Dante’s work may owe a forgotten debt to Arabic medieval literature

Evidence

It is often suggested that an Arabic influence can be seen in the work of Dante and other Italian writers of the Middle Ages. The seminal work in this still undeveloped field remains Maria Rosa Menocal, The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987). A more recent volume that attempts to build on Menocal’s work is Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Karla Mallette, eds., A Sea of Languages: Rethinking the Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013). — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 969

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• QUESTION: The ‘still undeveloped field’ of Arabic-to-Dante influence could be worth chasing — a counterweight to the idea that the European canon is purely Eurocentric.