Dante Beyond Borders

Book excerpt: Dante engaged with an extraordinary range of traditions, disciplines and media, and a variety of speech-communities, cultures, genres and media have received his work: from Spain, France and Germany to North America and the Indian sub-continent; and from medieval multilingualism and early modern humanism to contemporary politics, translations and databases. Those multiple contexts and this prolific afterlife form the subject of the book's 27 essays, which have been commissioned from an international group of scholars to mark the 2021Dante centenary. Contributors include members of several historic Dante Societies: The Dante Society of America, (founded 1881); the Deutsche Dante-Gesellschaft (founded 1865); and the Oxford Dante Society (founded 1876); and their essays present a variety of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches to a major transnational poet. Nick Havely is Emeritus Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of York and is an Honorary Member of the Dante Society of America. Jonathan Katz is a Fellow of St Anne's College and Public Orator at the University of Oxford. Richard Cooper is Professor of French at the University of Oxford; Emeritus Fellow of Brasenose College; and Master of St Benet's Hall.