{"product_id":"why-dante-matters-an-intelligent-persons-guide","title":"Why Dante Matters","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Took provides an entirely original view of one of the most important poets and thinkers in all of Western literature, Dante Alighieri.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe year 2021 marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, a poet who, as T. S. Eliot put it, ‘divides the world with Shakespeare, there being no third’. His, like ours, was a world of moral uncertainty and political violence, all of which made not only for the agony of exile but for an ever deeper meditation on the nature of human happiness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eWhy Dante Matters\u003c\/i\u003e, John Took offers by way of three in particular of Dante’s works – the \u003ci\u003eVita Nova\u003c\/i\u003e as the great work of his youth, the \u003ci\u003eConvivio\u003c\/i\u003e as the great work of his middle years and the \u003ci\u003eCommedia\u003c\/i\u003e as the great work of his maturity – an account, not merely of Dante’s development as a poet and philosopher, but of his continuing presence to us as a guide to man’s wellbeing as man.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  Committed as he was to the welfare not only of his contemporaries but of those ‘who will deem this time ancient’, Dante’s is in this sense a discourse overarching the centuries, a discourse confirming him in his status, not merely as a cultural icon, but as a fellow traveller.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing PLC","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54011798618456,"sku":null,"price":25.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781472951038_42deb928-18bb-4f67-bf6f-17ce00e25a85.jpg?v=1779512455","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/why-dante-matters-an-intelligent-persons-guide","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}