Dennis Looney, Freedom Readers. The African American Reception of Dante Alighieri and the “Divine Comedy”. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011.
Call number: PQ 4385 .U5 L66 2011 (Main Library)
On the Column: “Appropriations of the Divine Comedy in Other Media, Languages, and Cultures”
This critical monograph underscores the literary and cinematic reception of Dante and his Divine Comedy by African American authors, including William Wells Brown, LeRoi Jones [Amiri Baraka], Toni Morrison, Dudley Randall, and Cordelia Ray. Looney focuses on aspects that make the Divine Comedy appealing to the given society he considers. The book’s cover reads: “Looney shows vividly and lucidly how the American reception of Dante is tied more closely to the entangled history of the country’s black and white citizens than we have even imagined.” While “demonstrating persuasively the continuing relevance of Dante,” the four chapters of the book reconstruct “the historical, ideological, political, and cultural background” of African American communities in their attempt to negotiate their history.