Piero Boitani - Böcker

This book, the first to be devoted to the story of Troilus and Cressida as it develops through the ages and in various literatures, is the joint effort of an international team of scholars. It studies a myth which represents an important aspect of the European imagination: the way in which the problems of love and death are faced in narrative, poetry, drama, and opera. From the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans the story passes into the hands of artists such as Benoit de Sainte Maure, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Henryson, Shakespeare, and Dryden, and is finally resurrected in the twentieth century in America, England, and Germany. This book analyses the changes - both literary and more broadly imaginative - that minor and major writers have introduced, and thus constitutes the product of a truly intertextual and comparative approach. While devoting attention to all these authors and their works, the volume concentrates on the treatment of the theme in Chaucer and Shakespeare and is therefore aimed at students of English and Comparative Literature as well as those general readers who are interested in the history of European culture.Contributors:Piero Boitani, University of Rome, Malcolm Andrew, Queen's University, Belfast, C. David Benson, University of Connecticut, Jill Mann, University of Cambridge, Karl Reichl, University of Bonn, Anna Torti, University of Verona, Barry Windeatt, University of Cambridge, Sergio Rufini, University of Perugia, Giulia Natali, University of Rome, Agostino Lombardo, University of Rome, Roberto Antonelli, University of Rome, Derek Brewer, University of Cambridge

Piero Boitani discusses how some of the most fascinating scenes of Old and New Testament -- Genesis, Exodus, Job, the Susanna story, the Gospel of John -- are directly or indirectly rewritten in works ranging from the medieval period to the late twentieth-century: by Milton and Mann; by Chaucer, Dryden, La Fontaine, Orwell, and Kafka; by Faulkner and Tournier; by Shakespeare, T. S. Eliot, and Joseph Roth.Literature resonates with the mystery of recognition between human beings, and between God and humankind. The opening and closing chapters of the book examine this theme: from Abraham and Yahweh at Mamre to Joseph and his brothers, from Helen and Menelaus to Jesus and Mary Magdalene, from Pericles and Marina to Mendel Singer and his son Menuchim. The three central sections of the book discuss the means by which re-scripturing interprets the Scriptures: through truth or fiction; through letter or allegory; through liturgy, exegesis, catacomb frescoes, even churches themselves. This is an illuminating look at the Bible and its medieval and modern rewritings.

In this slim, poetically powerful volume, Piero Boitani develops his earlier work in The Bible and Its Rewritings, focusing on Shakespeare's "rescripturing" of the Gospels. Boitani persuasively urges that Shakespeare read the New Testament with great care and an overall sense of affirmation and participation, and that many of his plays constitute their own original testament, insofar as they translate the good news into human terms. In Hamlet and King Lear, he suggests, Shakespeare's "New Testament" is merely hinted at, and faith, salvation, and peace are only glimpsed from far away. But in Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, the themes of compassion and forgiveness, transcendence, immanence, the role of the deity, resurrection, and epiphany are openly, if often obliquely, staged. The Christian Gospels and the Christian Bible are the signposts of this itinerary.Originally published in 2009, Boitani's Il Vangelo Secondo Shakespeare was awarded the 2010 De Sanctis Prize, a prestigious Italian literary award. Now available for the first time in an English translation, The Gospel according to Shakespeare brings to a broad scholarly and nonscholarly audience Boitani's insights into the current themes dominating the study of Shakespeare's literary theology. It will be of special interest to general readers interested in Shakespeare's originality and religious perspective.

The Genius to Improve an Invention derives its title from John Dryden's phrase for the British tendency to take up literary masterpieces from the past and "perfect" them. Distinguished literary scholar Piero Boitani adopts Dryden's notion as a framework for exploring ways in which classical and medieval texts, scenes, and themes have been rewritten by modern authors.Boitani focuses on a concept of literary transition that takes into account both T.S. Eliot's idea of "tradition and individual talent" and Harold Bloom's "anxiety of influence." In five elegant essays he examines a wide range of authors and texts, including Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Voltaire, Goethe, Sartre, Dante, and Keats. Appearing for the first time in an English translation, The Genius to Improve an Invention will appeal to anyone interested in the Western literary tradition.

The Genius to Improve an Invention derives its title from John Dryden's phrase for the British tendency to take up literary masterpieces from the past and "perfect" them. Distinguished literary scholar Piero Boitani adopts Dryden's notion as a framework for exploring ways in which classical and medieval texts, scenes, and themes have been rewritten by modern authors.Boitani focuses on a concept of literary transition that takes into account both T.S. Eliot's idea of "tradition and individual talent" and Harold Bloom's "anxiety of influence." In five elegant essays he examines a wide range of authors and texts, including Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Voltaire, Goethe, Sartre, Dante, and Keats. Appearing for the first time in an English translation, The Genius to Improve an Invention will appeal to anyone interested in the Western literary tradition.

In this slim, poetically powerful volume, Piero Boitani develops his earlier work in The Bible and Its Rewritings, focusing on Shakespeare's "rescripturing" of the Gospels. Boitani persuasively urges that Shakespeare read the New Testament with great care and an overall sense of affirmation and participation, and that many of his plays constitute their own original testament, insofar as they translate the good news into human terms. In Hamlet and King Lear, he suggests, Shakespeare's "New Testament" is merely hinted at, and faith, salvation, and peace are only glimpsed from far away. But in Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, the themes of compassion and forgiveness, transcendence, immanence, the role of the deity, resurrection, and epiphany are openly, if often obliquely, staged. The Christian Gospels and the Christian Bible are the signposts of this itinerary.Originally published in 2009, Boitani's Il Vangelo Secondo Shakespeare was awarded the 2010 De Sanctis Prize, a prestigious Italian literary award. Now available for the first time in an English translation, The Gospel according to Shakespeare brings to a broad scholarly and nonscholarly audience Boitani's insights into the current themes dominating the study of Shakespeare's literary theology. It will be of special interest to general readers interested in Shakespeare's originality and religious perspective.

Bringing together twenty-five contributors from all over Europe, this volume represents the vitality and diversity of the current transcultural European dialogue on English studies.Topics addressed include:* the nature of the canon* the poetics of language* the representation of women and the notion of nationalism in post-colonial literature.The significance of this volume lies not only in the quality of the individual contributions but also in the fact that it marks an important turning point in the history of English studies in Europe.

Professor Boitani's latest book explores the areas of the tragic and the sublime in medieval literature by asking what medieval texts mean to modern readers. Boitani, who has written widely on medieval and comparative literature, studies tragic and sublime tensions in stories and scenes recounted by such major poets as Dante, Chaucer and Petrarch, as well as themes shared by writers and philosophers and traditional poetic images. The result is a learned, stimulating, and wide-ranging volume of studies in comparative European literature, which takes into account poems written in English, Italian and other languages, and compares them with their classical and biblical ancestors as well as with their modern descendants.

This is a wide-ranging and detailed study of English narrative verse in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Piero Boitani describes and analyses the undisputed masterpieces of narrative (such as the works of the Gawain poet, Langland, Gower and Chaucer), as well as the anonymous romances and specimens of religious and comic narrative which form the background to the better-known poems. The book is divided by literary genres or structural systems: chapters on the religious, comic and romance traditions are followed by a discussion of dream and visionary narratives and a chapter on story collections including those of Gower. The rest of the book is devoted to Chaucer, who mastered all these types.

This paperback consists of a collection of essays which have aroused considerable interest, since their first publication in 1983, in a question that has been occupying scholars for many years: what did fourteenth-century Italy and its literature mean to Chaucer? In the first part of the book contributors assess the general state of English and Italian culture in the fourteenth century and the complex network of Anglo-Italian relationships in the areas of trade, finance, church organisation and academic exchange. The second part faces the literary problem that Chaucer's borrowing from Italian authors poses: not only what he takes, but how and why. These essays include source studies and comparative analyses of such masterpieces as The Divine Comedy, The Canzoniere, The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales.

The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer is an extensively revised version of the first edition, which has become a classic in the field. This new volume responds to the success of the first edition and to recent debates in Chaucer Studies. Important material has been updated, and new contributions have been commissioned to take into account recent trends in literary theory as well as in studies of Chaucer's works. New chapters cover the literary inheritance traceable in his works to French and Italian sources, his style, as well as new approaches to his work. Other topics covered include the social and literary scene in England in Chaucer's time, and comedy, pathos and romance in the Canterbury Tales. The volume now offers a useful chronology, and the bibliography has been entirely updated to provide an indispensable guide for today's student of Chaucer.

The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer is an extensively revised version of the first edition, which has become a classic in the field. This new volume responds to the success of the first edition and to recent debates in Chaucer Studies. Important material has been updated, and new contributions have been commissioned to take into account recent trends in literary theory as well as in studies of Chaucer's works. New chapters cover the literary inheritance traceable in his works to French and Italian sources, his style, as well as new approaches to his work. Other topics covered include the social and literary scene in England in Chaucer's time, and comedy, pathos and romance in the Canterbury Tales. The volume now offers a useful chronology, and the bibliography has been entirely updated to provide an indispensable guide for today's student of Chaucer.

Tracing the influence and impact of Plato’s Timaeus—and its major themes, creation and beauty—through the centuriesMore than two thousand years after it was written, Plato’s Timaeus continues to fascinate and intrigue its readers. In Timaeus in Paradise, Piero Boitani traces the abiding legacy of the Timaeus, mapping an intellectual journey that begins with Plato and extends to Dante and beyond. In a series of short, lyrical chapters, Boitani sketches a lineage that includes Proclus, Boethius, the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, John Scotus Eriugena and Thomas Aquinas. Focusing on Plato’s metaphorical language—which Dante considered comparable to that of the Bible—and the beauty of its images, Boitani shows that these images penetrate deep into European culture, inspiring the anonymous author of the treatise on the Sublime as well as the mystical writings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.Plato’s account of the creation of the cosmos in the Timaeus supplants Hesiod’s myths and Parmenides’s theories—and was described by Johannes Kepler as the best gloss ever on the first chapter of Genesis. Boitani finds its echoes everywhere, from the sculptures of Chartres Cathedral and the frescoes of the Anagni Crypt to the paintings of Raphael and Michelangelo. He connects the beauty defined in the Timaeus to the beauties of the Hebrew Bible and to the lilies of the field invoked by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Bringing together philosophy, theology, mysticism, poetry, sculpture and painting, Boitani charts Europe’s intellectual history—a history of ideas and images—by capturing the enduring reverberations of Plato’s summa. Illustrations accompanying the text cover more than two thousand years of iconography.

is one of Chaucer's most intellectually challenging poems, drawing on diverse traditions such as dream poetry and mythology, but unified by the central concept of Fame. It is this concept, and the `imaginary world' which surrounds it, which Professor Boitani explores in this volume in the Chaucer Studies series. He begins with a brief outline and discussion of the poem, showing what problems it poses, and then turns to explore the `history and meaning of the idea of Fame, such as Chaucer might have received from tradition', a quest which leads him into Biblical, classical and Anglo-Saxon literature, into philosophy and into romance. He then examines the view of Fame in Chaucer's Italian, French and English contemporaries, and shows that it is a central theme not only in Dante's Divine Comedy but also in the work of Boccaccio and Petrarch. The second half of the book returns to Chaucer's poem and examines the imaginary world which he constructs around Fame. Professor Boitani demonstrates that The House of Fame is in a sense Chaucer's creative manifesto, centred on Fame as the goddess of language, myth and poetry, with poets as her prophets. In this poem, he defines many of the themes - Love and Nature, order and disorder, fortune and chance, reality and appearance - which occupied him in his other works. Here he deals with them directly rather than obliquely, revealing the formative influences behind his own imaginary world and mythology..

The theme of the `body and soul' relationship in medieval texts and modern reworkings.The theme of the body-and-soul relationship in medieval texts and in modern reworkings of medieval matter is explored in the articles here, specifically the representation of the body in romance; the relevance of bawdy tales to the cultural experience of authors and readers in the middle ages; the function of despair, or melancholy, in medieval and Renaissance literature; and the political significance of late medieval representations of `bodies' in the chroniclers' accounts of the Rising and in Gower's poems. Two articles are devoted to modern retellings of medieval themes: John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, seen in relation to the traditional acta martyrum, and the medieval revival in Tory Britain exemplified in Douglas Oliver's The Infant and the Pearl.Contributors: PAMELA JOSEPH BENSON, NIGEL S. THOMPSON, JON WHITMAN, JEROME MANDEL, BARBARA NOLAN, YASUNARI TAKADA, YVETTE MARCHAND, ROBERT F. YEAGER, JOERG O. FICHTE, JOHN KERRIGAN

Members of the Florentine family of the Donati feature prominently in Dante's Divine Comedy . Their presence is explored by Piero Boitani, as a 'comedy' within the Comedy, in close readings of the three major episodes in which they appear, one for each of Inferno , Purgatorio , and Paradiso .

Bringing together twenty-five contributors from all over Europe, this volume represents the vitality and diversity of the current transcultural European dialogue on English studies.Topics addressed include:* the nature of the canon* the poetics of language* the representation of women and the notion of nationalism in post-colonial literature.The significance of this volume lies not only in the quality of the individual contributions but also in the fact that it marks an important turning point in the history of English studies in Europe.