Dante Society

[10-12-1997]

THE DANTE SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Invitation to Membership

Founded in 1881, the Dante Society of America is the oldest of the professional literary associations in North America. The origin of the Society may be traced to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the creation of an informal "Dante Club" in the 1860s, to which James Russell Lowell and Charles Eliot Norton, among others, lent their support. What had begun as a small private gathering at Longfellow's house in Cambridge to discuss the works of Dante became, in 1881, a formal organization, the Dante Society of America, whose purpose was and is to promote the study and appreciation of the works of Dante.

The Society publishes the annual journal, Dante Studies, organizes meetings and conferences, and awards prizes to outstanding essays on Dante by undergraduate and graduate students. The Society has also established the Electronic Bulletin (EBDSA), which is located in its home page--DanteNet--at Princeton University (http:// www.princeton.edu/~dante). EBDSA publishes, at regular intervals, short notes (philological, interpretive, historical, biographical) concerning Dantean texts.

The Society sponsors sessions at regional, national and international meetings (Modern Language Association, American Association for Italian Studies, International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, etc.) and through its home page provides for the sharing of information and resources and for increasing communication among those individuals interested in Dante and his works.

Among its recent projects, the Society has made available on computer disks the complete series of annotated Dante bibliographies that have appeared in the journal from 1953 through 1994 (these are also available on the following web site: http://www.brandeis.edu/library/dante).

The annual journal contains critical and interpretive essays on all aspects of Dante's life and works, reviews of recent scholarship, and an annotated bibliography. The contents of the 1995 volume of Dante Studies include the following: three papers on Dante's Career as Writer: The Paths to the Commedia (Zygmunt G. Baranski, "The `New Life' of `Comedy': The Commedia and the Vita nuova"; John A. Scott, "The Unfinished Convivio as a Pathway to the Comedy"; and Gian Carlo Alessio, "A Few Remarks on the Vulgare Illustre) and studies by Edward Peters (on Dante's involvement with Florentine Politics), Larry Peterman (on Ulysses), George Trone (on Purgatorio 23), Brenda Schildgen (on precious stones in the Comedy), Monica Rutledge (on optics in Dante), Aldo Vallone (on Monarchia), and Maria Ann Roglieri (on musical settings of Dante's Comedy). The volume is rounded off with the American Dante Bibliography for 1994.

The contents of the 1995 volume of Dante Studies include the following: several papers on Dante and the arts (Paul Barolsky, "The Visionary Art of Michelangelo in the Light of Dante"; Jean-Pierre Barricelli, "Dante: Inferno I in the Visual Arts" and "Dante in the Arts: A Survey"; Barbara Watts, "Artistic Competition, Hubris, and Humility: Sandro Botticelli's Response to Visibile parlare"; and Jerome Mazzaro, "Dante and the Image of the `Madonna Allattante'") and studies by Donald Maddox ("The Arthurian Intertexts of Inferno V"), James C. Nohrnberg ("The Descent of Geryon: The Moral System of Inferno XVI-XXXI"), Jessica Levenstein ("The Pilgrim, the Poet, and the Cowgirl: Dante's Alter-Io in Purgatorio XXX-XXXI"), Rebecca S. Beal ("Bonaventure, Dante and the Apocalyptic Woman Clothed with the Sun"), Nicholas R. Havely ("Poverty in Purgatory: from Commercium to Commedia"), Courtney Cahill ("The Limitations of Difference in Paradiso XIII's Two Arts: Reason and Poetry"), Guy Raffa ("Dante's Mocking Pastoral Muse"), and Kathleen Verduin ("`The Inward Life of Love': Margaret Fuller and the Vita Nuova"). The volume is rounded off with the American Dante Bibliography for 1995.

Student member (5-year max.): $10 Annual member $20 Joint member: $25 Sustaining member: $30 Patron: $60* Life member: $350* Supporting life member: $500* [*includes a copy of Guido da Pisa's commentary]

Please make checks payable to the Dante Society of America and send to: Richard Lansing, Secretary-Treasurer, The Dante Society of America, Brandeis University, MS 024, P.O. Box 9110, Waltham, MA 02254-9110; e-mail: lansing@mediaone.net.