Dante: A Critical Reappraisal ed. by Unn Falked (review)

REVIEWS 276 tems in Italian city-states and their difficult search for freedom. Meanwhile, Juan Carlos Martín Cea completes this block with a paper on the policing efforts made by city administrative officials to aid in upholding civic peace, order , and prosperity while attempting to secure their own legitimacy and power. This last section draws to a close with six “free communications” that revolve around the subject of public authorities or powers in diverse spaces and territories . From these six, two can be highlighted as particularly noteworthy: the lucid work by Oscar López Gómez on social peace and governmental marginalization in the city of Toledo during the eleventh and fifteenth-centuries, and José María Castrillo de la Fuente’s insightful portrayal of clandestine prostitution in medieval towns and the measures that were erected against the violence that surrounded it. The twenty-four papers that make up this valuable and thought-provoking contribution represent a successful attempt to render urban medieval history from a European perspective (with international aspirations). Without a doubt, this volume comprising original and meticulously conducted research should be considered an indispensable resource for medieval scholars, as well as those interested in immersing themselves into the conflictive and fascinating world of the Middle Ages. The upcoming volume on “Building the City in the Middle Ages” is also promising. ELIZABETH LAGRESA, Comparative Literature, UCSB Dante: A Critical Reappraisal, ed. Unn Falked (Oslo: Oslo Academic Press 2008) pp. 255. Dante: A Critical Reappraisal, edited by Unn Falked, contains a collection of essays presented at the Third Conference of the Nordic Dante Network at the University of Oslo in September 2006. The book intends to present a picture of current developments and Scandinavian perspectives of Dante’s studies and relate them to international scholarship. There are fourteen essays, eleven of them in English and three in Norwegian. (I thank Dr. Patrick Wen for his help with the Scandinavian texts contained in this volume.) The first essay, “Dante’s Poetics of Births and Foundations,” is written by Giuseppe Mazzotta, and contains excellent insights and observations, focusing on the idea of beginning and new beginning as redemption, understood as one of the leading motifs of the Divine Comedy. The second essay, “Dante and King David,” is written by Trond Berg Eriksen. It deals with biblical references , in particular the Psalms, that are considered equally important as classical ones (i.e., to Virgil as exemplary model). The third essay, “Dicendo questo. A note on Dante’s writing of Paradise,” written by Anders Cullhed, is an analysis of the linguistic devices used by Dante to speak about immaterial and spiritual matter. The fourth essay, “Aspects of Negativity. Veridictory Figures in the Comedy,” written by Hanne Roer, is about the rhetoric and the language games present in the Comedy with their philosophical substrata. The fifth essay, “Ranking types of reading. Descriptive and epic reading in Dante studies,” is written by Jesper Hede and focuses on different ways of reading and interpreting Dante’s masterpiece. The sixth essay, “The Problem of Double Reception. On the Dialectic of Simple and Complex Apprehension in the Divine Comedy,” written by Ular Ploor, analyzes the philosophical structure of Dante’s work REVIEWS 277 with its obvious references to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. The seventh essay , “Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse. Some Remarks about Intertextuality in Inferno V,” written by Leonardo Cecchini, is a beautiful analysis of the fifth Canto of Inferno in which previous scholarship is considered and revisited. The eighth essay, “Dante and the Bible. A Reading of Central Passages in the Vita nuova and the Commedia,” written by Asbjørn Bjornes, focuses on the importance of the role of the Bible in Dante’s works. The ninth essay, “The Domestication of Vernacular Poetry. Measuring Authority in the De vulgari eloquentia ,” written by Espen Grønlie, focuses on the interrelationship between language and political issues in Dante’s works. The tenth essay, Dante’s Avantgardism Reinvented. Past and Present Vernaculars in the 1920s,” written by P. M. Mehyonem, relates Dante’s production to avant-gardes movements and underlines important correlations. The eleventh essay, “Petrach in the Footsteps of Dante,” written by Unn Falkeid...