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Aida Audeh
Department of Art History
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa. 52242.
Dept. tel. 319-335-1771

2643 Westwinds Drive #4
Iowa City, Iowa 52246
home tel. 319-338-4099

E-mail: AudehA@aol.com


Dissertation Proposal accepted March 1998

Title: "Rodin's Gates of Hell and Dante's Inferno: Cultural Synthesis in French Art and Literature of the 19th Century"

My Ph.D. dissertation investigates the relationship of Auguste Rodin's Gates of Hell to Dante's Inferno. While it is commonly acknowledged by scholars that Dante's text was the initial inspiration for Rodin's Gates, finding closer links between the two has proven difficult, so much so that a comprehensive treatment of this relationship has never been attempted. While centered on the work of Rodin, my research encompasses several fields including French painting, sculpture, and book illustration of the 19th century, French literature of the 19th century and its reception and re-interpretation of Dante's text, and Medieval and Renaissance illustrations of Dante's text. Broadly conceived, my research involves French culture's long and prolific relationship with Dante's Inferno as both subject of and inspiration for French art and literature, with a view towards Rodin's Gates of Hell as the culmination of this interest. Placing Rodin in this rich context thus constitutes an innovative and comprehensive approach to an artist whose work is seminal to French culture.


Aida Audeh would appreciate contact with scholars developing similar projects and with scholars working/living in France. Informations about publications and upcoming conferences which might be suitable venues for her work with Dante in 19th-century France would be welcome. Posted 4 August 1998, Otfried Lieberknecht

 ORB Dante Section


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