SOURCE: "The Figure of Dante in Die Hochzeit des Mönchs;" in MLN, Vol. 90, No. 5, October, 1975, pp. 678-86.

In the following essay, Plater determines the significance of the narrator, Dante Alighieri, in the novella and finds connections between Dante, the protagonist of the story, Astorre, and Meyer.

Die Hochzeit des Mönchs is perhaps the most demanding of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's novellas. Here Meyer seems to have stretched the possibilities of the genre to its limits. He himself ruefully stated in reference to the complex interlacing of story and frame in this novella that he had created "ein non plus ultra." The evaluation of Meyer's actual achievement with this novella depends, of course, on the recognition of all the features that contribute to its complexity. One such feature which has not yet been fully understood is Meyer's use of the great Italian poet, Dante Alighieri, as fictional narrator...