title: Dante in Love: The World's Greatest Poem and How It Made History
author:  Harriet Rubin 
description: No figure speaks for the Christian High Middle Ages more emphatically than Dante Alighieri, and according to Harriet Rubin, author of <i>Dante in Love</i>, no writer reveals the path to creative genius more emphatically either. Combining history and literary criticism, Rubin contends that "there is another way to read Dante"--not as a scholar, but as a fellow journeyman. Rubin's admiration and grasp of Dante's masterpiece is clear. She writes as one with an intimate knowledge not only of the period that shaped the poet, but also of the subsequent artists, thinkers, scientists, and statesmen that the poet helped to shape. But this strength, paradoxically, turns out to be the books biggest weakness: Rubin's obsessive contextualizing. The bulk of <i>Dante in Love</i> consists of historical references that are meant to define Dante's age and to illustrate the poets development and far-reaching influence. However, with each historical digression, we get farther and farther away from Dante and the Commedia itself. The result is a meandering narrative that in the end lacks focus, despite Rubins references to the poem (from multiple translations) and her stated intention of tracing Dantes progress as an exile and artist through Italy and his creative process. Many of Rubins historical asides, such as her discussion of the rise of devotion to the Virgin Mary, truly help illuminate the poem. But others read like sweeping pronouncements that lack sufficient explanation: "Keats had the right instinct but the wrong method for exploiting Dante." Rubin marvels how Dante "kept his vision alive over nineteen years of trials to make the <i>Comedy</i> seem as if it were all one line, the work of one awful moment of birth which time stopped for genius." Unfortunately, Rubin's own work lacks a similar cohesiveness. -- <i>Silvana Tropea</i>
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  Title Page
  
  Omnific Publishing
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Dedication
  
  In memoriam Maiae.  
  Resurgam.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Engraving
  
  Dante and Virgil crossing the river Styx.  
  Engraving from 1870 by Gustave Dore
  
  ![](images/00001.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  Prologue
  
  Florence, 1283
  
  The poet stood next to the bridge and watched as the young woman approached.
  The world ground to a near standstill as he remarked her wide, dark eyes and
  elegantly curled brown hair.
  
  At first he didn’t recognize her. She was breathtakingly beautiful, her
  movements sure and graceful. Yet there was something about her face and figure
  that reminded him of the girl he’d fallen in love with long ago. They’d gone
  their separate ways, and he had always mourned her, his angel, his muse, his
  beloved Beatrice. Without her, his life had been lonely and small.
  
  Now his blessedness appeared.
  
  As she approached him with her companions, he bowed his head and body in a
  chivalrous salute. He had no expectation that his presence would be
  acknowledged. Sh