This book offers a collection of South African university students’ written responses to the Commedia and scholars’ commentary on them. The students’ collection includes writings of all genres and subjects: prose, poetry, personal reflection, dialogue, non-fiction based on the first two cantiche of the Commedia. Some are autobiographical and others are fictional stories, but they all have in common a very personal (and South African) approach to Dante’s text. The scholarly essays of the second part are concerned with the unusual way in which Dante is appreciated by our youth: not as a remote figure only encountered in the hallways of the literature department, but as an intimate presence, a guide, a friend whose language is familiar and invites a response.
University of Witwatersrand, South Africa - ORCID: 0000-0001-7653-2650
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa - ORCID: 0000-0002-7600-4919
Sonia Fanucchi, Anita Virga
“Noi leggiavamo un giorno per diletto”: Reading Dante in South Africapp.13-24
Chris Thurman
“Dante, Can I Lead You?” South African students write back (across seven centuries and a hemisphere)pp.97-103
Giovanna Trento
Dante’s Journey Through Our Lives: Reading La Commedia in Post-Apartheid South Africapp.105-115
Victor Houliston
Releasing the Prisoners of Hope: Dante’s Purgatorio Breaks the Chains of the Born Freespp.117-129
Marco Medugno
“Experience that Generates Experience”: The Influence of the Comedy in three South African Writingspp.131-142
pp.153-167
Martina Di Florio
Dimitri Tsafendas Meets Dante, Friend and Witness of Our Timepp.169-177
Franco Masciandaro
Notes on the writings by the University of the Witwatersrand students of Dantepp.179-196
Book Title
A South African Convivio with Dante
Book Subtitle
Born Frees’ Interpretations of the Commedia
Editors
Sonia Fanucchi, Anita Virga
Peer Reviewed
Number of Pages
212
Publication Year
2021
Copyright Information
© 2021 Author(s)
Content License
Metadata License
Publisher Name
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/978-88-5518-458-8
ISBN Print
978-88-5518-457-1
eISBN (pdf)
978-88-5518-458-8
Series Title
Studi e saggi
Series ISSN
2704-6478
Series E-ISSN
2704-5919