Metaphor in Dante

David Gibbons provides a working definition of metaphor as it was understood in Dante's time and, by close readings from the early lyrics to the Paradise, gives a new, comprehensive account of Dante's gift for this rhetorical figure. If to be a matter of metaphor is, according to Aristotle, a sign of genius - and Dante was known in the sixteenth century as 'poeta metaforicissimo' - then Gibbons's volume goes a long way to explaining a major facet of Dante's creative brilliance. The heart of the book is an analysis of metaphor in the Paradiso, but the volume also reaches back to Dante's earliest lyrics and concludes with a look forward to Petrarch's use of this important device.