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Dante
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by R. W. B. Lewis,
Edited by James Atlas
Viking Press
Due/Published
June 2001, 224 pages,
cloth
ISBN
0670899097
In Dante Lewis traces the life and complex development-emotional, artistic, philosophical-of this supreme poet-historian, from his wanderings through Tuscan hills and splendid churches to his days as a young soldier fighting for democracy, and to his civic leadership and years of embittered exile from the city that would fiercely reclaim him a century later.Lewis reveals the boy who first encounters the mythic Beatrice, the lyric poet obsessed with love and death, the grand master of dramatic narrative and allegory, and his monumental search for ultimate truth in The Divine Comedy. It is in this masterpiece of self-discovery and redemption that Lewis finds Dante's own autobiography-and the sum of all his shifting passions and epiphanies. Author Biography: R.W.B. Lewis, professor of English and American studies at Yale University, is the author of Edith Wharton: A Biography, which won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Bancroft Prize. His other books include The City of Florence, The Jameses, and American Characters. |
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Review
R.W.B Lewis's City of Florence is considered by many to be one of the finest works on the legendary Italian metropolis. Florence is also of course Dante's city -- where he lived, what he wrote about, and the object of his longing during his years of exile. In Lewis's insightful and superbly written biography the fortunes of the city are never far removed from those of the poet. Dante came of age at the same time Florence was establishing itself as a major European city and it was during this period that the poet first met Beatrice. As a young man Dante became involved in the fracas between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, two factions in Florence and elsewhere in Europe, who were fighting over the competing claims of the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor. Dante would later in life become a prominent civic leader only to finally be exiled by his political opponents. While in exile Dante hit his peak as a writer, creating the Commedia and many of his other famous poetic and political works. Lewis's lucid discussion reveals the way that Florence as well as Beatrice run throughout much of Dante's writing. The Commedia, Lewis suggests, is both autobiographical and an exploration of Dante's cultural world, fusing classical, pre-Christian, medieval, Tuscan, and Florentine influences. Lewis's excellent biography is a rich discussion of Dante's frequently tempestuous life and how it informed his poetry. For recent titles in related subjects: |
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