“From the point at which he first read the Commedia, at the age of twenty-four, William Gladstone was to consider Dante Alighieri one of the major influences in his life, on a par with Homer and St Augustine, and to identify himself strongly with the poet. Both were statesmen as well as scholars, for whom civic duty was more important than personal convenience. Both were serious theologians as well as simple spiritual pilgrims. Both idealised women. This book shows how Gladstone found in Dante an endorsement of his own beliefs as he negotiated a path through life. Isba traces the development of his enthusiasm against the background of a resurgent Italy in a new Europe, and in the context of the Victorian fashion for all things medieval. She also examines the parallels between the two men’s attitudes to sex and religion in particular, and closes by analysing the quality of Gladstone’s own writing on Dante (he was to become an internationally recognised Dante scholar).” —Boydell & Brewer
Contributed by Michael Richards
Gianfranco Casadio, Dante Nel Cinema (1996)
Dante Nel Cinema is a scholarly work by Gianfranco Casadio which investigates Dante’s work’s influence in films.
Click here to view a review of Dante Nel Cinema in the publication Quaderni d’Italianistica.
Contributed by Dennis Looney
“Il Postino” (Michael Radford, 1994)
I think that there is a valid connection between Il Postino and Dante… where Mario could be seen as the poet Dante, Beatrice is (unsurprisingly) Beatrice (his inspiration in both contexts), and Pablo Neruda is Virgil, Dante’s (and thus, Mario’s) poetic ‘father’ figure. Also, upon examining the film’s script, there is a direct reference in the scene with Mario and Neruda speaking at the cafe:
Mario: I’m in love, really, really in love.
Neruda: Who are you in love with?
Mario: Her name’s Beatrice.
Neruda: Beatrice. Dante. Dante Alighieri. He fell for a certain Beatrice. Beatrices have inspired boundless love. What are you doing?
Mario: Writing down the name Dante. Dante I know, but Alighieri–
Contributed by Aisha Woodward (Bowdoin, ’08)
Schaub and Schaub, “Dante’s Path: A Practical Approach to Achieving Inner Wisdom” (2004)
“Dante’s Path: A Practical Approach to Achieving Inner Wisdom is primarily a self-help book. However, it is a self-help book with a difference. Authors Bonney Gulino Schaub and Richard Schaub use their perceptive, though simple reading of Dante’s Divine Comedy to guide their readers through a process that allows them to access their internal wisdom, or ‘wisdom mind,’ to achieve liberation from their fears and to realize their deeper potential.” [. . .] —Amazon
See also Dante’s Path: Vulnerability and the Spiritual Journey (2014) and Il potere di Dante: Un cammino di illuminazione per una vita piena e felice (2021), by the same authors.
Jane Langton, “The Dante Game: A Homer Kelly Mystery” (1992)
“The latest Homer Kelly mystery unfolds in Italy, where he joins the faculty of the newly formed American School of Florentine Studies. As students and professors read their way through Dante’s Divine Comedy , they and the author draw parallels to modern-day Florence, where a bank official (and secret heroin smuggler) plots to assassinate the anti-drug-crusading Pope, using a Beatrice-like student as hostage. After three murders at the school, Homer and a friend investigate. The novel’s strolling pace accelerates only near the very end, but there is adequate amusement for Langton or Dante fans, or both.” –Library Journal, Amazon