Synopses & Reviews
For William Butler Yeats, Dante Alighieri was “the chief imagination of Christendom.” For T. S. Eliot, he was of supreme importance, both as poet and philosopher. Coleridge championed his introduction to an English readership. Tennyson based his poem “Ulysses” on lines from the Inferno. Byron chastised an “Ungrateful Florence” for exiling Dante. The Divine Comedy resonates across five hundred years of our literary canon.
In Dante in Love, A. N. Wilson presents a glittering study of an artist and his world, arguing that without an understanding of medieval Florence, it is impossible to grasp the meaning of Dantes great poem. He explains how the Italian states were at that time locked into violent feuds, mirrored in the ferocious competition between the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy. He shows how Dantes preoccupations with classical mythology, numerology, and the great Christian philosophers inform every line of the Comedy.
Dante in Love also explores the enigma of the man who never wrote about the mother of his children, yet immortalized the mysterious Beatrice whom he barely knew. With a biographers eye for detail and a novelists comprehension of the creative process, A. N. Wilson paints a masterful portrait of Dante Alighieri and unlocks one of the seminal works of literature for a new generation of readers.
Review
“The narrative is exceptionally lucid and the detail always vivid. This is biography as done by a novelist at the height of his powers.” — Jonathan Bate, The Telegraph
Review
“The most illuminating guide to Dante and his world I have read.” —Sarah Bradford, author of
Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love, and Death in Renaissance Italy “The narrative is exceptionally lucid and the detail always vivid. This is biography as done by a novelist at the height of his powers.” — Jonathan Bate,
The Sunday Telegraph “If Dante gives us a universe, then Wilson provides a splendid survey of the world in which it was conceived . . . His criticism is generous, open-ended and patient.” —Tom Payne,
The Telegraph “A thoughtful investigation . . . Wilson is an excellent 21st-century Virgil for anyone who has ever lost their way in Dante's dark wood, or who has yet to venture in.” —Sarah Bakewell,
Sunday Times Magazine “
Dante in Love is not just a thoroughly readable, illuminating story but, with its fascinating store of detail, a practical reference volume. It is a worthy vade mecum with which to explore Dante's masterpiece itself.” — Fiona Sampson,
The Independent “Because Wilson loves the poet's writing and is fascinated by his ideas, the book always feels committed to its subject, driven by a powerful appetite to cover every possible angle of interpretation, every reference, every relevant historical context.” —Andrew Motion,
The Guardian“Biographers of Dante should not . . . seek merely to photograph their victim in compromisingly tabloid postures. They need to recognise that Dantes concerns are also our concerns. And Wilson does this admirably. . . He understands that curiosity without ethical engagement is, for Dante, a more destructive vice than any Twitter-able peccadillo . . . Dante in Love is accurate, lively, sometimes polemical and always delicately devout. There is little to disagree with here, and much that encourages conversation.” —Robin Kirkpatrick, Financial Times
Review
"A. N. Wilson has a marvelous facility for bringing distant worlds up close....Read Wilsons book, pick up that copy of the Commedia, and try again."---Los Angeles Times
"Accurate, lively, sometimes polemical, and always delicately devout. There is little to disagree with here, and much that encourages conversation."---Financial Times (London)
"For this reader, Wilsons loving, human Dante, a Dante immersed in the Italian landscape, [is] a new Dante entirely….Compelling."---The American Scholar
"Not just a thoroughly readable, illuminating story but, with its fascinating store of detail, a practical reference volume…A worthy vade mecum with which to explore Dantes masterpiece itself."---The Independent (London)
Synopsis
Dante is considered the greatest of all European poets—yet his most famous work, The Divine Comedy, remains widely unread.
Fueled by a lifetime’s obsession with Dante Alighieri and his work, the distinguished historian A. N. Wilson tells the remarkable story of the poet’s life and passions during the extraordinary political turbulence of thirteenth-century Europe. An impoverished aristocrat born in Florence, then the wealthiest city in Europe, Dante was the most observant and articulate of writers and was as profoundly absorbed in his ambition to be a great poet as he was with the central political and social issues of his time. The emergence of independent nation-states, the establishment of a modern banking system and currency, and the rise of Arabic teachings and Greek philosophy were all momentous events that Dante lived through. Amid this shifting political terrain, Wilson sets Dante in context with his great contemporaries—Giotto, Aquinas, and Pope Boniface VIII—and explains the significance of Beatrice and the part she has played in all our Western attitudes toward love and sex.
Dante in Love is a brilliant and enlightening look at the life and loves of one of literature’s towering figures and a lively introduction to the Divine Comedy.
Synopsis
"You will not find a finer introduction to the genius of Dante and his Divine Comedy than Wilson's book."---The Wichita Eagle Fueled by a lifetime obsession with Dante, acclaimed novelist and biographer A. N. Wilson tells the astonishing story of the poets life and passions. He shows how the political turmoil of medieval Europe, the establishment of the modern banking system, and the rise of ancient philosophy informed Dantes epic masterpiece, and explains how Beatrice has influenced our attitudes toward love and sex. Written with remarkable dexterity and penetrating insight, Dante in Love is a brilliant and enchanting look at the life and loves of one of literatures towering figures, and a lively introduction to The Divine Comedy.
About the Author
A. N. Wilson is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist. He is the author of The Elizabethans, Our Times, and After the Victorians, among others. He lives in North London.