Dante Alighieri

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guardian.co.uk, Tuesday July 22 2008 15.39 BST

1265-1321

"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis..."

Birthplace

Florence, Italy

Education

As a lawyer's son, with links to the Guelf nobility, he received a superior education in the classics and Christian literature.

Other jobs

Soldier, diplomat, magistrate

Did you know?

Dante claims in the Vita Nuova to have first seen and fallen in love with Beatrice, his worldly and spiritual passion, when she was just nine.

Critical verdict

Dante is now seen as the creator of modern Italian; before The Divine Comedy, the vernacular was so unformed that he is said to have begun writing it in Latin, doubting that it was a fit medium. Boccaccio was an early commentator, while Dante's first English mention comes in Chaucer, who drew strongly on Italian Renaissance authors, and he swiftly became popular. Horace Walpole was a dissenting voice ("absurd, disgusting... a Methodist person in Bedlam"), but the Romantic poets rediscovered him, Blake conjuring limpid, visionary illustrations to the Comedy. The drier modernists also feel his power: Eliot was strongly influenced, and Beckett kept the Comedy by him until his death.

Recommended works

The Dorothy L Sayers translation of the Divine Comedy is accessible, if a little too chirpy, and has dated; John Gordon Sinclair's parallel text allows the most resolute monoglot to get a sense of the original sounds.

Influences

The classics, especially Aristotle.

Now read on

Boccaccio's Decameron shares the medieval mindset; TS Eliot's Ash Wednesday is reminiscent of the soul's struggle to ascend.

Adaptations

The 20s and 30s saw experimental film versions of the Divine Comedy; Peter Greenaway employed the latest (for 1989) video technology in a worthwhile TV adaptation. Ciaran Carson's spirited recent version is highly recommended.