Description
Book SynopsisDante''s Divine Comedy in Early Renaissance England compares the intellectual, emotional, and religious world of Dante in 13th-century Florence with that of a group of English intellectuals gathered around Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, uncle of the King, Henry VI. Here, Jonathan Hughes establishes that there was a Renaissance in 15th-century England, encouraged by the discovery and translations of works of Greek philosophers and developments in science and medicine; and that vernacular writers in Gloucester's circle, such as John Lydgate and Robert Hoccleve, were of fundamental importance in exploring the meaning of the self and man's relationship with the natural world and the classical past. However, the appearance in 15th-century England of Dante's ''Commedia'', the most popular work of the Middle Ages, served to remind writers and readers of the cost of intellectual enquiry: the loss of faith in a harmonious and beautiful world; the redemptive power of the love of a woman; a
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements and Foreword Introduction 1. Mercury: The Arrival of Dante in England 1370-1450 2. Jupiter: Ancient Rome 3. Apollo (the Sun): The Legacy of Ancient Greece 4. Venus: Nature and Science 5. The Fixed Stars: Fortune 6. Luna (the Moon): Women 7. The Primum Mobile and the Empyrean: Love and the Afterlife 8. Saturn: Melancholia 9. Terram (the Earth): Conclusion and the Afterlife of The Divine Comedy Bibliography Index
