Books by Andrew Frisardi
Ancient Salt: Essays on Poets, Poetry, and the Modern World, 2022
My essays in Ancient Salt are about several modern and contemporary poets—British, American, and ... more My essays in Ancient Salt are about several modern and contemporary poets—British, American, and Italian. I offer close readings of these poets, and consider their work in light of the challenges of living and writing amid the extraordinary transformations of the modern era. Some of the poets are religious, some are agnostic or perhaps atheist, but all of them articulate a human-poetic response to modernity: its pluralism, mobility, scientific discoveries, innovations, and unprecedented global awareness; as well as its rootlessness, fragmentation, dehumanizing mechanization, materialism, environmental catastrophes, and even systematic genocide. Needless to say, many if not all poets could be approached from the perspective of how they express or adapt to their time and place. Most of the poets in this book are ones whose creative responses to the modern world have been explicit and fundamental to their work.
The subjects of the essays are: Orkney-Scottish visionary poet Edwin Muir (1887–1959); Italian hermetic poet Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888–1970); Irish poet-dramatist W. B. Yeats (1865–1939); Welsh Christian poet Vernon Watkins (1906–1968); English poet and Blake scholar Kathleen Raine (1908–2003); English-cosmopolitan poet Peter Russell (1921–2003); American poet and Alaskan homesteader John Haines (1924–2011); English poet and Jungian Richard Berengarten (formerly Burns) (1943– ); and American poet-critic and Tasmanian expat David Mason (1954– ).
Chap. 10 of Love's Scribe: Reading Dante in the Book of Creation (Angelico Press) , 2020
In Dante's Letter to Cangrande, he wrote that poetic inspiration is a "divine gift." This chapter... more In Dante's Letter to Cangrande, he wrote that poetic inspiration is a "divine gift." This chapter of "Love's Scribe: Reading Dante in the Book of Creation," the conclusion to the book, looks at that idea in some detail, especially as Dante represents poetic inspiration in the later cantos of Paradiso.
Cambridge University Press, 2018
The first fully annotated and introduced edition of Dante's 'Convivio' in English. With parallel ... more The first fully annotated and introduced edition of Dante's 'Convivio' in English. With parallel Italian text and indexes.
Northwestern University Press, 2012
Excerpt from my fully annotated translation of Dante's first book, a combination of prose and poe... more Excerpt from my fully annotated translation of Dante's first book, a combination of prose and poetry, that tells the story of his youthful love for Beatrice and its transformative and symbolic import..
Farrar, Straus & Giroux; Carcanet, 2002
Papers by Andrew Frisardi
Excerpt from my fully annotated translation of Dante's first book, a combination of prose... more Excerpt from my fully annotated translation of Dante's first book, a combination of prose and poetry, that tells the story of his youthful love for Beatrice and its transformative and symbolic import..
Temenos Academy Review, 2023
My translation from the Prologue to the Renaissance scholar-poet Cristoforo Landino's Dante comme... more My translation from the Prologue to the Renaissance scholar-poet Cristoforo Landino's Dante commentary. The part of the Prologue about poets, poetry, and Dante in particular is included here, with my preface about Landino himself. The Renaissance Platonist Marsilio Ficino's encomium for Dante (which Landino quotes) ends the piece.
Temenos Academy Review, 2022
This essay discusses the transformations in W. B. Yeats's poetic style as a response to inexorabl... more This essay discusses the transformations in W. B. Yeats's poetic style as a response to inexorable cultural and social fragmentation in the modern era, which in his work "A Vision" Yeats called the "reversal of the gyres."
Plough, 2021
In this essay I discuss the challenges of translating Dante in general and Purgatorio in particul... more In this essay I discuss the challenges of translating Dante in general and Purgatorio in particular, and provides an (ample but incomplete) overview of available translations of the Divine Comedy. Also with reviews of Dante, Purgatorio, translated with introduction and notes by Mary Jo Bang (Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2021); and Dante, Purgatorio, translated and with a commentary by D. M. Black, preface by Robert Pogue Harrison (New York: New York Review Books, 2021)
This poem is posted here to accompany my essay on the subject of Peter Russell and this poem.
Temenos Academy Review, 2017
An exploration of the language, symbolism, and philosophical-theological background of this exemp... more An exploration of the language, symbolism, and philosophical-theological background of this exemplary poem from the vast oeuvre of the English poet Peter Russell (1921-2003).
Book Reviews by Andrew Frisardi
Temenos Academy Review, 2022
Andrew Brookman's review of Love's Scribe: Reading Dante in the Book of Creation (Angelico Press,... more Andrew Brookman's review of Love's Scribe: Reading Dante in the Book of Creation (Angelico Press, 2020), by Andrew Frisardi. This in-depth review of my book on Dante, Love's Scribe, focuses on two of its themes: the relation between poetry and knowledge, and that between poetry and moral freedom.
Temenos Academy Review, 2022
Dante’s possible awareness of aspects of Islamic literature and symbolism has been a hot topic fo... more Dante’s possible awareness of aspects of Islamic literature and symbolism has been a hot topic for at least a century. My review of this book edited by the medievalist Jan Ziolowski lays out the gist of what scholars know on the subject, as well as other interesting facts and speculations related to the subject.
Temenos Academy Review, 2021
the subtlety, even the mannerliness, of Jones's theological quest ('I have been on my guard/not t... more the subtlety, even the mannerliness, of Jones's theological quest ('I have been on my guard/not to condemn the unfamiliar') on its head: 'Perhaps we might hear the meaning of this declaration. .. by turning it inside out-something like, "I have let myself be vulnerable/so as to bless (and be blessed by) the unfamiliar"?' (p. 34). But the text, and the context, of the poem lend little support to this reading: yes, Jones adopts a position of humility vis-à-vis what he is interrogating, but, however hard he tries, all he finds is a counterfeit, Potemkin-village-like reality. Understanding this does matter precisely because of Jones's own profound forays into the theology of a work of art, forays into which he chose to embed the first draft of this poem, and which the final version only serves to reinforce: 'I thought I felt some beginnings of His creature, but A,a,a, Domine Deus, my hands found the glazed work unrefined and the terrible crystal a stage paste'. For such a cataphatically inclined poet as Jones, this poem might appear to be a rare exercise in the apophatic; it is in fact an intense critique of the desacramentalisation of the modern world, and the two are not the same. Jones's question in this poem is: what sort of species will we become if we 'feel forced to the incredible conclusion. .. that the utile [i.e. the non-sacramental], is all?' ('Use and Sign', The Dying Gaul, p. 183). This book is a stimulating and absorbing read, especially for those who enjoy close engagement with text and image, and the riches such engagement can bring. Elizabeth Powell's approach inevitably raises question and comment, even disagreement, but that is what interdisciplinary dialogue at its best is intended to do. What one might call Jones's theology of art and artistically embodied theology remain a fecund source for scholars and creative artists alike.
Sacred Web, 2020
Faith and Ethics addresses an urgent present reality: the challenges brought about by globalizati... more Faith and Ethics addresses an urgent present reality: the challenges brought about by globalization, modernization, and cultural fragmentation, whereby groups of people from widely diverse backgrounds and worldviews must reach deep for tolerance and understanding. The book consists of an extensive and detailed account of the ethical teachings of Prince Shah Karim al-Husseini (born in Geneva in 1936), the fourth Aga Khan, who is the hereditary spiritual leader or Imam of Shi’i Ismaili Muslims.
Temenos Academy Review, 2020
Temenos Academy Review, 2005
Review of "Christopher Smart," by Neil Curry ( 2005).
Temenos Academy Review, 2007
Review of "Dante and Renaissance Florence," by Simon Gilson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres... more Review of "Dante and Renaissance Florence," by Simon Gilson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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Books by Andrew Frisardi
The subjects of the essays are: Orkney-Scottish visionary poet Edwin Muir (1887–1959); Italian hermetic poet Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888–1970); Irish poet-dramatist W. B. Yeats (1865–1939); Welsh Christian poet Vernon Watkins (1906–1968); English poet and Blake scholar Kathleen Raine (1908–2003); English-cosmopolitan poet Peter Russell (1921–2003); American poet and Alaskan homesteader John Haines (1924–2011); English poet and Jungian Richard Berengarten (formerly Burns) (1943– ); and American poet-critic and Tasmanian expat David Mason (1954– ).
Papers by Andrew Frisardi
Book Reviews by Andrew Frisardi
The subjects of the essays are: Orkney-Scottish visionary poet Edwin Muir (1887–1959); Italian hermetic poet Giuseppe Ungaretti (1888–1970); Irish poet-dramatist W. B. Yeats (1865–1939); Welsh Christian poet Vernon Watkins (1906–1968); English poet and Blake scholar Kathleen Raine (1908–2003); English-cosmopolitan poet Peter Russell (1921–2003); American poet and Alaskan homesteader John Haines (1924–2011); English poet and Jungian Richard Berengarten (formerly Burns) (1943– ); and American poet-critic and Tasmanian expat David Mason (1954– ).