Freedom Readers: The African American Reception of Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy (William and Katherine Devers Series in Dante and Medieval Italian Literature)

Freedom Readers: The African American Reception of Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy is a literary-historical study of the many surprising ways in which Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy have assumed a position of importance in African American culture. Dennis Looney examines how African American authors have read, interpreted, and responded to Dante and his work from the late 1820s to the present. In many ways, the African American reception of Dante follows a recognizable narrative of reception: the Romantic rehabilitation of the author; the late-nineteenth-century glorification of Dante as a radical writer of reform; the twentieth-century modernist rewriting; and the adaptation of the Divine Comedy into the prose of the contemporary novel. But surely it is unique to African American rewritings of Dante to suggest that the Divine Comedy is itself a kind of slave narrative. Only African American “translations” of Dante use the medieval author to comment on segregation, migration, and integration. While many authors over the centuries have learned to articulate a new kind of poetry from Dante’s example, for African American authors attuned to the complexities of Dante’s hybrid vernacular, his poetic language becomes a model for creative expression that juxtaposes and blends classical notes and the vernacular counterpoint in striking ways. Looney demonstrates this appropriation of Dante as a locus for black agency in the creative work of such authors as William Wells Brown, the poet H. Cordelia Ray, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Amiri Baraka, Gloria Naylor, Toni Morrison, and the filmmaker Spencer Williams. Freedom Readers: The African American Reception of Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy is a literary-historical study of the many surprising ways in which Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy have assumed a position of importance in African American culture. Dennis Looney examines how African American authors have read, interpreted, and responded to Dante and his work from the late 1820s to the present.In many ways, the African American reception of Dante follows a recognizable narrative of reception: the Romantic rehabilitation of the author; the late-nineteenth-century glorification of Dante as a radical writer of reform; the twentieth-century modernist rewriting; and the adaptation of the Divine Comedy into the prose of the contemporary novel. But surely it is unique to African American rewritings of Dante to suggest that the Divine Comedy is itself a kind of slave narrative. Only African American “translations” of Dante use the medieval author to comment on segregation, migration, and integration. While many authors over the centuries have learned to articulate a new kind of poetry from Dante's example, for African American authors attuned to the complexities of Dante's hybrid vernacular, his poetic language becomes a model for creative expression that juxtaposes and blends classical notes and the vernacular counterpoint in striking ways. Looney demonstrates this appropriation of Dante as a locus for black agency in the creative work of such authors as William Wells Brown, the poet H. Cordelia Ray, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Amiri Baraka, Gloria Naylor, Toni Morrison, and the filmmaker Spencer Williams.Looney fruitfully suggests that we read Dante's Divine Comedy with its African American rewritings in mind, to assess their effect on our interpretation of the Comedy and, in turn, on our understanding of African American culture. Introduction. Canonicity, Hybridity, Freedom ; Sailing With Dante To The New World ; The Dante Wax Museum On The Frontier, 1828 -- Colored Dante. Dante The Protestant. Abolitionists And Nationalists, Americans And Italians ; H. Cordelia Ray, William Wells Brown -- Negro Dante. Educating The People: From Cicero To Du Bois ; African American Filmmaker At The Gates Of Hell ; Spencer Williams ; Dante Meets Amos 'n' Andy ; Ralph Waldo Ellison's Prophetic Vernacular Muse -- Black Dante. Leroi Jones, The System Of Dante's Hell ; A New Narrative Model ; Amiri Baraka: From Dante's System To The System -- African American Dante. Gloria Naylor, Linden Hills ; Multicolored, Multicultural Terza Rima ; Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye ; Dante Rap -- Poets In Exile. Dennis Looney. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Provides a literary-historical study of the many surprising ways in which Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy have assumed a position of importance in African American culture. Dennis Looney examines how African American authors have read, interpreted, and responded to Dante and his work from the late 1820s to the present. Cover Series List Title Page Copyright CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1: COLORED DANTE CHAPTER 2: NEGRO DANTE CHAPTER 3: BLACK DANTE CHAPTER 4: AFRICAN AMERICAN DANTE CHAPTER 5: POETS IN EXILE Notes Bibliography Index