Piero Boitani

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 Gospel according to Shakespeare

Robert Clark

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.

Papers from the ESSE Inaugural Conference

English Studies in Transition

Professor of Comparative Literature Piero Boitani

Anna Torti

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

The Body and the Soul in Medieval Literature

Professor Boitani's latest book explores the areas of the tragic and the sublime in medieval literature. Boitani 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 Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature

“[It] will move you across the globe and back in time.” - Library Journal Europa Compass series – new format and covers For the readers of Mary Beard and Bethany Hughes (Re)discover the timeless beauty of ancient literature The classics “never exhaust what they have to say”. Informed by this belief, linguistic expert Piero Boitani invites the reader to explore the wisdom of the works of literature underpinning Western culture, and highlights their profound and sometimes surprising connection to the present. The themes explored in this book are as wide-ranging as they are enduringly relevant. They include the Iliad’s depiction of power and war, as well as its invocation of compassion as one of the necessary foundations of society; the Odyssey as the world’s first novel; Lucretius and the way he transformed Greek scientific thought into sublime poetry; Virgil’s celebration of the history of Rome, from small village to world capital, as well as Tacitus’ denunciation of the imperialistic nature of Roman power; and Ovid’s Metamorphoses—a poem about incessant change the first postmodern classic.

Ten Timeless Lessons on the Classics

A New Sublime

«Non importa quanto la vita vi sia rimossa, imitata, distorta, presa in giro, esagerata. Se l’opera letteraria non dice qualcosa ai viventi è muta»: Piero Boitani introduce il lettore alla grande letteratura in un viaggio di conoscenza ricco di suggestioni, come un cammino attraverso il vivere.

Prima lezione sulla letteratura

Richard Grusin

Maurizio Ferraris

Mauro Carbone

Roberto Diodato

Alberto Abruzzese

Massimo Carboni

Antonio Somaini

Andrea Pinotti

Francesco Casetti

Antonio Costa

Giuseppe Di Giacomo

Herman Parret

Gianfranco Bettetini

Ruggero Eugeni

Valentina Valentini

Giovanni Careri

Claudia Cieri Via

Massimo De Carolis

Massimo Prampolini

Isabella Pezzini

Roberto Perpignani

Roberto De Gaetano

Alfredo Pirri

Franco Maresco

Leonardo Amoroso

Francesco Antinucci

Silvana Borutti

Romeo Bufalo

Stefano Catucci

Pina De Luca

Georges Didi

Huberman

Edoardo Ferrario

Tarcisio Lancioni

Enrica Lisciani Petrini

Giovanna Pinna

Elena Tavani

Stefano Velotti

Costanza Quatriglio

Mario Sasso

Daniele Guastini

Adriano Ardovino

I percorsi dell’immaginazione. Studi in onore di Pietro Montani è un volume che vuole rendere omaggio a uno dei maggiori studiosi italiani di estetica, di cinema, di arti e nuove tecnologie. Diviso in cinque sezioni (Filosofia, Semiotica e teoria dei linguaggi, Cinema, Teoria delle arti e Tecnica e media), che sono altrettante articolazioni di analisi e di riflessione sul presente e la contemporaneità, il libro si avvale della partecipazione di illustri studiosi italiani e internazionali: Alberto Abruzzese, Leonardo Amoroso, Francesco Antinucci, Gianfranco Bettetini, Piero Boitani, Silvana Borutti, Romeo Bufalo, Mauro Carbone, Massimo Carboni, Giovanni Careri, Francesco Casetti, Stefano Catucci, Claudia Cieri Via, Antonio Costa, Massimo De Carolis, Roberto De Gaetano, Pina De Luca, Georges Didi-Huberman, Giuseppe Di Giacomo, Roberto Diodato, Ruggero Eugeni, Edoardo Ferrario, Maurizio Ferraris, Richard Grusin, Tarcisio Lancioni, Enrica Lisciani Petrini, Herman Parret, Isabella Pezzini, Giovanna Pinna, Andrea Pinotti, Massimo Prampolini, Antonio Somaini, Elena Tavani, Valentina Valentini, Stefano Velotti. Ogni sezione è inoltre chiusa da una conversazione con un artista: Franco Maresco, Roberto Perpignani, Alfredo Pirri, Costanza Quatriglio e Mario Sasso. Il volume è curato da Daniele Guastini e Adriano Ardovino.

I percorsi dell'immaginazione. Studi in onore di Pietro Montani

Flight has always fascinated human minds, but until a century ago it remained a dream - the exclusive domain of birds, gods, and mythological heroes. From the myths of the ancients to the poetry of Pindar and Yeats, Winged Words traces the imprint of the human impulse to fly from premodern times to the age of terrorism in both literature and his...

Flight in Poetry and History

Winged Words

Chaucer and Boccaccio

Richard Ambrosini

archeologia dell'uomo moderno

Ulisse

Emilia Di Rocco

﻿Guida allo studio delle letterature comparate è un manuale ma anche un grande romanzo d'avventura: è la storia dei racconti e della poesia nelle diverse lingue del mondo che gli uomini hanno inventato per intrattenere se stessi e gli dèi.C'è chi sostiene che oggi, in un mondo sempre più interconnesso, parlare di letteratura in termini comparatistici sia l'unico modo di trattare la letteratura. Ma la letteratura comparata esiste da più di duemila anni, da quando cioè romani e greci paragonavano autori e testi delle rispettive tradizioni per spiegarne ai lettori l'efficacia e la bellezza. Seguire il percorso vuol dire tracciare una tela fittissima di testi scritti in lingue diverse che consente l'ascolto contemporaneo di tante voci riecheggianti, un iPad che permette di seguire simultaneamente le infinite riscritture di cui è intessuta la tradizione. In questa Guida, organizzata per generi (epico, sacro, tragico, comico, lirico, fantastico) e per grandi aree tematiche (ad esempio, la peripezia, il mito, la metamorfosi) si dispiega - tra collegamenti e cortocircuiti - la ramificazione perenne della letteratura, dall'antichità ai nostri giorni: da Omero e la Bibbia a Dante e Shakespeare, da Pindaro e Leopardi a Tolstoj e Joyce, da Edipo e Ulisse a Faust e Don Giovanni.

Guida allo studio delle letterature comparate

La letteratura del medioevo inglese

Jill Mann

The Cambridge Chaucer Companion contains a series of essays by internationally known Chaucer experts, designed to provide a challenging introduction to the poet. The collection is divided between pieces which concentrate squarely on one or more of Chaucer's major poems, identifying themes, styles, moods and tones, and pieces of wider scope which give more general information about Chaucer's literary sources and historical background, or study his experiments with style and structure over a range of poems, or set his works in the context of medieval genres and literary traditions. While introducing a work or works to the reader, these essays also adopt fresh and rigorous lines of critical enquiry which will encourage him or her to develop and place his or her own interpretations. Taken as a whole, the collection establishes a context for Chaucer, discusses the significance of his position within it, and applies to his poetry detailed and frequently innovative analysis. These three functions combine to provide what should become a standard work of reference for students as well as readers who already have some familiarity with Chaucer but wish to achieve a greater understanding of this major English poet and his oeuvre.

The Cambridge Chaucer Companion

Flight has always fascinated human minds, but until a century ago it remained a dream—the exclusive domain of birds, gods, and mythological heroes. From the myths of the ancients to the poetry of Pindar and Yeats, Winged Words traces the imprint of the human impulse to fly from premodern times to the age of terrorism in both literature and history. Piero Boitani begins his analysis with an account of the way the myths of Pegasus and Icarus have persisted from classical to twentieth-century politics and literature. He then takes up the figure of Hermes; the roles of halcyons and eagles in classical, biblical, and later literatures; and literary response to Pieter Brueghel’s The Fall of Icarus. Honing in on modern figures and concerns, Boitani also offers a fascinating discussion of author-pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and concludes with a meditation on the flight of the hijacked airliners on 9/11. Throughout, Winged Word brings a remarkable range of men of action, politicians, theologians, writers, and artists into dialogue with each other: Shakespeare with T. S. Eliot, Horace with Ovid, Leonardo with Milton, Leopardi with Mallarmé, Saint-Exupéry with Faulkner and Rilke, and the Ulysses of Homer with the Ulysses of Dante. Ultimately, by showing how writers and fliers have looked to the ancients for inspiration, Boitani testifies to the modern relevance of poetry and the classics.

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

Prosatori negrí americani del Novecento

Papers from the Inaugural Conference of the European Society for the Study of English

ero Boitani

Simultaneously ancient and modern, the figure of Ulysses is an ideal observation-point from which to measure the similarities and differences between the otherness ('alterity') of the past and the 'modernity' of the present. Boitani sees Ulysses as a figure which every culture is free to interpret, according him values rooted on the one hand in the mythical qualities of Odysseus as a character, and on the other in the ideals, problems, and philosophical, ethical, and political horizons of the individual civilization. The Shadow of Ulysses follows the evolution of the sign through the ages, returning continuously as it does so to problems of intertextuality, interpretation, and reading. The sign appears as a 'shadow' both because by means of it, poetry describes humanity's journey to the other world of death, and because, in a figural connotation, Ulysses 'foreshadows' Columbus's and Vespucci's historical voyages to the New World.

Figures of a Myth

The Shadow of Ulysses

A collection of essays debating what fourteenth-century Italy and its literature meant to Chaucer.

Chaucer and the Italian Trecento

Piero Boitani

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