Along with Shakespeare, Dante is the greatest literary figure in the
Western tradition. In an awards contest, I'd give Dante the award for the
greatest single work, while Shakespeare would receive the award for the greatest
lifetime body of work. Such conjectures and contests are always a bit of a silly
exercise. Both are great. But Dante, even more than Shakespeare, is daunting.
Shakespeare wrote at the end of the Northern Renaissance and therefore helps lay
the very foundations of our modernity. Dante wrote at the apex of the Middle
Ages, when Pope Boniface VIII faced off with Phillip the Fair, king of France,
over the competing claims of Church and State in the medieval world. (My thanks
to the late Professor Ralph Giesey and to TA Nancy Neefie for introducing me to medieval
history in my first weeks as a freshman in my Western Civ class.)
Dante, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the great Gothic cathedrals loom as the
great cultural icons of the Middle Ages. However, despite some interest in the
Middle Ages, and a pretty good introduction to the high points of the Western
tradition, I didn't approach Dante until my mid-30s, when I decided that this
was a seminal work that I should engage. I thought—rightly so—that it requires
a degree of maturity to appreciate. (I hope that for me, however, that it did
not mark midway on my life’s journey!) Reading Dante is not easy. References to
contemporary Italian politics, as well as Classical and Biblical figures,
abound. The work is one of poetry, so we have the rich metaphors and other
figures of speech that challenge those of us who live in our prosaic world. I
don't recall what translation I read, but the experience proved worthwhile.
I've been reading Dante and his commentators ever since. I now can add A.N.
Wilson's Dante in Love to the list of
fellow Dante readers—nay, enthusiasts—who have found the effort of the Commedia intriguing and enlightening.
Wilson emphasizes that he is not a Dante scholar, but he's been reading and
appreciating Dante since his late teens, and so he's a fellow enthusiast who
also happens to be an experienced and talented writer of biography, history,
and fiction. Wilson writes that he intends his book to serve as an introduction
and appreciation of Dante’s life and works in all their complexity. He intends
to provide a guide for others like him who aren’t scholars, but interested
readers. He succeeds in his intention. This book is the best single volume appreciation
of Dante and his masterwork (and some of his lesser works) that I've
encountered. His title references his central premise: Dante is the poet and
philosopher of love in all its manifestations.
Love is the central trope of Dante’s work. Love, for Dante, can be quite
worldly, following the cultural lead of the troubadours, or quite ethereal, as
we see with Beatrice, the idealized neighbor from his youth. Or it can be the
Lady in the Window, the personification of philosophy. (Wilson speculates that perhaps
Dante’s wife Gemma, whom Dante never names in his work, is the Lady in the
Window.) However, in addition to his love poetry, Dante is a political actor,
and it’s his political connections that lead to his exile from Florence. The
treachery and confusion of Italian politics didn’t begin with the fellow
Florentine Machiavelli and the Renaissance; the turmoil was rampant in Dante’s
time, with Popes, Emperors, and city-states vying for political supremacy. Thus, to
understand Dante, one must attempt grasp both human and divine love as well as
Italian politics. It can seem daunting, but Wilson’s book helps answer the
challenge.
We can—and perhaps should—spend a lifetime reading and studying Dante. We
could do much worse with our time. But whether you’re making a passing
acquaintance or you decide to dive in headfirst, Wilson can serve as a personal
Virgil to help you along the way. Indeed, as Wilson is quick to point out,
there are many such guides, but his may have the widest scope and easiest
access of any that I’ve encountered.
Pick up Dante, read, and remember that you’re trying to understand “the
Love that moves the sun and other stars”.
