A World of Possibilities
The Legacy of The Undivine Comedy
Published on 4. November 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
VII, 404 pages
978-3-96558-108-1 (ISBN)
Description
Published in 1992, Teodolinda Barolini's
The Undivine Comedy: Detheologizing Dante
was a clarion call for a paradigmatic shift in reading Dante's
Commedia
. Bringing together an international cadre of scholars,
A World of Possibilities: The Legacy of 'The Undivine Comedy'
illustrates the generative influence that Barolini's approach has exerted across continents, disciplines, and generations. It testifies to the variety of interpretations that originate in her method, and opens new perspectives on Dante's oeuvre and the significance of literature.
Reviews / Votes
Thirty-three years after The Undivine Comedy saw the light , this volume, edited by Kristina M. Olson is an excellent guide for first-time readers of Teodolinda Barolini's book, and an opportunity for old hands to revisit it, asking themselves whether or not they fully absorbed it the first timearound. In A World of Possibilities , Olson brings together Barolini with the author's former students and colleagues in an inspired and inspiring collaboration that, while paying tribute to a past milestone in Dante studies, shows the multiple directions in which it continues to evolve. An extraordinary example of the complexity and vitality of Dante studies, and a splendid sign of faith in the power of literary criticism at a time when the future of the republic of letters seems uncertain. - Lino Pertile, Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Emeritus at Harvard University.More details
Person
Editor
Kristina M. Olson is Associate Professor of Italian in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at George Mason University. She is the author of Courtesy Lost: Dante, Boccaccio and the Literature of History (2014), and several articles and essays on Dante and Boccaccio. She co-edited four volumes, including Approaches to Teaching Dante's 'Divine Comedy' with Christopher Kleinhenz. She has served as Vice President of the Dante Society of America, and as President, Vice President and Treasurer of the American Boccaccio Association. She is the current Editor-in-Chief of Dante Studies.
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Content
Introduction / KRISTINA M. OLSON
Possible Worlds and Reading Dante's Commedia: Suspension of Disbelief (Coleridge, Horace, Tolkien, Cecco d'Ascoli) and the Solvents of Narrative and History / TEODOLINDA BAROLINI
The Intricate Weaving of The Undivine Comedy / H. WAYNE STOREY
The Undivine Comedy: Dante One and Multiple / ROBERTO ANTONELLI
Reasoning between Possibility, Fictional Reality, and Actuality: A Case Study in Detheologizing the Commedia's Conditionals / LAURA DINARDO
Detheologize to Historicize / NASSIME CHIDA
Teodolinda Barolini and the Signs of Newness in The Undivine Comedy / ALBERTO CASADEI
Dante's War: Exiles, carestia, and Conflict in the Florentine Countryside, 1301-1304 / GEORGE DAMERON
Dante's Lucy in the Canon Law of Consent / GRACE DELMOLINO
Prophetic Models and Structures in an Undivine Comedy / GIUSEPPE LEDDA
Divining The Undivine Comedy: Reflections and Recollections / ZYGMUNT G. BARANSKI
Dante and 'visibile parlare' / LINA BOLZONI
Ovidio senza Dio: Ovidian Myth and Sexual Violence in the Commedia / JULIE VAN PETEGHEM
In Praise of Detheologizing / ELENA LOMBARDI
Heavenly Paradoxes and Their Pleasures / MANUELE GRAGNOLATI
The Role of the Reader in Actualizing the Commedia / F. REGINA PSAKI
From Detheologizing to Decolonizing: Toward a Reading of Dante and Alterity / AKASH KUMAR
Translating The Undivine Comedy / ROBERTA ANTOGNINI
On Reading The Undivine Comedy Thirty Years Later / JOAN FERRANTE