Martin Eisner | Scholars@Duke

Martin Eisner
Professor of Romance Studies

Martin Eisner is Chair of Romance Studies and Professor of Italian at Duke University. He is the author of Dante's New Life of the Book: A Philology of World Literature (Oxford UP, 2021), which won the Howard R. Marraro Prize from the Modern Language Association. His first book Boccaccio and the Invention of Italian Literature: Dante, Petrarch, Cavalcanti, and the Authority of the Vernacular (Cambridge UP, 2013) has recently been published in Italian as Boccaccio e l'invenzione della letteratura italiana (Salerno, 2022). He is currently working on a biography of Boccaccio for Reaktion Books's Renaissance Lives series. He continues to develop the online research project Dante’s Library. His articles on Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Machiavelli have appeared in PMLA, Renaissance Quarterly, Dante Studies, Mediaevalia, California Italian Studies, Quaderni d’Italianistica, Annali d’Italianistica and Le Tre Corone. His research has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the American Academy in Rome, the American Philosophical Association, and the Fulbright Foundation.

Office Hours

To make an appointment, please contact the Assistant to the Chair, Hannah Blake-Harris at catherine.blakeharris@duke.edu

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Professor of Romance Studies, Romance Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2020
Chair of Romance Studies, Romance Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2020

Contact Information

205 Language Center, Box 90257, Durham, NC 27708
Box 90257, Durham, NC 27708-0257
martin.eisner@duke.edu (919) 660-3129
Publications

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., Columbia University 2005
- M.Phil., Columbia University 2002
- B.A., Columbia University 1999
Previous Appointments & Affiliations
- Associate Professor of Romance Studies, Romance Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2013 - 2020
- Assistant Professor of Romance Studies, Romance Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2005 - 2013
- Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor, Romance Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2008 - 2009
Leadership & Clinical Positions at Duke
- Chair of Romance Studies, 2020-
Recognition
In the News
- JAN 10, 2023 Department of Romance Studies
  
  Why We're Still Reading Dante Seven Centuries Later
- SEP 9, 2021
  
  The real scandal of Dante’s Beatrice
- AUG 26, 2021 Duke University Libraries
  
  Dante's World Is Bigger Than Hell
- MAY 25, 2021
  
  May Books: Martin Eisner “Dante's New Life of the Book: A Philology of World Literature”
Awards & Honors
Expertise
Subject Headings
- Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321. Divine comedy
Global Scholarship
- Expertise
  - Italy (Country)
- Research
  - Italy (Country)
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - Eisner, Martin. Dante's New Life of the Book A Philology of World Literature. Oxford University Press, USA, 2021.
  - EISNER, M. A. R. T. I. N., and Chair of Romance Studies and Professor of Italian Duke University Martin (Chair of Romance Studies and Professor of Italian Eisner. Dante's New Life of the Book A Philology of World Literature. Oxford Textual Perspectives, 2021.
  - Eisner, Martin, and David Lummus, eds. A Boccaccian Renaissance Essays on the Early Modern Impact of Giovanni Boccaccio and His Works. University of Notre Dame Press, 2019.
  - Eisner, Martin, Valerio Cappozzo, and Timothy Kircher, eds. Boccaccio and His World. Special Issue of Heliotropia, vol. 15, 2018.
    Link to Item
  - Eisner, Martin. Boccaccio and the Invention of Italian Literature: Dante, Petrarch, Cavalcanti, and the Authority of the Vernacular. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
- Academic Articles
  - Eisner, M. “Machiavelli in paradise: How reading dante and ovid shaped the prince.” Pmla 134, no. 1 (January 1, 2019): 35–50. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2019.134.1.35.
    Full Text
  - Eisner, Martin. “Dante's Ballata: The Personification of Poetry and the Authority of the Vernacular in the Vita Nuova.” Mediaevalia 39, no. 1 (2018): 299–318. https://doi.org/10.1353/mdi.2018.0010.
    Full Text
  - Eisner, Martin. “A Singular Boccaccio: Defending and Defining Poetry in the Decameron and Genealogie.” Quaderni D Italianistica 38 (2017): 179–99.
    Link to Item
  - Eisner, M. “In the labyrinth of the library: Petrarch's Cicero, Dante's Virgil, and the historiography of the Renaissance.” Renaissance Quarterly 67, no. 3 (September 1, 2014): 755–90. https://doi.org/10.1086/678774.
    Full Text Open Access Copy
  - Eisner, M. G. “Boccaccio e l’invenzione della letteratura italiana,” 2014.
    Open Access Copy
  - Eisner, M. G. “The Word Made Flesh in Inferno 5: Francesca Reading and the Figure of the Annunciation in Dante’s Commedia,” 2013.
    Open Access Copy
  - Eisner, M. G. “Eroticizing Theology in Day Three and the Poetics of the Decameron,” 2013.
    Open Access Copy
  - Eisner, M. G. “A Singular Boccaccio: Defending and Defining Poetry in the Decameron and Genealogie.,” 2013.
  - Eisner, Martin G. “The Return to Philology and the Future of Literary Criticism: Reading the Temporality of Literature in Auerbach, Benjamin, and Dante,” December 2011.
    Open Access Copy
  - Eisner, M., and M. Schachter. “Libido Sciendi: Apuleius, Boccaccio and the History of Sexuality.” Pmla, May 2009.
  - Eisner, Martin. “Petrarch Reading Boccaccio: Revisiting the Genesis of the Triumphi.” Edited by Teodolinda Barolini and H Wayne Storey, 2007.
- Book Sections
  - Eisner, M. G. “Dante and the Author of the Decameron: Love, Literature, and Authority in Boccaccio.” In The Oxford Handbook to Chaucer, edited by Suzanne Akbari and James Simpson. Oxford University Press, 2020.
  - Eisner, Martin. “The Language of Women in the World of God: Vernacularization.” In Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Literature, 2020.
  - Eisner, Martin. “Vernacularization and World Literature: The Language of Women in the World of God.” In A Companion to World Literature, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118635193.ctwl0055.
    Full Text
  - Eisner, M. “Boccaccio’s Renaissance.” In Boccaccio and the European Literary Tradition, 45–55. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2014.
  - Eisner, M. “Boccaccio's Renaissance.” In Boccaccio and the European Literary Tradition, edited by P. Boitani and E. Di Rocco, 45–55. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2014.
  - Eisner, Martin. “The Tale of Ferondo’s Purgatory (III.8).” In The Decameron: Third Day, edited by Pier Massimo Forni and Francesco Ciabattoni, 153–73. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.
    Link to Item
  - Eisner, Martin. “EPILOGUE The allegory of the vernacular Boccaccio's Esposizioni and Petrarch's Griselda.” In BOCCACCIO AND THE INVENTION OF ITALIAN LITERATURE: DANTE, PETRARCH, CAVALCANTI, AND THE AUTHORITY OF THE VERNACULAR, 113-+, 2013.
    Link to Item
  - Eisner, Martin. “The inventive scribe Glossing Cavalcanti in the Chigi and Decameron 6.9.” In BOCCACCIO AND THE INVENTION OF ITALIAN LITERATURE: DANTE, PETRARCH, CAVALCANTI, AND THE AUTHORITY OF THE VERNACULAR, 95-+, 2013.
    Link to Item
  - Eisner, Martin. “The making of Petrarch's vernacular Book of Fragments (Fragmentorum liber).” In BOCCACCIO AND THE INVENTION OF ITALIAN LITERATURE: DANTE, PETRARCH, CAVALCANTI, AND THE AUTHORITY OF THE VERNACULAR, 74-+, 2013.
    Link to Item
  - Eisner, Martin. “Dante's dirty feet and the limping republic Boccaccio's defense of literature in the Vita di Dante.” In BOCCACCIO AND THE INVENTION OF ITALIAN LITERATURE: DANTE, PETRARCH, CAVALCANTI, AND THE AUTHORITY OF THE VERNACULAR, 29-+, 2013.
    Link to Item
  - Eisner, Martin. “Dante's shame and Boccaccio's paratextual praise Editing the Vita nuova, Commedia, and canzoni distese.” In BOCCACCIO AND THE INVENTION OF ITALIAN LITERATURE: DANTE, PETRARCH, CAVALCANTI, AND THE AUTHORITY OF THE VERNACULAR, 50-+, 2013.
    Link to Item
  - Eisner, Martin. “INTRODUCTION Boccaccio between Dante and Petrarch Cultivating vernacular literary community in the Chigi Codex.” In BOCCACCIO AND THE INVENTION OF ITALIAN LITERATURE: DANTE, PETRARCH, CAVALCANTI, AND THE AUTHORITY OF THE VERNACULAR, 1-+, 2013.
    Link to Item
  - Eisner, Martin G. “Giovanni Boccaccio "Commedia" and "Dante Alighieri".” edited by Choon Leong Seow, Hermann Spieckermann, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Bernard McGinn, Hans-Josef Klauck, and Eric Ziolkowski. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
  - Eisner, Martin G. ““Giovanni Boccaccio” "Commedia" and "Dante Alighieri".” In The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, edited by Choon Leong Seow, Hermann Spieckermann, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Bernard McGinn, Hans-Josef Klauck, and Eric Ziolkowski. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
  - Eisner, M. “Chapter Five : Petrarch Reading Boccaccio: Revisiting the Genesis of the Triumphi.” In Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, 31:131–46, 2007.
  - Eisner, Martin. “Dante and the Spectrum of Medieval Vernacular Poetry.” In.” In Approaches to Teaching Dante, edited by Christopher Kleinhenz and Kristina Olson. New York: Modern Language Association, n.d.
- Book Reviews
  - Eisner, Martin. “Reading Dante in Renaissance Italy: Florence, Venice and the “Divine Poet.” Simon Gilson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. xiv + 434 pp. $120.” Renaissance Quarterly. Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/rqx.2019.464.
    Full Text
  - Eisner, Martin. “Boccaccio: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works. Victoria Kirkham, Michael Sherberg, and Janet Levarie Smarr, eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. xix + 556 pp. $50.” Renaissance Quarterly. Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2015. https://doi.org/10.1086/683948.
    Full Text
  - Eisner, M. G. “Rev. of Bonnie Mak, How the Page Matters.” Renaissance Quarterly, 2013.
  - Eisner, M. G. “Rev. of Rhiannon Daniels, Boccaccio and the Book.” Renaissance Quarterly, 2010.
  - Eisner, M. G. “Rev. of Carol Lansing, Power and Purity.” H Italy., 2010.
  - Eisner, Martin. “Rhiannon Daniels. Boccaccio and the Book: Production and Reading in Italy 1340–1520. Italian Perspectives 19. London: Legenda, 2009. xi + 229 pp. $89.50.. ISBN: 978–1–906540–49–4.” Renaissance Quarterly. Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2010. https://doi.org/10.1086/655234.
    Full Text Open Access Copy
  - Eisner, Martin G. “Review of Vincenzo Traversa, ed. and trans. Giovanni Boccaccio, Theseid of the Nuptials of Emilia (Teseida delle nozze di Emilia).” Heliotropia, 2008.
  - Eisner, Martin G. “Review of Prue Shaw, ed. Dante: Monarchia on CD-ROM.” The Medieval Review, 2008.
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses
Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
Presentations & Appearances
Service to the Profession

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Education, Training, & Certifications

Previous Appointments & Affiliations

Leadership & Clinical Positions at Duke

In the News

Awards & Honors

Subject Headings

Global Scholarship

Expertise

Research

Selected Publications

Books

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Book Reviews

Recent Courses

Presentations & Appearances

Service to the Profession