Aldo Vallone :: The Divine Comedy

The Dante research of Aldo Vallvirtuoso1 spans forty years, from the publication of his fix noterelle dantesche (1947) and his bibliographic update of N. Zingarellis Dante, to his recent annotated edition of the Commedia (1985-87)2. To retrace Vallones Dantesque voyage step by step would involve some 200 items, cover song the whole spectrum of Dante scholarship and including interpretive studies of individual works as soundly as surveys of Dante criticism. We can here indicate only the salient moments of Vallones tiny contributions. The Vita nuova has frequently engaged Vallones scholarly interest. His editions of the text appeared in 1954 and, with a vituperative anthology, in 1972 (the latter was expanded in 1975). His attention to Dantes poetic apprenticeship is document by the analysis of the first nine chapters of the libello, the lectura of chapter XXV, and the study of the prose connectives in the libello.3 equivalent interest is shown in the studies on Dan tes early prose the essays on Dantes Latin and on the vocabulary, syntax, and style of the Convivio. In these studies Vallone analyzes not only Dantes rhetoric but his sacred make-up as well, underscoring the points of contact with the poetic language of the Commedia.4 In a revealing passage of his internal lectura of Dantes lyric poetry, Vallone reflects on his own methodology I propose a reading which aims to illuminate Dantes lyrical burden. His poetry contains and offers from inwardly all manner of interpretation. My approach is not but explaining Dante with Dante. It strives to locate and verify the internal coherence of the poetic text, in which from each one feature conforms to an internal necessity and has its rationally appointed place within the whole. My reading identifies in the text the subterranean echoes and hidden links amidst one verse and another it undertakes to distinguish the vibration and force of shelter under the surface of the word. I intend to pinpoint Dantes intimate reasons for the option of a given word a choice that cannot be hardened solely by personal taste, but always reflects the poets experience of life, the rules of his art, and the kindly context. It is a multiform approach that operates simultaneously on more than one level. It allows, encourages, even forces the reader to verify his reading at every step. star textual detail recalls and conditions another and the sum total coincides with the meaning of the opus.