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Rating: 
Summary: Inspiring reflection on literature's power
Review: Hawkins and Jacoff have compiled a volume that is crucial to Dante scholarship, which has never and never should be primarily about commentary. It's about the way Dante strikes us on a personal level, the way literature can influence and change our perspective and our thinking. Could you ever ask for a better chorus of voices! From T. S. Eliot to James Merrill, their inspirations will inspire anyone who has felt the power of literature in their lives.
Rating: 
Summary: Little Passion Apparent
Review: Howard Nemerov, in his essay included here, says something to the effect that his essay is unnecessary as there is more than enough commentary on Dante, and what could he say anyway? Nemerov can say plenty and say it well and I would tend to enjoy anything he wrote on any subject. He is a fine essayist. But his point is valid. There is little here that is new or even very interesting, though the line-up of contributors is stellar, from the standards whose commentary is now classic--Pound, Eliot, Singleton, Yeats, Auden, etc.--to new essays commissioned for this volume--Heaney, McClatchy, Hirsch, Williamson, Charles Wright, and others. The problem: Dante truly does defeat us all. His imagination and genius make commentary superfluous. And most disappointing are the new essays--they truly fail to impart their passion for the poet. It is true that there are good pieces here: by Borges (collected in Seven Nights--go buy that!) and Nemerov in particular. And my favorite gave me exactly what I was looking for--the sense of a poet involved in poetry and involved in the moment. Robert Fitzgerald discusses the work of a sadly forgotten translator, Laurence Binyon. Fitzgerald reproduces letters between Pound and Binyon about the work that Binyon was doing. Pound's enthusiasm is infectious (as well as Fitzgerald's) and one wants his translation immediately in front of one. I fear one may have to look for it in used bookstores This seems a good idea, but in the end it is disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: Little Passion Apparent
Review: Howard Nemerov, in his essay included here, says something to the effect that his essay is unnecessary as there is more than enough commentary on Dante, and what could he say anyway? Nemerov can say plenty and say it well and I would tend to enjoy anything he wrote on any subject. He is a fine essayist. But his point is valid. There is little here that is new or even very interesting, though the line-up of contributors is stellar, from the standards whose commentary is now classic--Pound, Eliot, Singleton, Yeats, Auden, etc.--to new essays commissioned for this volume--Heaney, McClatchy, Hirsch, Williamson, Charles Wright, and others. The problem: Dante truly does defeat us all. His imagination and genius make commentary superfluous. And most disappointing are the new essays--they truly fail to impart their passion for the poet. It is true that there are good pieces here: by Borges (collected in Seven Nights--go buy that!) and Nemerov in particular. And my favorite gave me exactly what I was looking for--the sense of a poet involved in poetry and involved in the moment. Robert Fitzgerald discusses the work of a sadly forgotten translator, Laurence Binyon. Fitzgerald reproduces letters between Pound and Binyon about the work that Binyon was doing. Pound's enthusiasm is infectious (as well as Fitzgerald's) and one wants his translation immediately in front of one. I fear one may have to look for it in used bookstores This seems a good idea, but in the end it is disappointing.
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