Dante's Linguistic Detail in Shelley's Triumph of Life

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture ISSN 1481-4374 Purdue University Press ©Purdue University Volume 13 (2011) Issue 4 Article 13 Dante's Linguistic Detail in Shelley's Triumph of Life Anita O'Connell Northumbria University Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons Dedicated to the dissemination of scholarly and professional information, Purdue University Press selects, develops, and distributes quality resources in several key subject areas for which its parent university is famous, including business, technology, health, veterinary medicine, and other selected disciplines in the humanities and sciences. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact: <> Recommended Citation O'Connell, Anita. "Dante's Linguistic Detail in Shelley's Triumph of Life." 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This journal is covered under the CC BY-NC-ND license. UNIVERSITY PRESS <http://www.thepress.purdue.edu> CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture ISSN 1481-4374 <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb> Purdue University Press ©Purdue University CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, the peer-reviewed, full-text, and open-access learned journal in the humanities and social sciences, publishes new scholarship following tenets of the discipline of comparative literature and the field of cultural studies designated as "comparative cultural studies." In addition to the publication of articles, the journal publishes review articles of scholarly books and publishes research material in its Library Series. Publications in the journal are indexed in the Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (Chadwyck-Healey), the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (Thomson Reuters ISI), the Humanities Index (Wilson), Humanities International Complete (EBSCO), the International Bibliography of the Modern Language Association of America, and Scopus (Elsevier). The journal is affiliated with the Purdue University Press monograph series of Books in Comparative Cultural Studies. Contact: <> Volume 13 Issue 4 (December 2011) Article 13 Anita O'Connell, "Dante's Linguistic Detail in Shelley's Triumph of Life" <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol13/iss4/13> Contents of CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 13.4 (2011) <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol13/iss4/> Abstract: In her article "Dante's Linguistic Detail in Shelley's Triumph of Life" Anita O'Connell analyzes Shelley's attention to detail in Dante's poetic style and presents a close textual analysis of the ways Shelley draws on the beauty of Dante's texts. When Dante's Divine Comedy re-emerged into the public sphere in Britain through Henry Cary's 1814 translation, his reputation was as a stern, dark, Medieval poet and readers and writers alike shared a love of the perceived gothicism particularly of The Inferno. Shelley, however, differed from this general view of Dante: despite the grotesque descriptions in his Triumph of Life, Shelley draws most upon the delicate beauty and attention to detail he finds in Dante's texts. Anita O'Connell, "Dante's Linguistic Detail in Shelley's Triumph of Life" page 2 of 9 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 13.4 (2011): <http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol13/iss4/13> Anita O'CONNELL Dante's Linguistic Detail in Shelley's Triumph of Life In the Romantic period Dante's reputation was often as a weighty poet with a stern, dark, Medieval style. Many readers and critics, such as Coleridge, Hazlitt, and Hunt, saw him as both obscure and masculine. The Inferno was his most popular work in the early part of the century, and his reputation in the general public often stemmed from its Gothicism. Shelley, however, read Dante differently. He was inspired by a delicate beauty, an attention to detail, and a femininity he found throughout The Divine Comedy, as well as in Dante's other works. Although he was to some extent drawn to the darker aspects of Dante, unlike many of his contemporaries Shelley did not focus primarily on these; rather, he read around the heavy masculinity to discover delicacy in the detail. In Italy and the English Romantics, C.P. Brand shows that despite a few translations of The Divine Comedy, "as late as the end of the eighteenth-century … Dante admirers were few. When he was known at all, he was generally condemned for his 'absurdities and horrors' and his 'harsh and unpolished' style" (54). Brand argues that Romantic poets felt a kinship with Dante and changed this view entirely. They did, certainly. But even in the new century it does take awhile for Dante to shed the reputation of a "harsh and unpolished style." While Romantic writers appreciate and admire Dante, many still do see him as having a dark imagination and heavy, "unpolished" style of verse. It is more the fact that the gothic revival helps them to appreciate those qualities. With great admiration for the elder poet, Coleridge nevertheless refers to "the gloomy Imagination of Dante" (The Watchman 25 March 1796; Braida 71) and Byron, who was clearly very influenced by Dante in several poems, calls him "obscure" – an adjective that occurs in early nineteenth-century Dante criticism again and again. He is said to be "intense" (Hunt 4 38), to have "a certain primeval intensity" (Hunt 4 70), and to be "over-serious" (Hunt 4 12) with a "stern style" (Coleridge, Lectures 2 401). In such criticism, writers seem to have the Dante of The Inferno in mind. The Inferno was inspirational in Romantic art as well as li (...truncated)