131 Dante in Love (with Professor Ellen Nerenberg and Anthony Valerio)

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

Arts, History, Books

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2018

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was the greatest poet of his era and one of the greatest artists of all time. His masterpiece, the Divine Comedy (or simply Comedìa or Commedia), written between 1312-1320, which describes his journey through Hell (Inferno), Purgatory (Purgatorio), and Heaven (Paradiso), stands as one of the greatest achievements of Western Civilization. “Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them,” T.S. Eliot once wrote, “there is no third.” But years before Dante placed the beloved figure of Beatrice at the heart of the Divine Comedy, he wrote a shorter, more intimate work devoted to his love for her. Called La Vita Nuova (or Vita Nova or A New Life), the combination of poetry and prose tells an astonishing story of his love for Beatrice, from the moment he first saw her (when both were children) to the moment he learned of her death. In this episode, host Jacke Wilson is joined by two special guests: Professor Ellen Nerenberg, Dean of the Arts and Humanities, Hollis Professor of Romance Languages and Literature, and Professor of Italian at Wesleyan University; and Anthony Valerio, author and editor of several works of fiction and nonfiction, including Dante in Love: Dante Alighieri’s Vita Nuova Reinterpreted, a 2017 translation of Dante’s youthful and enduring masterwork. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. Learn more about the show at historyofliterature.com. Contact the host at jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to The History of Literature, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding literature, history, and storytelling like Storybound, Micheaux Mission, and The History of Standup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.
0:07.0	At the center of it is really a type of love which is very interesting today
0:17.6	where you have a relationship between a young man and a young woman and I'm talking in Vita Nova right yeah
0:26.3	Where they they never touch they never kiss
0:30.7	They never intimate and yet the pros the story is one of the greatest love stories of all time
0:39.6	So how does he achieve that?
0:43.2	That's one of the things that's one of the things that even after I write
0:47.8	I wrote that book and feel it now.
0:50.2	I still feel that journey to understand this kind of love, this unrequited love, you know.
0:56.0	Yeah, yeah.
0:57.0	When we're talking about this subject now and how I feel about it, it's almost as if all the generations where I came from have disappeared and I'm kind of one with this great man and this great book that I attempted to do a modern translation of you know. Never forget how powerful Beatrice is.
1:27.0	Beatrice has her agency. Beatrice literally moves heaven and earth. Beatrice who at least in two places reveals herself as a force that is, you know, I don't want to say second to God, but is remarkable in terms of what she can accomplish. That's author Anthony Valerio and Professor Ellen Nuremberg talking about Dante,
2:10.5	his love for Beatrice and the world of poet created.
2:14.0	It's a world we are still inhabiting, 700 years later.
2:18.0	Dante and Lave de noova, today on the history of literature. Okay, I'm Jack Wilson. Welcome to the show.
2:45.0	So glad you're here today. It's Valentine's Day as I'm recording this.
2:48.0	Hope you're having a wonderful day.
2:50.0	We've got two episodes, back-to-back episodes on love for you here at the History of Literature
2:55.2	Podcast.
2:56.8	Maybe you thought last week's was the only one you were going to get.
3:02.4	Well, maybe you thought that how would I know we only hear
3:05.7	from a fraction of you. In any case last week we did have a good episode about
	...

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