Dante and Ovid, a comparative study of narrative techniques

grantor: University of TorontoThe dissertation focuses on the influence of Ovid ('Metamorphoses ') on Dante and is divided into two parts. The first part is concerned with the Ovidian influence on the microtextual level, that is, with the way in which Dante implements Ovidian themes in specific passages and for particular, local purposes. The second develops a wider, narratological approach, centering on the way in which Dante's story-telling style, in the broadest way, is derived from Ovid and developed in imitation of him. The thesis aims at giving an assessment of what an exhaustive account of the influence of Ovid's ' Metamorphoses' on Dante would entail, something which has never been done before. In the first chapter there is presented a complete survey of the most recent scholarship on the microtextual exploitation of Ovid's myths and legends on Dante's part. Some new criteria to produce a complete taxonomy encompassing all the passages of the 'Comedy' derived from Ovid's ' Metamorphoses' are also discussed. The second chapter, introducing the second part of the thesis, deals with semiotic concepts focusing on the general problem of literary repetition and self-exegesis in an epic poem. This, indeed, is the feature of Dante's art which owes the most to Ovid's narrative technique. The third chapter shows how Ovid himself used the device of repetition and variation on given themes, derived from his juridical training, for the purpose of granting thematic unity and consistency of tone to his unprecedented literary undertaking. The fourth chapter highlights how many passages of the 'Comedy ' are likewise connected to each other delineating sequentially significant patterns devoted to the goal of self-exegesis. This work makes use of the Dartmouth Dante Project Database, developed by Robert Hollander, which contains more than 40 commentaries on the ' Divine Comedy', from Dante's own son Pietro to 1982. An appendix containing all the passages of the 'Comedy' that all the above mentioned commentators have considered as derived from Ovid's main work has been provide after the Conclusions and before the Bibliography. All the entries have been sorted out and arranged systematically according to the succession of the canticles and the chronological order of the commentators.Ph.D