Dante in Love

With a biographer's eye for detail and a novelist's 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.





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 comprehend the meaning of Dante's 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 explores Dante's preoccupations with classical mythology, numerology and the great Christian philosophers which inform every line of the Comedy. Dante in Love also lays bare the enigma of the man who never wrote about the mother of his children, yet immortalized the mysterious Beatrice, whom he barely knew.



A. N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is a prolific and awarding-winning biographer and celebrated novelist. His most recent novel, Winnie and Wolf, was longlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize. He lives in North London.



This is a book for all of us who enjoy poetry and want to think about sdome of the big questions such as the nature of love, the ide aa of redemption, and the possibility of a just society, but cannot tell our Guelphs from our Ghibellines or our Boniface from our Borgias... The narrative is exceptionally lucid and the detail is always vivid. This is biography done by a novelist at the height of his powers. Wilson moves seamlessly between Dante's life, his poems and the historical context... Wilson accomplishes his task with economy and balance... He has written a loving book that is worthy of the divine poet of love.