a lecture by John Barnes
This lecture will first consider Dante’s views on war as a principle and then move on to his direct experience of warfare. Its main purpose, however, will be to explore ways in which those views and that experience are reflected in his literary works, particularly in the imagery of the Commedia.Prior to his retirement John Barnes was for a quarter of a century the Professor of Italian in University College Dublin. The principal area of his work has always been medieval Florentine literature, especially historiography and the writings of Dante. He has co-edited a number of collections of essays on the latter, to be followed in the near future by War and Peace in Dante and Dante and the Seven Deadly Sins. He has also worked on certain twentieth-century Italian authors, particularly Pirandello, and has for many years been the President of the Society for Pirandello Studies.