Dante's Comedy and the Ethics of Invective in Medieval Italy

Humor and Evil

Nicolino Applauso

Humor and Evil proposes a new approach to invective and comic poetry in Italy during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and opens the way for an innovative understanding of Dante’s masterpiece. The Middle Ages in Italy offer a wealth of vernacular poetic invectives—polemical verses aimed at blaming specific wrongdoings of an individual, group, city or institution— that are both understudied and rarely juxtaposed. Modern criticism has generally viewed these poems as disengaged from concrete issues, and as a marginal form of recreation with little ethical value. Also, no study has yet provided a scholarly examination of the connection between this medieval invective tradition, and its elements of humor, derision, and reprehension in Dante’s Comedy. This book argues that these comic texts are rooted in and actively engaged with the social, political, and religious conflicts of their time. Political invective has a dynamic ethical orientation that is mediated by a humor that disarms excessive hostility against its individual targets, providing an opening for dialogue. While exploring medieval comic poems by Rustico Filippi (from Florence), Cecco Angiolieri (from Siena), and Folgore da San Gimignano, this study unveils new biographical data about these poets retrieved from Italian state archives (most of these data are published here in English for the very first time), and ultimately shows what the medieval invective tradition can add to our understanding of Dante’s Comedy.

Lexington Books

Pages: 350 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4985-6778-7 • Hardback • November 2019 • $115.00 • (£88.00)

978-1-4985-6779-4 • eBook • November 2019 • $109.00 • (£84.00)

Series: Studies in Medieval Literature

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Medieval, Literary Criticism / Humor, Literary Criticism / Poetry

Dante's Comedy and the Ethics of Invective in Medieval Italy

Humor and Evil

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Humor and Evil proposes a new approach to invective and comic poetry in Italy during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and opens the way for an innovative understanding of Dante’s masterpiece. The Middle Ages in Italy offer a wealth of vernacular poetic invectives—polemical verses aimed at blaming specific wrongdoings of an individual, group, city or institution— that are both understudied and rarely juxtaposed. Modern criticism has generally viewed these poems as disengaged from concrete issues, and as a marginal form of recreation with little ethical value. Also, no study has yet provided a scholarly examination of the connection between this medieval invective tradition, and its elements of humor, derision, and reprehension in Dante’s Comedy. This book argues that these comic texts are rooted in and actively engaged with the social, political, and religious conflicts of their time. Political invective has a dynamic ethical orientation that is mediated by a humor that disarms excessive hostility against its individual targets, providing an opening for dialogue. While exploring medieval comic poems by Rustico Filippi (from Florence), Cecco Angiolieri (from Siena), and Folgore da San Gimignano, this study unveils new biographical data about these poets retrieved from Italian state archives (most of these data are published here in English for the very first time), and ultimately shows what the medieval invective tradition can add to our understanding of Dante’s Comedy.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 350 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4985-6778-7 • Hardback • November 2019 • $115.00 • (£88.00)

978-1-4985-6779-4 • eBook • November 2019 • $109.00 • (£84.00)

Series: Studies in Medieval Literature

Subjects: Literary Criticism / Medieval, Literary Criticism / Humor, Literary Criticism / Poetry

Author

Nicolino Applauso is visiting assistant professor of Italian at Loyola University Maryland.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Invective Genre in Dante and His Contemporaries: An Introduction

Chapter 2: The Role of Invective in Medieval Tuscany

Chapter 3: Rustico Filippi of Florence and the Guelph and Ghibelline Wars

Chapter 4: Cecco Angiolieri of Siena: Blame and Parody under the Governo dei Nove

Chapter 5: War Propaganda, Activism, and Knighthood in Folgore da San Gimignano

Chapter 6: Humor and Evil in Dante’s Global Invective

Chapter 7: Conclusion

Dante's Comedy and the Ethics of Invective in Medieval Italy

Humor and Evil

Nicolino Applauso

Dante's Comedy and the Ethics of Invective in Medieval Italy

Humor and Evil

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