Petrarch's characterization of the hapless lover has become an archetype. Indeed, in many of his poems on the pain and the bitter pleasure of love, we inevitably recognize a vivid and timely picture of ourselves. Humble sinner, aesthete, contemplative, man of the world, secretly tormented spirit, droll observer and advocate of life, Petrarch's protagonist is as richly complex as the age he lived in. The 366 poems of Petrarch's Canzoniere represent one of the most influential works in Western literature. Varied in form, style, and subject matter, these "scattered rhymes" contain metaphors and conceits that have been absorbed into the literature and language of love. In this bilingual edition, Mark Musa provides verse translations, annotations, and an introduction co-authored with Barbara Manfredi.

The Confessions of St. Augustine is the collection of St. Augustine's thirteen autobiographical books, each singly known as Confessions . In these books he details his sinful youth, his conversion to Christianity, and the regrets he thereafter lives with of his previous convictions and action. It is an incredibly important work, both as the theological study of his thought processes and development and also as a minute historical account from the 4th and 5th centuries.

In this creative and engaging reading, Richard Kuhns explores the ways in which Decameron's sexual themes lead into philosophical inquiry, moral argument, and aesthetic and literary criticism. As he reveals the stories' many philosophical insights and literary pleasures, Kuhns also examines Decameron in the context of the nature of storytelling, its relationship to other classic works of literature, and the culture of trecento Italy. Stories and storytelling are to be interpreted in terms of a wider cultural context that includes masks, metamorphosis, mythic themes, and character analysis, all of which Boccaccio explores with wit and subtlety.

In this book, Teodolinda Barolini explores the sources of Italian literary culture in the figures of its lyric poets and its "three crowns": Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Barolini views the origins of Italian literary culture through four prisms: the ideological/philosophical, the intertextual/multicultural, the structural/formal, and the social. The essays in the first section treat the ideology of love and desire from the early lyric tradition to the Inferno and its antecedents in philosophy and theology. In the second, Barolini focuses on Dante as heir to both the Christian visionary and the classical pagan traditions (with emphasis on Vergil and Ovid). The essays in the third part analyze the narrative character of Dante's Vita nuova, Petrarch's lyric sequence, and Boccaccio's Decameron. Barolini also looks at the cultural implications of the editorial history of Dante's rime and at what sparso versus organico spells in the Italian imaginary. In the section on gender, she argues that the didactic texts intended for women's use and instruction, as explored by Guittone, Dante, and Boccaccio--but not by Petrarch--were more progressive than the courtly style for which the Italian tradition is celebrated.

The Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studiesis a two-volume reference book containing some 600 entries on all aspects of Italian literary culture. It includes analytical essays on authors and works, from the most important figures of Italian literature to little known authors and works that are influential to the field. The Encyclopedia is distinguished by substantial articles on critics, themes, genres, schools, historical surveys, and other topics related to the overall subject of Italian literary studies. The Encyclopediaalso includes writers and subjects of contemporary interest, such as those relating to journalism, film, media, children's literature, food and vernacular literatures. Entries consist of an essay on the topic and a bibliographic portion listing works for further reading, and, in the case of entries on individuals, a brief biographical paragraph and list of works by the person. It will be useful to people without specialized knowledge of Italian literature as well as to scholars.

This Encyclopedia gathers together the most recent scholarship on Medieval Italy, while offering a sweeping view of all aspects of life in Italy during the Middle Ages. This two volume, illustrated, A-Z reference is a cross-disciplinary resource for information on literature, history, the arts, science, philosophy, and religion in Italy between A.D. 450 and 1375. For more information including the introduction, a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample pages, and more, visit the MedievalItaly: An Encyclopediawebsite.

Embracing the whole of Italian literature, from the early thirteenth century to the present, The Oxford Companion to Italian Literature takes a broad view of what constitutes literature, covering historical writing, travel writing, theatre, and philosophy as well as the novel, poetry, literarydialogues, and critical theory. Providing generous coverage of canonical figures - from Dante and Petrarch to Montale and Calvino - it also contains a wealth of short entries on significant minor figures. The Companion also explores Latin literature written by Italian authors - a major feature of Renaissance culture - and Italian dialect literature; and highlights articles which place the writers and their works in their wider social, historical, artistic, and political context. The 2,400 alphabetically-arranged entries provide clear, up-to-date coverage of Italian literature, making this an essential reference for specialists and non-specialists alike. Written by expert contributors, the entries reflect the current state of international scholarship, which has developedin many different and exciting directions in recent years.