Monograph by David Lummus
What did it mean to be a poet in fourteenth-century Italy? What counted as poetry? In an effort t... more What did it mean to be a poet in fourteenth-century Italy? What counted as poetry? In an effort to answer these questions, this book examines the careers of four medieval Italian poets (Albertino Mussato, Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarch, and Giovanni Boccaccio) who wrote in both Latin and the Italian vernacular. In readings of defenses of poetry, speeches and letters on public laurel-crowning ceremonies, and other theoretical and poetic texts, this book shows how these poets viewed their authorship of poetic works as a function of their engagement in a human community. Each poet represents a model of the poet as a public intellectual - a poet-theologian - who can intervene in public affairs thanks to his authority within texts. The City of Poetry provides a new historicized approach to understanding poetic culture in fourteenth-century Italy which reshapes long-standing Romantic views of poetry as a timeless and sublimely inspired form of discourse.
Edited Books by David Lummus
The Sixth Day of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron marks a new beginning. Its first story is the str... more The Sixth Day of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron marks a new beginning. Its first story is the structural centre of the one hundred tales and signals the start of the day’s reflection on the power of the word as the fundamental building block of human communication. This collection gathers together readings of each of the ten stories in Day Six of the Decameron – the shortest of the entire work. Featuring a diverse group of literary scholars whose expertise is not limited to Boccaccio studies, the collection offers both comprehensive accounts of the tales and new interpretations of their significance. A major contribution to the study of the Decameron, it will also serve as an excellent starting point for new readers of Boccaccio’s masterpiece.
A Boccaccian Renaissance brings together essays written by internationally recognized scholars in... more A Boccaccian Renaissance brings together essays written by internationally recognized scholars in diverse national traditions to respond to the largely unaddressed question of Boccaccio’s impact on early modern literature and culture in Italy and Europe. Martin Eisner and David Lummus co-edit the first comprehensive examination in English of Boccaccio’s impact on the Renaissance.
Articles by David Lummus
Renaissance Quarterly 71.2, 2017
In readings of orations, letters, and poems about Petrarch’s death composed in Paduan and Flo... more In readings of orations, letters, and poems about Petrarch’s death composed in Paduan and Florentine intellectual circles, this article shows that the well-known praise of Petrarch in these texts is a function of a political competition over Petrarch’s remains and, with them, over the rightful location of his legacy. Boccaccio’s last letter, which stands out for its rhetorical sophistication and cultural sensitivity, intervenes in this largely provincial debate with farsighted theoretical coherence and cosmopolitan political ambition. Animated by a familiar vernacular poetics, Boccaccio theorizes an intellectual entombment of Petrarch in Florence that is consonant with Boccaccio’s ongoing cultural project.
Speculum 87.3, 2012
A new reading of Boccaccio's methodology for understanding history in the Genealogy of the Pagan ... more A new reading of Boccaccio's methodology for understanding history in the Genealogy of the Pagan Gods.
Mediaevalia, Vol. 33, 2012
A reconstruction of Boccaccio's engagement with ancient Greek literature and culture and its sign... more A reconstruction of Boccaccio's engagement with ancient Greek literature and culture and its significance for distinguishing Boccaccio's humanism from that of Petrarch.
Medievalia et Humanistica, New Series, Number 37, 2011
A reading of Boccaccio's interpretation of Venus in the Genealogy of the Pagan Gods and its impli... more A reading of Boccaccio's interpretation of Venus in the Genealogy of the Pagan Gods and its implications for understanding erotic desire in the Decameron.
Book Chapters by David Lummus
Dante's "Vita Nova". A Collaborative Reading, Dec 2023
A brief reading of Chapter XXVII [18] of the Vita nova.
Dante's 'Other Works': Assessments and Interpretations, 2022
The Decameron Ninth Day in Perspective, ed. Susanna Barsella and Simone Marchesi, 2022
All quotations from the Decameron are from Branca's 1967 edition for Tutte le opere. English tran... more All quotations from the Decameron are from Branca's 1967 edition for Tutte le opere. English translations are from McWilliam's 1995 Penguin translation. Unless otherwise noted, all other translations are my own. 3 A similar turn of phrase is also used by Elissa at the beginning of II.8. For an example of how the members of the brigata are responding to each other in Day Nine, see Fiammetta's reaction to Lauretta's tale at the beginning of IX.5. On the competitive tone of Day Ten, see Hollander and Cahill, "Day Ten of the Decameron.
Euhemerism and Its Uses. The Mortal Gods. Ed. Syrithe Pugh, 2021
The Cambridge Companion to Boccaccio, 2015
A reading of Boccaccio's poetics in the Decameron from the perspective of his interpretative stra... more A reading of Boccaccio's poetics in the Decameron from the perspective of his interpretative strategies in the Genealogy of the Pagan Gods.
Boccaccio: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works, 2013
A reading of the sixteen poems in Boccaccio's collection of bucolics.
Edoardo Sanguineti: Literature, Ideology and the Avant-Garde, 2013
An analysis of 20th-century Italian poet, Edoardo Sanguineti's engagement with Dante's works in h... more An analysis of 20th-century Italian poet, Edoardo Sanguineti's engagement with Dante's works in his poetry and cultural criticism.
Critical Insights: Dante’s ‘Inferno’, 2011
This chapter presents an introductory and non-exhaustive overview of primarily Italian and Anglo-... more This chapter presents an introductory and non-exhaustive overview of primarily Italian and Anglo-American critical approaches to Dante's Inferno. It also looks briefly at Dante's impact on Anglo-American and Italian literature.
Book Reviews by David Lummus
Renaissance Quarterly, 2022
In a few pages at the end of his book, Sachet describes how Cervini and Antonio Blado, a Roman pu... more In a few pages at the end of his book, Sachet describes how Cervini and Antonio Blado, a Roman publisher connected to the papacy, helped Ignatius of Loyola found a modest printing press in the Roman College to print in-house Jesuit works. In time, the Society of Jesus would establish relationships with commercial presses, persuade princes to finance publications, and produce works that would make the Society a major publishing force. The Jesuits wrote popular works in the vernacular that Cervini and his collaborators did not produce. This book successfully combines the history of the book and religious history. It presents an abundance of detailed information about the people and processes of publication harvested from a wide range of archival, manuscript, printed books, and secondary scholarship, and presents the results in clear prose and detailed footnotes. It is an excellent and original study.
Renaissance Quarterly, 2021
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Monograph by David Lummus
Edited Books by David Lummus
Articles by David Lummus
Book Chapters by David Lummus
Book Reviews by David Lummus