Dante and the Romantics

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Antonella Braida

      Pages 1-6

3. (Pre)–Romantic Receptions of Dante

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 7-7

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   2. The Eighteenth-Century Reception: Dante and Visual Culture

      • Antonella Braida

      Pages 9-26

   3. The Romantic Translation of the Divine Comedy: Henry Francis Cary’s The Vision

      • Antonella Braida

      Pages 27-55

   4. Dante and High Culture: the Romantic Search for the Epic

      • Antonella Braida

      Pages 56-91

4. Romantic Palimpsests

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 93-93

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   2. ‘L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle’: Shelley on Dante and Love

      • Antonella Braida

      Pages 95-127

   3. John Keats and Dante: Speaking the Gods’ Language

      • Antonella Braida

      Pages 128-150

   4. William Blake: the Romantic Illustrator of Dante

      • Antonella Braida

      Pages 151-178

5. Back Matter

   Pages 179-241

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The British Romantic poets were among the first to realise the centrality of the Divine Comedy for the evolution of the European epic. This study explores the significance of Dante for Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats and William Blake. What was their idea of Dante? Why did they feel the need to approach his Christian epic on the afterlife? This study aims to answer these questions by focusing on the three poets' preoccupation with form and language.

• epic
• John Keats
• Percy Bysshe Shelley
• Romanticism
• William Blake
• British and Irish Literature

ANTONELLA BRAIDA is Lecturer in Italian at the University of Durham. She is co-editor of Image and Word: Reflections of Art and Literature from the Middle Ages to Present (2003).

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