Graduate Studies Seminar
Just after reaching the shores of Purgatory, Dante witnesses the landing of a group of souls among whom he will recognize his old friend Casella, a singer and musician whom he asks to sing for him a last time. Casella will respond by performing Dante’s canzone Amor che nella mente mi ragiona (‘Love that speaks within my mind’). This episode is one of the most famous and hotly debated of the whole Comedy: the very sweetness of Casella’s song is interpreted either as Dante’s nostalgic tribute to earthly memories and affections, or as a temptation that the souls must overcome so that they can start the process of purgation. The talk will fo-cus on the relationship between poetry and music, and indeed on relationship and friendship as such, as the key to understanding the meaning of the canto and of the ‘poetry of resurrection’ that Dante unfolds in the Purgatorio as a whole.
Featured Biographies
Angelo Maria Mangini
University of Bologna, NYU Florence
Angelo Manginiis Associate Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Bologna, and Adjunct Professor of Italian Studies, NYU Florence. He is a graduate of University College London (MA) and Bologna (PhD). Before moving back to Italy in 2014, he has been Senior Lecturer in Italian at the University of Exeter (UK). His research interests focus on Italian fantastic literature (to which he has devoted two monographs), Pirandello, and the Duecento (Dante and Guido Cavalcanti).