Dante: The Story of His Life - Couverture souple

Santagata, Marco

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0674984064 ISBN 13 : 9780674984066

Editeur : Harvard University Press, 2018

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

"Both specialized readers and the general public will benefit from this account of Dante Alighieri s life as a man of letters and of political action. A welcome addition to the catalogue of intellectual biographies of Dante available in English." --Simone Marchesi, Princeton University

"Santagata has written a book any reader interested in Dante will find absorbing, richly informative and very thought-provoking" Times Higher Education<

"Reading Marco Santagata's new biography, the reader is soon forced to acknowledge that one of the cornerstones of Western literature, a poem considered sublime and universal, is the product of vicious factionalism and packed with local scandal[...] It's the biography's evocation of the factional world of the time and the values sustaining it that throws light on the great poem and helps us read it with fresh awareness[...] Elegantly translated by Richard Dixon, Santagata's biography avoids the quarrels among critics that sometimes dominate Dante studies. A book like this obliges us to reflect on the vast distances between the meaning of a work to its author, to the readers of the time and to us now." --London Review of Books

"[...] you will never read an account clearer than Santagata's. Nor will you read a more convincing description of how Dante changed his mind, quite fundamentally, about the political issues which confronted him (Pope vs Emperor) and the deep religious questions which underpin his work [...] This is a wonderful book. Even if you have not read Dante you will be gripped by its account of one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of literature, and one of the most dramatic periods of European history. If you are a Dantean, it will be your invaluable companion for ever." --Spectator

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Marco Santagata's Dante: The Story of His Life illuminates one of the world s supreme poets from many angles writer, philosopher, father, courtier, political partisan. Santagata brings together a vast body of Italian scholarship on Dante s medieval world, untangles a complex web of family and political relationships for English readers, and shows how the composition of the Commedia was influenced by local and regional politics.Santagata traces Dante s attempts to establish himself in Florentine society as a man of both letters and action. Along the way, he raises intriguing possibilities. Did the poet suffer from epilepsy? The condition would partly explain the intensely physical phenomenology of love that Dante constructs in the Vita Nuova. Most importantly, Santagata highlights Dante s constant need to readjust his political stance his involvement with the pro-Papacy Guelph faction as well as his network of patrons in response to unfolding events. Linking these shifts to the changing ethical and political convictions expressed in the Commedia, Santagata reveals the paradoxical achievement of Dante's masterpiece: a unified, universal poem nonetheless intimately entwined with the day-to-day dealings of its author.The most striking facet of Dante s personality was a belief in his unique destiny. In every aspect of his life his birth under the sign of Gemini, falling in love with Beatrice, banishment from Florence Dante glimpsed the shadow of his fate. This idea, cultivated by the poet in his youth, grew into the conviction that God had invested him with the prophetic mission of saving humanity.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Harvard University Press
• Date d'édition: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0674984064
• ISBN 13: 9780674984066
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 496