Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/201

 Crown 8vo, price 6s.

During the whole of the central portion of this century, Dr. Karl Witte was actively engaged in Dante Aligheri studies, and his translations, editions, and essays constitute a more important contribution to the revived and deepened study of Dante than any other single scholar can boast to have made. He is the acknowledged master of Scartazzini, Giuliani, and others; and in especial, his conception of Dante's Trilogy (that is to say, his idea as to the mutual relations of the Vita Nuova, the Convito, and the Comedy) underlies all subsequent work on the inner meaning and articulation of Dante's writings. Dr. Witte collected the essays in which this and many subsidiary points are elaborated in two volumes. They are published at the high price of £1, 8s., which makes them out of the reach of many even of those Dante students to whom the languages in which they are written (German for the most part, but occasionally Italian) offer no difficulties. Some of them are of little interest to the general circle of Dante students, dealing as they do with German translations of the Comedy or German works on Dante; but the remaining essays constitute an invaluable body of investigations, of great variety of interest, ranging from a general survey of Dante's mental development or a presentation of his conception of the Universe, to the discussion of biographical details or the identification of the authors and relative antiquities of ancient commentaries. The proposed translation will include all of Dr. Witte's essays that have any general interest.

In an introduction, and in special notes in the several essays, the Editor will give the student the means of checking Dr. Witte's results in doubtful or speculative matters by reference to the original sources or to essays written from another point of view, but he will carefully abstain from fretting the reader by a running commentary of criticism interrupting the essays themselves.

LONDON: DUCKWORTH AND CO.