Dante

By: John Took

Narrated by: John Took

An authoritative and comprehensive intellectual biography of the author of the Divine Comedy

For all that has been written about the author of the Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) remains the best guide to his own life and work. Dante's writings are therefore never far away in this authoritative and comprehensive intellectual biography, which offers a fresh account of the medieval Florentine poet's life and thought before and after his exile in 1302.

Beginning with the often violent circumstances of Dante's life, the book examines his successive works as testimony to the course of his passionate humanity: his lyric poetry through to the Vita nova as the great work of his first period; the Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia and the poems of his early years in exile; and the Monarchia and the Commedia as the product of his maturity.

Describing as it does a journey of the mind, the book confirms the nature of Dante's undertaking as an exploration of what he himself speaks of as "maturity in the flame of love." The result is an original synthesis of Dante's life and work.

©2020 John Took (P)2020 Recorded Books

Dante: Alpha & Omega

A remarkable read. Not for the casual end-of-day reader. I read it in conjunction with the DC, and that approach proved wise as it made it possible for me to grasp many things I did not see before, about Dante, the Commedia, and Italy. The author himself is the reader of the book, and though at first I did not enjoy his purposeful pace, after 50 pages I felt the beauty of the match between voice and content.

A stereotype of literary criticism

I got the strong impression that John Took has something to say about Dante, but he is committed to the stereotypically opaque style of literary criticism writing that he successfully avoids making any clear point--other than to demonstrate that he's read a lot of Italian poetry from the period.

His voice exudes all the drawling smugness that I'd expect to go with this text.

A dense and impenetrable academic treatise

This book devoted 4 of its 24 hours to biography of Dante and the remaining 20 to an endless, repetitive, meaningless analysis of themes within his poetry. Those seeking a biography of a poet should look elsewhere.