Von Dante zu Ionesco

englischThis multi-volume work tells the story of modern man in Italian and French literature. The first volume analyzes the most important works of Italian literature between the 14th and 16th centuries, when Italy was the leading cultural nation in Europe: Dante's Divine Comedy, Petrarch's Songbook, Boccaccio's Decameron, Machiavelli's Prince and his comedy Mandragola, Ariosto's Mad Roland and Tasso's Liberation of Jerusalem.

These works, avant-garde in their day, teach respect for the uniqueness of the individual, reflect anthropological models and analyze human consciousness. They open the sense of the sublimity and contingency of human existence.

The author

Born in Augsburg in 1955; studied Romance philology, German philology and philosophy in Bonn, Toulouse and Munich; professor at the University of Cologne in 1997; professor at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn from 2003 to 2023; research interests: Italian Renaissance, French literature and philosophy of the 17th to 20th centuries, subject theory, critical cultural theory, European founding myths.