ORCID
Anne C. Leone: 0000-0002-1536-0717
Document Type
Book Chapter
Date
Winter 12-15-2023
Keywords
Dante Alighieri, Literary studies, Medieval literature
Language
English
Disciplines
English Language and Literature
Description/Abstract
The point I would like to make about this chapter is related to what Barański and Ledda claim: the last chapter of the Vita nova is also a beginning. Of course, in the most basic and functional sense, by declaring the hope to write of his beloved what has never been said of “alcuna,” the final chapter of the libello announces the beginning of a new work. Yet, the issue of what that new work is (or will be) has divided critics. Mark Musa and Robert Pogue Harrison have each referred to the final chapter as an admission of the work’s failure: if Dante had spoken of his lady in a worthy enough way during the course of the Vita nova, why would he need to write another work? But others, including Barański and Ledda, argue that this is instead a huge boast: after a period of self-imposed silence, the poet is confident that he will be able to speak of his lady in a way that is entirely new.
ISBN
9780268207403
Recommended Citation
Leone, Anne C., "World Without End: Vita Nova XLII" (2023). Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship. 51.
https://surface.syr.edu/lll/51
Source
University of Notre Dame Press
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Rights
From Dante’s “Vita Nova”: A Collaborative Reading. © University of Notre Dame. Reprinted by permission of the University of Notre Dame Press.
