Dante (Penguin Lives) [Hardcover]

R. W. B. Lewis (Author)

Book Description

Series: Penguin Lives | Publication Date: June 25, 2001

Only R.W.B. Lewis-the renowned biographer and author of The City of Florence-could write so insightfully about Dante Alighieri, Florence's famous son.

In Dante he 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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

History, literature, love, and religion come together in this graceful biography of the world's most revered and influential poet. R.W.B. Lewis, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Edith Wharton, displays the same intelligent understanding here of the complex interplay of inner and outer forces that shape an artist. His lucid account of political and literary conflict in 13th-century Florence (subject of another Lewis book, The City of Florence) illuminates the context in which Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) came of age, fell in love with the unattainable Beatrice Portinari, forged the "sweet new style" that transformed Italian literature, and embroiled himself in factional disputes he would angrily renounce after his exile from Florence in 1302. Lewis makes palpable the intellectual and imaginative energy that fired Dante to write an influential political treatise (De Monarchia), a powerful argument for literature written in the common tongue (De Vulgari Eloquentia), and of course his twin tributes to Beatrice: one of the most eloquent love poems ever written (La Vita Nuova) and that supreme chronicle of the human spiritual quest, Divine Comedy. The author notes autobiographical elements in all Dante's works without trivializing their creative majesty, and if the poet's personality is somewhat muffled across the distance of eight centuries, his artistic presence still "sparkles and sings and smiles like one of the spirits in Paradise." Drawing cogently (and with generous acknowledgment) on previous scholarship, this volume worthily fulfills its mission as an entry in the excellent Penguin Lives series of short biographies for the general reader. --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly

There could hardly be a more fitting biographer for Dante than Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic Lewis, who has called Dante's native city of Florence his second home for 50 years. In this newest offering in the Penguin Lives series a fraction of the size of Lewis's previous biographies of Edith Wharton and the Jameses Lewis shows an uncanny ability to capture crucial moments in Dante's life and development as an artist. Whether he is presenting the intricacies of Florentine politics or the living woman behind Dante's immortal vision of Beatrice, Lewis manages to provide just enough context to illuminate the known facts of Dante's life without losing the thread of his narrative. Lewis is especially effective in tracing the artist's tormented relationship with his native city, including his banishment from Florence in the political intrigues of the 1300s. In one memorable passage, he describes the "Purgatorio" (in which Dante consigns whole populations of Tuscans to eternal suffering) as the "exile's furious song" an attempt by an all-too-human artist to pass celestial judgment on his malefactors. Always a memorable writer, Lewis shows himself a particularly spry craftsman here; this may well be one of the most pleasurable biographies of Dante, as well as one of the shortest. Anyone in search of a brief but eloquent guide to the life of the Florentine master should not hesitate to turn to this book.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult; 1ST edition (June 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670899097
• ISBN-13: 978-0670899098
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,431,374 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Elusive, March 13, 2002

By 

Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dante (Penguin Lives) (Hardcover)

Lewis's short biography of Dante is a pleasure to read. But at the end of it, one discovers that the book's subject is still elusive.

Lewis shines in setting the background against which Dante lived and wrote, helping those who aren't specialists in the tortured politics of 13th and 14th century Florence orient themselves in that whirlwind world. He also does a good job of describing the passion young Dante acquired for Beatrice and how his love influenced his ambitions as a poet. Finally, Lewis provides a pretty good walkthrough of Dante's poetic journey through hell, purgatory and paradise.

But in all fairness, most people who read this book will probably be more or less familiar with all three of these topics. My guess is that what they'll yearn for is a better understanding of who Dante the man was, an understanding that plumbs more deeply than the usual stories about Beatrice and Florentine feuds do.

Lewis's book won't help there. Dante the man remains elusive, hidden behind his poetry and the images. This isn't necessarily a criticism of Lewis's book. Dante is something of an enigma, even more so than many other poets. It may well be that no biographer can reveal Dante as he was to us of us who live today, half a millenium later.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compact and Graceful, Lucid and Generous Writing, September 17, 2001

By 

C. Ebeling "ctlpareader" (PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dante (Penguin Lives) (Hardcover)

DANTE by RWB Lewis is my introduction to the Penguin Lives series and if this is representative of the full series, I'm reading every volume. In 205 pages, in graceful prose that never flags, Lewis deftly sketches the life of Dante Alighieri and the times in which he lived, and, very important, offers a reading of his greatest works. The early Florentine Renaissance was a period fraught with political turmoil and Lewis does a good job of sorting out the factions and turns of events and their impact on Dante's life. His rereading of Dante's works is generous--no need to have read the masterpieces recently or perhaps at all to learn from this and gain an appreciation. In fact, this book would make a fine introduction to a study of THE DIVINE COMEDY. Lewis shares his own wonder and pleasure in Dante's work, and when he cites the original Italian lines, to provide an idea of their flavor, he always provides a translation.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pleasurable biography from beginning to end., July 30, 2001

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FinancialNeedsdotcom (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dante (Penguin Lives) (Hardcover)

A pleasurable biography from beginning to end. The book interweaves literature, love and religion all together in an intelligent understanding of the complexities that shaped this great artist. The book manages to illuminate the known facts of Dante's life and capture key moments in his life. Details vividly his wanderings through Tuscan hills and splendid churches to his days as a young soldier fighting for democracy to his civic leadership and years of exile from the city that would reclaim him a century later. It truly is a masterpiece of self-discovery describing the life and work of one of the world's greatest medieval poets.

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