Freedom Readers: The African American Reception of Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy by Dennis Looney (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 619 of childhood and adolescence, it compensates by giving the "philosophic joy" of maturity ("Tintern Abbey"). The phrase Atkins quotes from the "Immortality Ode" is in fact part of a clear statement of this idea: Though nothing can bring back the hour Ofsplendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; ... In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. Eliot'sline from "The Dry Salvages"-"Time the destroyer is time the preserver"is actually the "thesis" of Shelley's"Ode to the West Wind": "Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; / Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!" The final two chapters of Eliot and the Essay are entitled "Four Quartets: The Poem as Essay" and "The Impure Art of Four Quartets:' The reader arrives with great expectations, but finds that, despite the chapter titles, there is little here about Eliot'smasterpiece. The first of the two chapters consists of a discussion of Dryden, primarily Religio Laici, and of Pope, primarily the Moral Essays. Four Quartets is barely mentioned. The relevance seems to be that the Augustan poems show that it is possible for a great poem to be a philosophical essay, and that the Augustan masters construct works that illustrate the via media in art, religion, and politics. The second chapter devoted to the Quartets consists of ten pages, the first of which deals with the difficulty of approaching the poem, the next two with reflections on where to begin, and the last with reflections on how to leave the poem. The few remaining pages contain some scattered but perceptive comments on the poem as "impure" (a meeting of philosophy and poetry) and as incarnational. One closes Eliot and the Essay with gratitude for the many fine insights it contains about the essay, about Dryden, Pope, and Eliot, and about the spiritual life. JewelSpears Brooker Eckerd College Freedom Readers: The African American Reception ofDante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy. ByDennis Looney.Notre Dame, Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 2011. ISBN0-268-03386-2. Pp. xiv + 280. Freedom Readers argues that Dante's Divine Comedy has influenced black American writers from the late 1800s through modern times. Dennis Looney believes that Dante's life, especially his exile from Florence, and his Inferno in 620 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE particular, have given black Americans a European example from which they have drawn encouragement and literary inspiration. Looney spends his introduction, and most of the first third of his book, showing how Dante's critique of the papacy and many church practices make him a proto-Protestant. Although Dante never rejected Catholicism, he still, according to Looney, voiced many anti-Catholic sentiments, an attitude which allowed later Protestant writers to embrace his writings and find identification with his themes. Looney also spends a great deal of time on Dante's posthumous influence on nationalists like Garibaldi. After the introduction, Looney arranges the book chronologically, using the label most commonly applied to black Americans during each time period. So chapter 1, in which he discusses H. Cordelia Ray and William Wells Brown, is called "Colored Dante:' W E. B. DuBois, Spencer Williams, and Ralph Ellison fall under "Negro Dante:' In "Black Dante:' Looney looks at LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka, and "African American Dante" covers Gloria Naylor, Toni Morrison, and "rappers" Carl Phillips and M. F. Grimm. A final brief chapter, "Poets in Exile:' summarizes Looney's earlier arguments. The book includes endnotes and an extensive bibliography and index. Looney contends that except for discussions of Gloria Naylor's Linden Hillswherein previous analysts have missed key elements of Naylor's appropriation of Dante-no one before him has undertaken a project likethis. Given the nature ofhis arguments, his assertion seems accurate. Unfortunately, except for his elucidation of Naylor's novel, his book does not contribute much of value to scholars of black American writing, a flawwhich undermines his claimed goals in Freedom Readers. Dante scholars may enjoy Looney's intimate knowledge of the poet's life,work, and influence on later Italian politics, but devout readers may find the religious content deficient. This religious aspect would be my...