Studies on Dante

Interest in Dante was a constant throughout Foscolo's life that intensified during the years of exile, when the writer devoted a number of critical works to the poet (his favourite along with Homer). The first contribution dates back to 1818 and consists of two articles, conceived as reviews, published between February and September in the “Edinburgh Review”. Some of the standard themes of Foscolo's critical activity emerge in a project that was used by the author to retrace his own cultural career. Foscolo expressed the need to consider the historic context of the age Dante lived in, in part via the appropriate research. In the critical discourse he gave his personal conception of the role of the literary figure, the interpreter of the history of his time with his strong individuality and specific nature. A strong sense of tradition also emerges in the writing on Dante which is linked to awareness of the immortal nature of Dante's work.

The same principles are also found in another important contribution, Discorso sul Testo della Divina Commedia (Discourse on the Text of the Divine Comedy), which Foscolo wrote as an introduction to a planned edition of Dante's poem with comments that was meant to have been published by the Pickering publisher but was never completed. Foscolo published Discorso on its own in 1825 and wrote the comment and the philological aparatus of the first book that was printed posthumously by Mazzini in 1842  [La ‘Commedia’ di Dante Alighieri Illustrata da Ugo Foscolo (Dante Alighieri's Comedy Illustrated by Ugo Foscolo, London, Pietro Rolandi, 1842)]. Discorso contains a long historic-philological excursus, with references to different editions of Dante and comments on him, as well as a polemic against the critics who limited their interest exclusively to questions of grammar and erudition. The greatness of Dante's poetry derives from the fact that the poet knew how to interpret the society of his time's need for renewal and religious reform via a "primitive", and therefore authentic and spontaneous, poem. Foscolo then made illuminated reflections on some episodes and characters from the Divine Comedy, incorporating his sensitivity and experience as a poet into his work as a critic.