Dante's Tenzone with Forese Donati
Subtitle: the reprehension of vice
By: Fabian Alfie
Series: Toronto Italian studies; Toronto Italian studies
Publisher: Buffalo; University of Toronto Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Toronto
Language: eng; ita
Number of pages: 214
ISBN-13: 9781442642232
Subjects: Tenzone di Dante con Forese Donati; Criticism and interpretation; Invective in literature
Description: "'And by now, mind, it's too late to redeem your debts by giving up guzzling.' Dante's poetic correspondence (or tenzone) with Forese Donati, a relative of his wife, was rife with crude insults: the two men derided one another on topics ranging from sexual dysfunction and cowardice to poverty and thievery. But in his Commedia, rather than denying this correspondence, Dante repeatedly acknowledged and evoked the memory of his youthful put-downs.

Dante's Tenzone with Forese Donati examines the lasting impact of these sonnets on Dante's writings and Italian literary culture, notably in the work of Giovanni Boccaccio. Fabian Alfie expands on derision as an ethical dimension of medieval literature, both facilitating the reprehension of vice and encouraging ongoing debates about the true nature of nobility. Outlining a broad perspective on the uses of literary insult, Dante's Tenzone with Forese Donati also provides an evocative glimpse of Dante's day-to-day life in the twelfth century."--pub. desc.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [185]-206) and index.

Chiefly in English.  Includes some text in the original Italian, followed by the English translation.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Dante's Harsh New Style; title: Chapter One: La debita correzione: The Poetics of Insult in the Duecento; title: Chapter Two: Ad personam, ad stipitem: Readings of the Sonnets; title: Chapter Three: Hellish Echoes: Reminiscences of the Correspondence in Inferno XXIX and XXX; title: Chapter Four: The Terrace of the Tenzone: Purgatorio XXIII and XXIV; title: Chapter Five: Citations and Interpretations: The Literary Memory of the Sonnets in Boccaccio and Others.