Dante Lab at Dartmouth College: FAQ

Using the Reader

From the Dante Lab homepage, you can launch the Reader either from the "Launch the Reader" button or from the bottom left portion of the footer, where you'll find "Dante Lab Reader." Note that the site navigation switches to the header throughout the rest of the site.

Dante Lab Reader Default View

As you'll see from the below image, you can launch the Reader via the top navigation bar. "Dante Lab Reader" is shown in its selected state.

Layout: The default layout is the 3-panel annotated view: 1 panel on the left and 2 panels on the right.

Content: The panel on the left displays the Divine Comedy, edited by Giorgio Petrocchi (Italian, 1966-1967), digital edition by Robert Hollander and Frank Ordiway. The top right panel displays Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s translation (English, 1867). The bottom right panel displays Robert Hollander’s commentary (English, 2000-2007).

Customizing the Reader

Customizable Layouts

You can arrange your digital workspace by selecting one of the small icons on the top navigation bar, on the top right of your screen. When you hover over these icons (the small squares in the dark navigation bar above the Reader), tool tips (yellow pop-up notes) reinforce the view you will be selecting. From left to right, these views are:

Default/reset view: 1x2 panels

The poem displays in the left panel, a translation in the top right panel, and one commentary in the bottom right panel.

2-panel reader view: 1x1 panels
The poem displays in the left panel, with facing-page translation in the right panel.

3-panel annotated view: 1x2 panels
The poem displays in the left panel, a translation in the top right panel, and one commentary in the bottom right panel.

4-panel analysis view: 2x2 panels
The poem displays in the top left panel, with translation in the top right panel, and one commentary in each of the two bottom panels.

Customizable Panels/Tabs:

Clicking on a tab within each panel will display 1 of these 4 elements:

Poem
Translations
Commentaries
Search

You can also navigate to a specific canticle and canto of the poem by using a panel’s drop_down menu or backward and forward arrows.

Panel Synch

By default, changing where you are in the poem (canticle/canto) in one panel will change the canticle/canto in the other panels. This synching can be removed by clicking the lock icon on any panel to unlink it from the others.

Using the Search Function

You can search the poem, translations, and commentaries. You can indicate a specific canto or line number.

Teaching Scenarios

Scenario 1: High School Student

Here is how a first-time reader of the Divine Comedy could use Dante Lab. This might be a high-school student or an undergraduate reading for a class assignment.

Left panel: English translation of the poem
Right panel: Professor Hollander’s commentary

The student can read any part of the poem in English translation and refer to the commentary on the same screen.

Scenario 2: Undergraduate Reading Assignment

Here is how an undergraduate student could use the Reader to work with the original Italian text. In this class exercise, students carry out a close reading of canto 5 of the Inferno.

Left panel: Original Italian text (Inferno 5)
Top right panel: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation
Bottom right panel: Charles S. Singleton commentary

The student can read the original Italian text, with a translation and commentary on the same screen to aid understanding.

Scenario 3: Undergraduate Research Project

Here is how a college student could use the Reader to work on a research paper. In this example, the student is looking for weather references in the poem. Suggested panel customization:

Left panel: search results for “wind” (vento)
Top right panel: English translation of Inferno 3, lines 133-136, which mention wind (see first search result in left panel)
Bottom right panel: Professor Hollander commentary with “wind” reference Inferno 3, lines 130-134.

The two panels on the right allow the student to look up and contextualize the search results on the left

Scenario 4: Graduate Student Reading Assignment

This is how a graduate student could use the Reader to study Purgatorio, canto 2 for a seminar.

Left panel: Original text, Purgatorio 2
Top right panel: Natalino Sapegno’s Italian commentary
Bottom right panel: Professor Robert Hollander’s English commentary
This graduate-level student doesn’t need a translation so s/he can work with two commentaries and the original text at once.

Scenario 5: Scholarly Research: Comparison of Multiple Commentators on a Specific Part of the Poem

Here is how a scholar conducting research could use the Reader.

Top left panel: Original Italian text of Inferno 3, lines 1-10.
Top right panel: Jacopo Alighieri commentary
Bottom left panel: Charles S. Singleton commentary
Bottom right panel: Robert Hollander commentary

The scholar can compare multiple commentators’ views on a single point of the poem — in this case, the opening lines of Inferno 3.

Scenario 6: Scholarly Research: Multiple Searches and Commentaries

This is how a researcher could use the Reader to conduct and compare multiple text searches.

Top left panel: search results for “nodo” and derivative forms
Top right panel: search results for “chiave” and derivative forms
Bottom left panel: Jacopo della Lana commentary (Purgatorio 9, lines 124-126)
Bottom right panel: Jacopo della Lana commentary (Purgatorio 9, lines 117-118)

The scholar is collating appearances of the word “nodo” (knot), with those of the word “chiave” (key). The panels at the bottom supply a commentator’s opinion on the search results.

Citing the Reader

How to Cite Dante Lab

To cite texts accessed on Dante Lab, please use the following formula:

Cited from the commentary to [cantica, canto.line(s)] by [author(s) of commentary, (publication information)], as found on Dante Lab, http://dantelab.dartmouth.edu.

Example: Cited from the commentary to Purgatorio, IX.124-6 by Jacopo della Lana, Comedia di Dante degli Allaghieri col Commento di Jacopo della Lana bolognese, a cura di Luciano Scarabelli (Bologna: Tipografia Regia, 1866-67), as found on Dante Lab, http://dantelab.dartmouth.edu.

Poem

The Italian text of the Commedia is that edited by Giorgio Petrocchi and published by Mondadori (Milan, Italy, 1966-67) for the Edizione Nazionale of the works of Dante sponsored by the Società Dantesca Italiana. Digitized reproduction edited by Robert Hollander and Frank Ordiway. The only divergence between the original Petrocchi edition and the current digitized text is in the form of punctuation, which was updated according to American usage.

Please note that the digital version of this text is intended for scholarly use only, and reproduction for the purposes of distribution of any kind is prohibited.

Translations

The text of Longfellow’s English translation of the Commedia is The Project Gutenberg Etext of the Divine Comedy of Dante, August 1997. Prepared by Dennis McCarthy. Downloads of this etext accessible at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1004.

The French translation is Dante Alighieri, La divine comédie, trans. Alexandre Cioranescu (Lausanne: Éditions Rencontre, 1964). Electronic reproduction: HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010.

The German translation is Dante Alighieri, Göttliche Komödie, trans. Karl Streckfuss (Braunschweig: C.A. Schwetschke und Sohn, 1854). Electronic Reproduction: HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010.

Commentaries

See Commentary Index