Why Dante Matters: An Intelligent Person’s Guide

In his Intelligent Person’s Guide, Professor John Took introduces the reader to the principle themes of Dante’s work: the polarities of existence, time and eternity, freedom and destiny, individuality and existence, the multiplicity of human loving. It is by self-confrontation and self-transcendence that we come to understand our human journey through hell, purgatory and on to paradise. These ostensibly somewhat complex ideas are here explained by John Took with pellucid clarity. In the course of this book we are caught up by the imaginative excitement in this study of a poetic genius which we cannot fail to be drawn into ourselves, and to find infectious.