Dante-Studien

The Dante studies presented here have emerged from decades of engagement with Dante's Commedia. The first part explores the prerequisites for a hermeneutic approach to Dante's work. The second part addresses specific aspects of the work: Is the opening of the Commedia an encrypted suicide situation? Is Dante's journey to the work itself the work? What underlies Dante's complex relationship with his companion Virgil? What distinguishes the sensory experience of Purgatorio and Paradiso? Finally, the third part broadens the perspective on the connection to the Old French Arthurian romance and examines aspects of Dante's reception history: A comparison reveals the difference in self-constitution between Dante and Petrarch, Dante's new Odysseus figure is captured as the center of a modern Odysseus palimpsest, Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu proves to be shaped by a discreet presence of Dante, and Rudolf Borchardt understands Dante as the tragically failed poet of the Empire.