From the Critic's Workbench

This book comprises twenty-two chapters, including previously unpublished material, written over the entire span of Marianne Shapiro's working life. Its opening section on the European heritage begins with a long essay on the Aeneid that breaks new interpretative ground by examining the epic from the perspective of Virgil's implicit prescriptions for leaders and leadership. Chapters on Dante add to the store of knowledge on his minor works as well as the Comedy, and are followed by close readings of Petrarch and Provençal poetry. The American and comparative literature section features an analysis of John Ashbery's New Spirit and a page-by-page commentary on Nabokov's Lolita and Pnin. The book is rounded out by three chapters in a semiotics section, the highlight of which is an analysis of the Christian Trinity based on a deep understanding of Peirce's sign theory.

Autorentext

The Author: Marianne Shapiro (1940-2003) was born in Budapest and educated in New York at the High School of Music and Art, Barnard College, and Columbia University. She taught at a number of universities, including Yale and the University of California, Berkeley. Her chief publications ranged over a variety of topics in Romance and comparative literature. Among her books are Hieroglyph of Time: The Petrarchan Sestina, The Poetics of Ariosto, De vulgari eloquentia: Dante's Book of Exile, and Dante and the Knot of Body and Soul.