This pithy guide for the nonacademic reader expertly illuminates the Italian poet’s work
Regular readers of this column may recall that I get pretty excited about Dante. This usually involves recommending a new translation rather than critical work on the 14th-century poet; you’re not, I presume, going to be taking an exam on him. But he is such a complex poet – the number of people who have devoted a lifetime to the study of him is extraordinary – that even the casual reader could do with a guide; rather as Dante himself had guides to the afterlife.
And here is just the thing for the nonacademic Dante reader: a short, pithy guide by academics who know what they’re talking about and which opens up and refreshes the work as well as our reactions to it.
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