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Jacob, I haven't read Leithart on Dante: of making many books there is no end, and having read what should be enough of his stuff to reward me if it were going to profit me, I'm not highly motivated to try. But if a man sees redemptive history where is it not, is there any guarantee that he won't see other things where they are not? If redemptive history is his consuming passion, then maybe that is the only place where he projects. But I have to wonder: does he read Italian? Does he have an ear (for instance, could he figure out how to pronounce an unfamiliar and metrically ambiguous word by the demands of the meter?)? If not, how can he be competent to observe the effects that Dante produces and explain how they are produced?
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