Dante in Love

Title: Dante in Love

Author: A N Wilson

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2014 (First published 2011)

ISBN: 9781848879508

Pages: 386

Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321) was the greatest European poet of the Middle Ages. Born in Florence, Italy, he enthusiastically dived into all streams of social life. But, Italy of the thirteenth century was a very volatile place in whose numerous city states the Pope and the Holy Roman emperor was locked in a deadly fight for political power. Popes in that era stand no comparison to its present occupant – the benevolent, sage-like Francis I. They plotted intrigues, fought wars, sired children, had open liaisons with women and differed very little from a secular monarch. Dante had the misfortune of falling out with both the parties and had to flee his hometown of Florence to evade the wrath of the jubilant group. He could never go back. For a long twenty-one years, he wandered through the full length of Italy, keeping the fire inside raging with determination and poetic creativity. He found patrons everywhere, as he had had been already acknowledged as the greatest living poet of Italy. In the time of exile, Dante set upon himself the task of writing his magnum opus, the Divine Comedy, which is one of the most magnificent literary treasures of all humanity. It was written in Italian, which marked its definite divergence from Latin on its pursuit as a full blown literary language. The Divine Comedy is a poem for experts with its frequent and oblique references to classical literature and mythology, ecclesiastics, and contemporary monarchs. It is no easy task for modern readers just to comprehend the text, let alone appreciating it. A N Wilson makes a wonderful job here, going through the life and times of Dante, pausing for clarifying all nuances the reader might find difficult in that epic. Describing about Dante’s life, his political and literary activities and the intellectual environment of Europe as a whole, Wilson provides us with a pedestal that helps to peer over the high wall of Comedy’s references to an era with which we are not at all familiar with. Andrew Norman Wilson is an English writer and newspaper columnist known for his critical biographies, novels and works of popular history. His scholarship on Dante comes through pure and simple in this book.

Appreciating Dante needed familiarity with classical mythology, Roman history and contemporary Italian politics, which this book graciously provides. These tough requirements kept Dante one of the great unreads. This book takes us on a journey to the Middle Ages when Florence was at the centre of exciting poetic flowering. Vernacular literature was in its youth, but a circle of very young men were producing lyrics of crystalline beauty. As Wilson rightfully claims, the experience of reading Dante is one of the most nourishing, puzzling and endlessly exciting of which a literate person is capable of. Dante’s contribution to the development of the Italian language is equally impressive. Thirty per cent of all Italian words are of Dantean coinage so that we can safely presume that he invented the language. When nationalism was surging through Italy in the nineteenth century, the patriots put Dante on the highest altar of nationalist pride. The Italian tri-colour is borrowed from the shades of marble leading up to purgatory in Dante’s poem. Scholars discern a faint but resolute streak of the awareness of nationality in his texts. His broader outlook might perhaps be the result of exile because had he stayed back, his inseparable attachment even to minute facets of Florentine life might have hindered the development of a national outlook.

The modern conception of the hell as a fiery place where sinners are subjected to all imaginable kinds of tortures through the medium of heat is indebted to Dante who depicted just such a place in the Divine Comedy. This poem is divided into three parts – the inferno, purgatory and paradise. It narrates the imaginary experience of Dante as he visits all three places in turn along with the company of ancient Roman poet Virgil, Dante’s old love Beatrice and Saint Bernard. What is strange is the poet’s placement of his old patrons and most of his associates either in the inferno (hell) or in purgatory. There is no redemption for those who end up in hell as denoted in the inscription on its entrance – “Abandon hope all ye who enter here”. The good souls are sent to paradise. Dante’s inspiration for hell comes from watching the large throngs of people who flocked to Rome on Easter day in 1300. As part of the jubilee year called by Pope Boniface VIII, the believers were promised absolution from their sins by donating liberally to the church. The priests were literally raking in money and this disgusted Dante so much that he went on to put people who sell office and indulging in corruption to hell in his classic poem. He was also influenced by Giotto de Bondonne’s paintings at Padua where the models were all people he knew personally.

The concept of purgatory is an idea used freely by Dante. This was a very recent development in Christian theology, defined only in 1254 by Pope Innocent IV. This was a place where most of the ‘light-sinned’ people underwent purification by ordeals. They could enter paradise after their sins are expiated. This proved to be a revenue-earner for the church which enabled them to sell indulgences for purification in the afterlife. This helped most of the ordinary people to aspire for paradise. Dante placed much hope in universal love that pervades the whole world. He believed that divine love encompassed all things, that it was the force which moved the sun and other stars. He ends the Comedy with the lines,

“Here powers failed my high imagination:

But by now my desire and will were turned,

Like a balanced wheel rotated evenly,

By the love that moves the sun and other stars”

which is a description of the poet’s encounter with God himself, at which words fail him. This fact lies at the bottom of the book’s title, even though its cover portrays a young man ogling at a group of damsels on a riverside walkway.

This book helps the readers to appreciate the intellectually bewildering imagery of the Divine Comedy. Naturally, it is freely peppered with verses from the epic. Wilson’s mastery of Dante and over the numerous translations of it into English is expressed through the detailed comparisons he makes between them especially on the description of Beatrice. The quotes from the Comedy also cycles through prominent translations. The author has done a splendid job in arousing readers’ interest to plunge into the medieval world by reading through the Comedy. A number of illustrations and paintings are included in the book which portrays the moments in the poet’s life as well as moments in the poem. These are unappealing and don’t add much value to the narrative.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star