‘A fraternity of poets’. The reception of Dante and the Vita Nuova in the Berkeley Renaissance

This article examines the reception of Dante—especially the Vita Nuova—within the Berkeley Renaissance, focusing on Robert Duncan’s poetics and his engagement with literary tradition, translation, and poetic community. It argues that Dante served not merely as a modernist precursor but as a model for collaborative, dialogic, and plural authorship shared by Duncan, Jack Spicer, and Robin Blaser. Through close readings of Duncan’s essays, poems, and translations, the chapter shows how Dante’s works helped shape a queer, inclusive poetic lineage and a communal vision of tradition. The Vita Nuova emerges as central to Duncan’s reflections on lyric subjectivity, poetic vocation, and the formation of a postmodern poetic coterie.