Storying Death in the Renaissance
The Recapture of Roberto di Sanseverino (1418-1487)
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10610342 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Melissa Meriam Bullard (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 119 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | S178-S200 |
| Publication date | 2004-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Modern Language Notes (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0149-6611 • E-ISSN: 2326-1978 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/mln.2004.0141 |
| OpenAlex | W4253631179 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 6 |
The underlying problem this article addresses came to my attention in a chance encounter that pitted Salvatore Camporeale, scholar of Renaissance humanism, against modern literary critic George Steiner. During his campus visit many years ago, over lunch I had mentioned to Steiner something Camporeale had recounted, namely that one of his most vivid boyhood recollections from WWII was of the cook at his college reciting Dante as she stirred her kettle. Steiner seemed skeptical and then shocked me by stating unequivocally that it could not have happened as I had reported because Camporeale's account, like so many other stories of common folk reciting Dante, was purely topological. I argued just as strongly that I believed Salvatore's memory was accurate and his experience singular, no matter how many similar stock stories Steiner could cite. He countered solomonically that literature precedes life, for the act of interpretation presupposes a frame of reference in which to place new events, and thus a topos necessarily antedates our understanding of an event. Back then I was not convinced. Only after encountering the intriguing case of Roberto di Sanseverino while doing archival research for the edition of Lorenzo de' Medici's letters, did I begin to puzzle through what Steiner had said. He summed up his perspective in After Babel: [End Page S178]
Art · Art history · Epistemology · Humanism · Interpretation (philosophy) · Literature · Skepticism · Theology · Topos theory · Classics · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
| Highly cited | No |
|---|