This publication is part of the celebrations to mark seven centuries since Dante Alighieri's death (1321-2021). The month of September will be the culmination of the celebrations.
The theme of the wood is central to the Divine Comedy, as everyone knows from the very first verses. But while the "selva oscura" (dark wood) is allegorical, since it is used to allude to a dangerous, above all moral, condition, and probably derives from the imitation of Virgil's model, in the course of his work Dante will describe other woods with much more realistic details, both in a negative light (the wood of suicides) and in a positive light (the forest of Eden).
In a fascinating journey through the various cantos, it is possible to explore not only Dante's relationship with Nature, the daughter of God, and in particular the sacred trees (such as those of Good and Evil) or invented trees, but also the narrative models used by the poet to represent the Afterlife and our own world.
Alberto Casadei teaches Italian Literature at the University of Pisa, is coordinator of the Dante Group in the Associazione degli Italianisti and is President of the ICoN inter-university consortium. His recent books include: Dante. Storia avventurosa della Divina commedia dalla selva oscura alla realtà aumentata (Il Saggiatore, 2020), Dante oltre l'allegoria (Longo editore, 2021) and the commentaries on Inferno V, Purgatorio VI and Paradiso XXXIII (Garzanti, 2021).
This publication is part of the celebrations to mark seven centuries since Dante Alighieri's death (1321-2021). The month of September will be the culmination of the celebrations.
The theme of the wood is central to the Divine Comedy, as everyone knows from the very first verses. But while the "selva oscura" (dark wood) is allegorical, since it is used to allude to a dangerous, above all moral, condition, and probably derives from the imitation of Virgil's model, in the course of his work Dante will describe other woods with much more realistic details, both in a negative light (the wood of suicides) and in a positive light (the forest of Eden).
In a fascinating journey through the various cantos, it is possible to explore not only Dante's relationship with Nature, the daughter of God, and in particular the sacred trees (such as those of Good and Evil) or invented trees, but also the narrative models used by the poet to represent the Afterlife and our own world.
Alberto Casadei teaches Italian Literature at the University of Pisa, is coordinator of the Dante Group in the Associazione degli Italianisti and is President of the ICoN inter-university consortium. His recent books include: Dante. Storia avventurosa della Divina commedia dalla selva oscura alla realtà aumentata (Il Saggiatore, 2020), Dante oltre l'allegoria (Longo editore, 2021) and the commentaries on Inferno V, Purgatorio VI and Paradiso XXXIII (Garzanti, 2021).
