The World of Dante: Six Studies in Language and Thought edited by S. Bernard Chandler and J. A. Molinaro (review)

HUMANITIES 389 and moving rapidly to the near contemporary. The editors, both Italians with some first-hand knowledge of Canada, have approached their task with admirable objectivity, and have compiled a judicious sampling of work by most of the good Canadian writers of this century, including a number of novelists and even some poets. The discrimination with which they have chosen from among available selections becomes evident, for example, when one compares the two stories by Hugh Garner which they include in their anthology, with those in this author's own latest volume Men and Women (Ryerson, pp. viii, 172, $4.95), apparently a gathering of pieces wisely left out of his previous award-winning book of "best stories." The Rimanelli-Ruberto collection in fact puts the current crop of novels into salutary perspective, providing the means for appropriately qualifying judgments of strengths and weaknesses. HUMANITIES LITERARY STUDIES The first thing to be said about The World of Dante: Six Studies in Language and Thought, edited by S. Bernard Chandler and J. A. Molinaro (University of Toronto Press, pp. ix, 127, $4.75) is that it reflects great credit on the sponsor, the Dante Society of Toronto; it need not fear comparison with other volumes of like nature that have so far appeared in commemoration of the Dante anniversary. The contributors have maintained a very high level and the quantity of erudition packed into these relatively few pages is certainly impressive. It is a book meant for advanced dantisti: The "piccoletta barca" will not .serve us here, and to move to Dante's other figure, considerable previous nourishment on the panis angelicus is assumed by most of the writers. Perhaps G. Mazzeo's "Dante's Three Communities" may be considered an exception; it is a kind of panoramic survey of the Comedy and argues no particular thesis. It is a very fine presentation, however, and if in the main it follows orthodox lines of interpretation, there is 390 LETTERS IN CANADA skill and grace in the composition, and freshness in the presentation. I note that when the author comments on the individual cantiche it is the Purgatorio that gets the most attention: this is the focus characteristic of our day. John Freccero's contribution, "The River of Death," an exegesis of Inferno II, 108, has of course its point of departure in the first cantica, though strictly speaking not in the true inferno. It is an ingenious effort to see in the "fiumana," which does not appear in the narrative but only in Lucia's vision, a reference to the Jordan. I do not find it entirely convincing. For one thing, I can't help noting that Lucia sees our poet not nella fiumana but rather sulla fiumana, and, if I understand it, the Beatrice-Virgil machinery is set up to protect the poet rather than immerse him. Unless the whole infernal journey is his immersion-but that hardly seems what Professor Freccero means. I enjoyed, however, his exploration of his sources and admired his use of them. The Paradiso comes into its own in G. Sarolli's commentary on the first lines of Canto XXV "Dante's Katabasis and Mission." He examines in detail the meanings of continga, vella, voce, and cappello in that passage and his remarks do indeed add something to our understanding of the lines; but I can't see that they really make any significant change in previous interpretations of the substance or intent of the passage. I was (why not confess it?) a little out of my depth in reading John F. Mahoney's "The Living Poet and the Myth of Time," an essay arguing that "the source of all that structures the Commedia is the history of doctrine, and within that history the doctrine of the incarnation ." Here again I noted the stress on the Purgatorio, crucial in such theological discussions for, as the author remarks, Purgatory was "the device by which atonement was to have its effect"; but I was not always able to appreciate the relevance of Professor Mahoney's arguments to the poem. Erich von Richthofen's offering, "The Twins of Latona," is the shortest article of the collection; it...