Prue Shaw is one of the world's foremost authorities on Dante. Written with the general reader in mind,
Reading Dante brings her knowledge to bear in an accessible yet expert introduction to his great poem.
This is far more than an exegesis of Dante's three-part Commedia. Shaw communicates the imaginative power, the linguistic skill and the emotional intensity of Dante's poetry--the qualities that make the Commedia perhaps the greatest literary work of all time and not simply a medieval treatise on morality and religion.
The book provides a graphic account of the complicated geography of Dante's version of the afterlife and a sure guide to thirteenth-century Florence and the people and places that influenced him. At the same time it offers a literary experience that lifts the reader into the universal realms of poetry and mythology, creating links not only to the classical world of Virgil and Ovid but also to modern art and poetry, the world of T. S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney and many others.
Dante's questions are our questions: What is it to be a human being? How should we judge human behavior? What matters in life and in death? Reading Dante helps the reader to understand Dante's answers to these timeless questions and to see how surprisingly close they sometimes are to modern answers.
Reading Dante is an astonishingly lyrical work that will appeal to both those who've never read the Commedia and those who have. It underscores Dante's belief that poetry can change human lives.
Industry Reviews
"Reading Dante is an experience of a lifetime... But, like Dante himself, at large in the frightening wood, you need a companion for the journey, and it is difficult to imagine one more enlightening than Prue Shaw." -- The Spectator
"Shaw's sharp, brilliantly engaging book delivers masterfully on its promise to fuel love for the Comedy precisely by dispelling readers' anxieties, and showing how the great underlying concerns of this work are not only those of every work of art but are the stuff of life itself. Moreover, she keeps us so enthralled with her compelling and fast-paced prose that the only reason one would want to put down this book is to open the one she is talking about." -- Book of the Week - Times Higher Education
"Writing an introduction[to The Divine Comedy] for the general reader is not an easy task. Prue Shaw has done this in a way that manages to be at the same time scholarly, compelling and original." -- The Times Literary Supplement
"Reading Dante is undoubtedly one of the best introductions to Dante's Commedia available. It is accurate, informative but never dull or patronising. All the important topics are covered, while steering clear of academic jargon... It is a virtuoso performance." -- The Tablet
