Dante's Masterplot and Alternative Narratives in the Commedia: (Oxford Modern Languages and Literature Monographs)

Dante's Masterplot and Alternative Narratives in the 'Commedia' questions the familiar narrative arc at play in the writings of Dante Alighieri and opens his masterpiece to three alternative models that resist it. Dante's masterplot is the teleological trajectory by which the poet subordinates the past to the authority of a new experience. The book analyses the masterplot's workings in Dante's text and its role in the interpretation of the poem, and it documents its overwhelming success in influencing readings of the Commedia over the centuries. The volume then explores three competing narrative models that resist and counter its monopoly which are enacted by paradoxes, alternative endings and parallel lives, and the future. By focusing on these non-linear modes of storytelling and testing the limits of linear narration, the book questions critical paradigms in the scholarship of the Commedia that favour a single normative master truth, exposes their problematic authoritarian implications, and highlights the manifold poetic, theological, and ethical tensions that are often neglected due to the masterplot's influence. The new picture of a vulnerable author and open-ended text that emerges from this study thus doubles as a metacritical reflection on the state of the field. The book's impassioned argument is that, alongside established notions of his trademark plurality of linguistic registers and styles, Dante's narrative pluralism can, and should, come to play a key role in contemporary and future readings of the Commedia.

About the Author :
Nicolò Crisafi is a Research and Teaching Fellow in Italian and Director of Modern Languages at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge. He has published on medieval Italian literature with a focus on the works of Dante Alighieri. He engages in research on narrative theory, the role of the reader, the relation between language, affect, and vulnerability, and the intersection between narrative forms and worldviews. His current project on possibility and the utopian imagination, developed as a fellow of ICI Berlin (2018-2020), investigates narratives of possibility and their political implications in the late middle ages.

Review :
There is a great deal to admire about this monograph. It is precise and astute in its analysis and highly attentive to the workings of language and the nuances of lexis...this vibrant and sophisticated study represents not only a fresh and significant contribution to the field of Dante studies but also a work of great interest to scholars of literature and narrative theory more broadly. Crisafi's Dante's Masterplot and Alternative Narratives in the Commedia will be essential for scholars working on the poet's narrative modes, and useful to anyone interested in reading against the poem's teleology. Crisafi calls into question the teleological reading of the Commedia by pointing out alternative paths of interpretation. These alternative ways exist alongside the authoritative voice of the masterplot and end up cracking it and enriching the understanding of Dante's pluralism today. Crisafi calls into question the teleological reading of the Commedia by pointing out alternative paths of interpretation. These alternative ways exist alongside the authoritative voice of the masterplot and end up cracking it and enriching the understanding of Dante's pluralism today.