Dante's 'Strangeness': The Commedia and the Late Twentieth-Century Debate on the Literary Canon

A reflection on Dante and the literary canon may appear tautological since nowadays his belonging to the canon seems a self-evident matter of fact and an indisputable truth. It is for this very reason, though, that a paradigmatic role has been conferred on Dante in the contemporary debate both by those who consider the canon a stable structure based on inner aesthetic values and by those who see it as a cultural and social construction. For instance, Harold Bloom suggests that ‘Dante invented our modern idea of the canonical’, and Edward Said, in his reading of Auerbach, seems to imply that Dante provided foundations for what we call literature tout court. While his influence on other poets never ceased, the story of Dante’s explicit canonization through the centuries revolved around the same critical points we are still discussing today: his anti-classical ‘strangeness’ in language and style, the trouble he occasions in genre hierarchies and distinctions, and the vastness of the philosophical and theological knowledge embraced by the Commedia (and, as a consequence, the relationship between literature and other realms of human experience). Dante’s canonicity is also evinced by the ceaseless debates that he has inspired and the many cultural tensions of which he is the focus. What I will try to do in the next few pages is to reflect on the features that make the Commedia central both to the arguments of the defenders of the aesthetic approach, such as Bloom and Steiner, and to the political claims of the so-called ‘culture of complaint’.Federica Pich, ‘Dante’s ‘Strangeness’: The Commedia and the late Twentieth-Century Debate on the Literary Canon’, in Metamorphosing Dante: Appropriations, Manipulations, and Rewritings in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, ed. by Manuele Gragnolati, Fabio Camilletti, and Fabian Lampart, Cultural Inquiry, 2 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2011), pp. 21–35 <https://doi.org/10.25620/ci-02_02

From Genealogy To Inventory: The Situation Of Asian American Studies In The Age Of The Crisis Of Global Finance Capital

The onset of global capitalism's crisis has exposed the fragile theoretical underpinnings of Asian American Studies as an academic discipline. Spellbound by deconstructive, rhetorical assumptions, all symptomatic of commodityfetishism and alienation, mainstream Asian American critics continue to validate neoliberal pluralism while claiming to value difference and singularity. While rejecting American Exceptionalism, they ignore historical specificities and endorse individualist norms, affects, genealogical plurality, and performative discourses uncritical of free-market reification

La ironía crítica o los amantes de las ruinas: el esteta, el dandy y el flâneur

El ensayo examina el carácter crítico de la ironía romántica de Friedrich Schlegel siguiendo las consideraciones y apropiaciones de Walter Benjamin, Harold Bloom y Paul de Man. También, el ensayo pretende mostrar el paralelismo de la actitud crítica de la ironía con tres figuras literarias románticas: el esteta, el dandy y el flâneur. Estas criaturas, unidas por una fe profética en el arte, hacen de la ironía una profesión que se mueve entre la creación y la destrucción. La apropiación en el contexto post-estructuralista nos permite percibir a la ironía en una incomprensión radical, desarrollando un patrón estético que opera entre la creación y la aniquilación.This essay examines the critical character of FriedrichSchlegel?s Romantic irony, following its considerations and appropriationsby Walter Benjamin, Harold Bloom and Paul deMan. Likewise, it shows a parallelism of this critical attitude ofirony with three Romantic literary figures: the aesthete, the dandyand the flâneur. These figures, joined by a prophetic faith inart, make of irony a profession which moves between creationand destruction. Appropriation in the poststructuralist contextallows us to perceive irony in such a radical incomprehension,developing an aesthetic pattern that operates between creationand annihilation.Fil: Garnica, Naím. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Catamarca. Facultad de Humanidades; Argentin

Book Reviews

Narmtive Discourse: An Essay in Method (Gérard Genette) (Reviewed by Wendy Steiner, University of Pennsylvania)Critical Assumptions (K. K. Ruthven) (Reviewed by Hazard Adams, University of Washington)Dante, Poet of the Desert: History and Allegory in the Divine Comedy (Giueseppe Mazzotta) (Reviewed by Andrea di Tommaso, Wayne State University)The Comic Matrix of Shakespeare\u27s Tragedies (Susan Snyder) (Reviewed by Leonard Tennenhouse, Wayne State University)Interpreting Interpreting: Interpreting Dickens\u27 Dombey (Susan R. Horton) (Reviewed by Roy Roussel, State University of New York at Buffalo)Virginia Woolf (Michael Rosenthal) (Reviewed by Mark Spilka, Brown University)The Language of Puritan Feeling: An Exploration in Literature, Psychology, and Social History (David Leverenz) (Reviewed by Karl Keller, San Diego State University)Home as Found: Authority and Genealogy in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (Eric I. Sundquist) (Reviewed by Michael Davitt Bell, Williams College)The Creation of Nikolai Gogol (Donald Fanger) (Reviewed by Frank J. Corliss Jr., Wayne State University)Enlarging the Temple: New Directions in American Poetry During the 1960s (Charles Alteri) (Reviewed by Robert Kern, Boston College)Storytelling and Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature (Frank McConnell) (Reviewed by John Harrington, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Book Reviews

The Classic Line: A Study in Epic Poetry (Albert Cook) (Reviewed by William Frost, University of California, Santa Barbara)The Partial Critics (Lee T. Lemon) (Reviewed by Ray Benoit, Saint Louis University)Man\u27s Changing Mask: Modes and Methods of Characterization in Fiction (Charles Child Walcutt) (Reviewed by Alva A. Gay, Wayne State University)The Drama of Comedy: Victim and Victor (Nelvin Vos. Richmond) (Reviewed by Laurence Michel, State University of New York at Buffalo)A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance (Northrop Frye) (Reviewed by Leo Rockas, Briarcliff College