online Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man

Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man by Barbara Reynolds

Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man

Download Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man


Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man Barbara Reynolds
Language: English
Page: 246
Format: pdf
ISBN: 1845111613, 9781845111618
Publisher: I.B.Tauris

From Publishers Weekly

The poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) is a most difficult subject for a biography as nearly every factual assertion about him is disputed. He may have had five children, perhaps six, maybe seven or even just three. Who was Beatrice, his poetic inspiration? Was she the daughter of Folco Portinari, or did she exist solely in Dante's imagination? Reynolds (Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul), a retired Italianist at Cambridge University, has her work cut out for her. She succeeds, however, in marshaling all the known facts of Dante's life, and slots them into perspective by explaining his era's tumultuous events and issues. Reynolds demolishes previous theories that Dante was an aloof genius concerned only with creating beautiful parables, and instead highlights the personal, public and very political agenda of the Commedia and other works. Along the way, she raises a few intriguing possibilities: that Dante's magnificent religious visions in Paradiso were induced by psychedelic drugs, for instance. Readers should be warned that this is neither a straightforward biography nor a light read for the airplane. Though provocative and fascinating in many places, it requires a solid grounding in the master's works to fully comprehend its sweep. Illus. (Oct.)
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From

*Starred Review* Dante achieved some of his loftiest poetic flights by using cannabis? Acclaimed translator and scholar Barbara Reynolds thinks it quite possible, and adduces textual evidence from the Commedia to support her provocative view. To be sure, Reynolds' new biography of the Florentine poet offers much more than controversy over psychedelic substances. Limning a unifying theme in Dante's masterpiece, Reynolds illuminates the poet's conviction that right governance would come to Europe only when all recognized the Holy Roman emperor--and not the pope--as the supreme political authority. Impressive close readings of pivotal passages reveal how deeply Dante yearned for the triumph of the ideal secular monarch and how bitterly disappointed he was by the papal intrigues that denied Emperor Henry VII such a triumph. But Reynolds also shows how Dante found both solace and financial security in the poetic art he turned to after a failed venture in philosophical writing. The Commedia reflects far more than its creator's financial circumstances, however. In Dante's intense love for Beatrice, Reynolds discerns an intellectual passion that transforms an otherwise obscure young Florentine lady into a complex figure capable of descending to crude invective and of rising to heavenly truth. Serious readers of Dante will find much here to ponder--and debate. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an alternate

edition.

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