Reading Dante: An Exploration of the Interpretation and Misinterpretation of Allegory

Abstract

Throughout the course of its seven-hundred-year history, the Commedia has been encountered in a variety of contexts notably distinct from its medieval, Italian origins. This has resulted in various ways in which the Commedia has been read. This enquiry will explore the role of misinterpretation in the reading of the poem by examining the tensions which exist between the urge to read the Commedia in its original context and the desire to render it anew in the ongoing pursuit of interpretation. I will focus primarily on these scholars as readers, such as in twentieth-century American criticism, dominated by Charles Singleton’s theories of the allegory of theologians, and how they signified a break from the hermeneutic continuity emphasised by the early Medieval commentators. Additionally, it is necessary to consider the way the Anglosphere reads Dante in translation and how this, in turn, influences the interpretation of Dante’s allegory. While these approaches to reading Dante may appear to be incommensurable and contradictory, it is nevertheless this tension which maintains the expansive interpretability of the text centuries after the death of its author.