Dante and the Grammar of the Nursing Body (The William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante Studies, V. 5)

Dante and the Grammar of the Nursing Body takes a serious look at Dante's relation to Latin grammar and the new "mother tongue"-Italian vernacular-by exploring the cultural significance of the nursing mother in medieval discussions of language and selfhood. Inspired by Julia Kristeva's meditations on the maternal semiotic, Cestaro's book uncovers ancient and medieval discourses that assert the nursing body's essential role in the development of a mature linguistic self. The opening chapters locate traces of the nursing motif in Dante's minor works and particularly in his Latin treatise on the mother tongue, De vulgari eloquentia . Cestaro argues that a primal scene of suckling motivates the poet's musings on language and brings the work to its premature end. Subsequent chapters explore the evolution of the nursing body in the Comedy : from the parodic anti-nurse of Inferno (archetypically Circe with her poison milk), to the Christian deconstruction and reconstruction of selfhood in intimate association with female nursing on the mountain of Purgatorio. The book ends in Paradiso with a dramatic metaphorical celebration of the nursing body as a site of eternal truth and emblem of the resurrected body promised by medieval Christianity. Cover 1 DANTE AND THE GRAMMAR OF THE NURSING BODY 2 Title 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 CONTENTS 8 About the William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante Studies 10 List of Illustrations 12 Acknowledgments 14 INTRODUCTION 16 1. LADY GRAMMAR BETWEEN NURTURING AND DISCIPLINE 24 Defining grammatica 24 nutrix as magistra 29 inter blandimenta nutricum 30 Lady Grammar's Whip 35 Sapientia nutrix and Grammatica nutrix 37 Grammatica in the Metalogicon 40 Lady Grammar in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries 55 Lady Grammar in Fourteenth-Century Italy 61 2. THE PRIMAL SCENE OF SUCKLING IN DE VULGARI ELOQUENTIA 64 a la tetta de Ia madre s' apprende 64 nutricem imitantes 68 vir sine matre, vir sine lacte 73 quanquam Sarnum biberimus ante dentes 74 ut"femina," "corpo" 85 os ex ossibus meis et caro de carne mea 87 3. THE BODY OF GAETA: BURYING AND UNBURYING THE WET NURSE IN INFERNO 92 From Lady Grammar to the Neoplatonic Nurse and Beyond 92 là presso a Gaeta, prima che sì Enëa la nomasse 93 Ex ore irifantium et lactentium 95 Aeneia nutrix 97 Circe, the Anti-nurse 100 Bones and a Name 103 in misericordia uberi 108 Ulysses as Circe 112 Noms de lieu 114 Pappa and prora at the End of Paradiso 119 The Nurse in Inferno 121 4. DECONSTRUCTING SUBJECTIVITY IN ANTEPURGATORY 124 Selfhood and the Body in Purgatorio 124 Silva from Plato to Dante 128 Silva and Alma Mater 131 Silva in Purgatorio 5 133 5. RECONSTRUCTING SUBJECTIVITY IN PURGATORIO AND PARADISO 150 Sermo humilis and the Nursing Body of Christ 150 Dante's Nurse-Poets 153 The Pilgrim as infans / puer 160 The Triumph of the Resurrected Breast 169 Et coram patre le si fece unito 172 Notes 182 Bibliography 284 Index 312