Marianne Shapiro (1940-2003) was born in Budapest and educated in New York (High School of Music and Art, Barnard College, Columbia University). She taught at a number of universities, including Yale and UC Berkeley. Her chief publications ranged over a variety of topics in Romance and comparative literature. Among her books are Hieroglyph of Time: The Petrarchan Sestina, The Poetics of Ariosto, De vulgari eloquentia: Dante's Book of Exile, Dante and the Knot of Body and Soul, and From the Critic's Workbench: Essays in Literature and Semiotics.