Showing and discussing images from MS Roma Biblioteca Angelica 1102 (provenance likely Bologna, date likely first quarter of the 15th century), this talk will consider figures of birth and birthing in Inferno and Purgatorio, much studied in recent Dante scholarship, and their relation to Dante's "conception" of poetry.

About the speaker: Dr. R. Allen Shoaf, a former Marshall Scholar and Danforth Fellow, and recipient of two Fellowships of the National Endowment for the Humanities (1982 and 1999), is the author of 11 books and over 80 papers and reviews. Over the past 20 years in the University of Florida, he has won six teaching awards as well as the Alumni Professorship in the Department of English. With the late Julian N. Wasserman, he co-founded the prize-winning journal EXEMPLARIA, now entering its 19th year of publication. His research interests center on the rhetoric of likeness in medieval and early modern literature -- Latin, Italian, and English.