Fiore and the Detto d'Amore, The: A Late-Thirteenth-Century Italian Translation of the Roman de la Rose Attributable to Dante Alighieri
This is the first English translation of Il Fiore, the late-thirteenth-century narrative poem in 232 sonnets based on the Old French Roman de la Rose, and the Detto d’Amore, a free-wheeling version of many Ovidian precepts of love in 240 rhymed couplets. The elaborate allegory of the Fiore presents the complex workings of love, understood primarily as carnal passion, in the human psyche through the use of personifications of a wide array of characters who engage in various social (and bellic) interactions. There are personifications of social stereotypes and attitudes, mythological figures, abstract qualities, psychological and physical states, and personality traits.

The Detto d’Amore includes features of the perennial controversy between proponents of the pleasures of erotic passion and those who counsel pursuit of the sublime joys found solely in the exercise of reason. The incomplete poem also contains a conventionalized—and idealized—description of the physical traits of the lady, as well as a portrait of the perfect courtly lover.

The importance of these two works lies in part in their possible attribution to the great Florentine poet Dante Alighieri. But even if Dante is not the author, the Fiore is a valuable witness to the literary taste and cultural concerns of medieval Italy and to matters of poetic influence and reception among different literary traditions.

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Fiore and the Detto d'Amore, The: A Late-Thirteenth-Century Italian Translation of the Roman de la Rose Attributable to Dante Alighieri
This is the first English translation of Il Fiore, the late-thirteenth-century narrative poem in 232 sonnets based on the Old French Roman de la Rose, and the Detto d’Amore, a free-wheeling version of many Ovidian precepts of love in 240 rhymed couplets. The elaborate allegory of the Fiore presents the complex workings of love, understood primarily as carnal passion, in the human psyche through the use of personifications of a wide array of characters who engage in various social (and bellic) interactions. There are personifications of social stereotypes and attitudes, mythological figures, abstract qualities, psychological and physical states, and personality traits.

The Detto d’Amore includes features of the perennial controversy between proponents of the pleasures of erotic passion and those who counsel pursuit of the sublime joys found solely in the exercise of reason. The incomplete poem also contains a conventionalized—and idealized—description of the physical traits of the lady, as well as a portrait of the perfect courtly lover.

The importance of these two works lies in part in their possible attribution to the great Florentine poet Dante Alighieri. But even if Dante is not the author, the Fiore is a valuable witness to the literary taste and cultural concerns of medieval Italy and to matters of poetic influence and reception among different literary traditions.

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Fiore and the Detto d'Amore, The: A Late-Thirteenth-Century Italian Translation of the Roman de la Rose Attributable to Dante Alighieri

Fiore and the Detto d'Amore, The: A Late-Thirteenth-Century Italian Translation of the Roman de la Rose Attributable to Dante Alighieri

by University of Notre Dame Press
Fiore and the Detto d'Amore, The: A Late-Thirteenth-Century Italian Translation of the Roman de la Rose Attributable to Dante Alighieri

Fiore and the Detto d'Amore, The: A Late-Thirteenth-Century Italian Translation of the Roman de la Rose Attributable to Dante Alighieri

by University of Notre Dame Press

Overview

This is the first English translation of Il Fiore, the late-thirteenth-century narrative poem in 232 sonnets based on the Old French Roman de la Rose, and the Detto d’Amore, a free-wheeling version of many Ovidian precepts of love in 240 rhymed couplets. The elaborate allegory of the Fiore presents the complex workings of love, understood primarily as carnal passion, in the human psyche through the use of personifications of a wide array of characters who engage in various social (and bellic) interactions. There are personifications of social stereotypes and attitudes, mythological figures, abstract qualities, psychological and physical states, and personality traits.

The Detto d’Amore includes features of the perennial controversy between proponents of the pleasures of erotic passion and those who counsel pursuit of the sublime joys found solely in the exercise of reason. The incomplete poem also contains a conventionalized—and idealized—description of the physical traits of the lady, as well as a portrait of the perfect courtly lover.

The importance of these two works lies in part in their possible attribution to the great Florentine poet Dante Alighieri. But even if Dante is not the author, the Fiore is a valuable witness to the literary taste and cultural concerns of medieval Italy and to matters of poetic influence and reception among different literary traditions.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780268008932
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Publication date: 08/01/2000
Series: William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante and Medieval Italian Literature , #4
Edition description: 1
Pages: 570
Product dimensions: 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.16(d)

About the Author

Santa Casciani is Director of the Bishop Anthony M. Pilla Program in Italian American Studies at John Carroll University, Cleveland, Ohio. She is the editor of Dante and the Franciscans (2006) and co-editor of Word, Image, Number: Communications in the Middle Ages (2002).

Christopher Kleinhenz is Carol Mason Kirk Professor of Italian Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is co-editor of Medieval Multilingualism: The Francophone World and Its Neighbors (2011) and editor of Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia (2003).

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