Writing a biography of Dante is a challenge many faced. While the archives are mostly silent, his work contains many personal passages that can be easily mistaken for an autobiography. Traditional approaches evaluate these various fragments, exclude those considered less reliable, combine the remaining in a “likely” series of events. The book Vite nuove. Biografia e autobiografia di Dante, co-written with G. Milani, attempts a different approach.
In this talk, part of the Dante 700 series of events marking the passing of Dante Alighieri, Prof. Brilli will illustrate such endeavour, its specificities, some of their main findings, and explore the question not of how to use Dante’s statements to reconstruct his life, but of how much biographical research on Dante and, more in general, our vision of literary authors, owes to his self-telling.
This virtual talk will take place on April 21, 2021 at 4pm ET. Registration link and more information can be found by clicking here.