A New Life Of Dante - Hardcover

The author provides considerably more historical and biographical material than what we find in other introductory volumes . . . and he uses this material (taken from contemporary documents, early chronicles, and modern historical studies) to discuss the major events in Dante's life. Especially welcome-for scholars and teachers as well as for students-are the frequent digressions glossing such pertinent topics as Provenal and early Italian lyric poetry, medieval philosophy, the rise of the Franciscans and Dominican orders, thirteenth-century Italian politics, and the papacy of Boniface VIII . . . Bemrose does a fine job using Dante's letters (Latin epistles) and contemporary events to illuminate one another, and he adeptly draws out the historical and biographical significance of Dante's most underexamined works . . . this book fulfils an important need for students and their teachers by placing in historical context Dante's works and what we know or can surmise of his life. --Speculum, April 2002

This is the first new biography in English for nearly eighty years of Italy's foremost writer and thinker, and weaves into a single thread the whole of Dante's life and works. Dante is an intensely philosophical writer as well as a socio-political one, and both these intimately connected aspects are kept constantly in view in this extensive discussion of his writings. As well as his masterpiece the Divina Commedia, his other works are also given considerable attention. The aim is to make an account of Dante's life accessible to students and to the curious and intelligent but non-specialist reader. All quotations are fully translated. This new edition has been fully revised and updated, including an updated bibliography.