The Way of Dante: Going Through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven with C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Charles Williams

by Richard Hughes Gibson, Nicole Mazzarella (contributor)

Rediscovering Dante with Lewis, Sayers, and Williams

For centuries, readers have marveled at the imaginative brilliance of authors like C. S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Charles Williams. But what inspired these literary giants? The Way of Dante takes you on a journey of discovering how the medieval poet Dante Alighieri and his masterwork, The Divine Comedy, shaped their thoughts, artistry, and faith.

In The Way of Dante, Richard Hughes Gibson reveals the profound influence of The Divine Comedy on the writings of Sayers, Williams, and Lewis through

Following the authors as they read, reflect on, and debate Dante’s allegorical journey through hell, purgatory, and heavenChallenging common misconceptions about Dante’s workExploring how Dante prompts reflection on sin, love, and gloryRevealing the psychological, social, and theological lessons learnedThe Way of Dante is ideal for readers, scholars, teachers, and students interested in The Divine Comedy; the works of Sayers, Lewis, and Williams; or the spiritual dimensions of storytelling. Step into the minds of three of the 20th century’s most beloved writers and be inspired to view Dante through a new lens.

About the Series

Based on the annual lecture series hosted at Wheaton College's Marion E. Wade Center, volumes in the Hansen Lectureship Series reflect on the imaginative work and lasting influence of seven British Owen Barfield, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald, Dorothy L. Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams.

Genres: Nonfiction

248 pages, Paperback

Published December 2, 2025

About the author

Richard Hughes Gibson (PhD, University of Virginia) is associate professor of English at Wheaton College. He is the author of Forgiveness in Victorian Literature: Grammar, Narrative, and Community. With designer Jeremy Botts, he codirects Manibus Press, an occasional publisher of artists' books.

Reviews

[Anna Sincock · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️ rounded up. I enjoyed reading this book! It is more academic in nature than I anticipated as it reads less like a novel and more like a textbook. Although the writing style was more formal, it was still easy to read and understand. Additionally, it may be helpful to know up front that the author heavily quotes other authors, which made sense given the synopsis. I held back 0.5 ⭐️ because at 39 pages, the introduction felt far too lengthy and its length made me a bit reluctant to dive in when I finally arrived at chapter 1. Overall, I recommend giving this book a go!

[Coyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Let me give you a long review in a short form: you should read this book. It is interesting, well-written, and a good guide to..."

Read the rest here: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/schaeff...

[Susan Mather Barone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I have been missing Dante. My recent study of The Divine Comedy—The Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—with Hillsdale College's Dr. Stephen Smith in this free course left me wanting more time with him. I came to appreciate Dante’s storytelling, and I heard echoes of passages from Scripture, particularly from the prophets. Dante also appears to have modeled the apostle John in the final book of the Bible, Revelation.

I requested Richard Hughes Gibson's new book on Netgalley.com about three readers and literary critics of Dante's Divine Comedy in The Way of Dante: Going Through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven with C.S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Charles Williams.

Gibson explores lectures, academic works, and correspondence shared among Lewis, Sayers, and Williams. Presented as part of the ninth installment of the Hansen Series of lectures, he talked first about the first impact Dante made as each one of his cohort became smitten with the poet. Dante seeped into their very soul. They wrestled with the theology he presented from Hell to Purgatory to Heaven. And all three wanted to ensure Dante had new pilgrims join him on his conversion quest.

As he began his research, Gibson saw the bibliographic materials ever-expand as he visited the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College. Each of these three writers—four actually, if you add Gibson—embraced the challenge of lecturing on and creating new works based on Dante's poem. He said they and he felt as if a gauntlet had been thrown before them. Gibson himself regarded this as a rite of passage.

Gibson considered analyzing the three authors separately to highlight parallels in their individual approaches to Dante. He soon discovered that their collective experience as a cohort of readers made more sense. He starts with discussing his cohort as readers and later critics, before charting a course through Dante’s poem with them as guides, much as Roman poet Virgil and first love Beatrice guided Dante in the poem.

Dante is often considered a mystical, sacred writer by the Modernists, like T.S. Eliot. Modernists were keen on keeping Dante difficult and exclusive. Gibson said his trio felt the ancient poet should also be remembered for his remarkable storytelling. Dante wanted his poem to be accessible, which is why he chose to write in Italian not Latin. "The way of Dante" is meant to stay open to all. The cohort feared that people only read Inferno and thought Dante the author of Hell. Would people miss Dante's call to other pilgrims simply because future readers stopped halfway through the trek through 14,000 lines?

No sooner had she read Dante's Divine Comedy, Sayers began to embark on the first order of business was to translate the Italian into English that is easy to read. (I linked editions above with her translation in the hyperlinks above.) She surmised that readers might lack familiarization with the Greek-Roman classics, medieval literature, and some of the obscure references Dante’s original audience would have recognized. Lewis and Williams were her first audience. The three acted as translators for the audience of their own time. Sayers sadly died before she finished Paradiso. To ill to attend, Lewis wrote in his panegyric, or eulogy read at her funeral that Sayers departed "as one may in all humility hope, to learn more of Heaven than even the Paradiso could tell her." 

These lectures in 7 chapters weave together the insights gained by the trio from their individual repeat journeys with Dante. They also responded to each other's literary criticism, adding their fellow pilgrims' insights within their lectures. Just as Gibson "eavesdrops" and responds to their experiences, so too did Lewis, Sayers, and Williams “eavesdrop” on each other’s readings and respond with their own critiques and interpretations.

Reflecting on this, I admit to feeling a bit envious of the three - or four - members of this group. They spent time camped out in Dante's epic poem together and the scholarly and spiritual bond is evident in their works and letters to one another. I enjoy the accessibility of free online literature courses, but I miss the camaraderie, debates, and intellectual sharpening that come from studying literature in a community.

Final Thoughts

Gibson’s The Way of Dante reads as literary criticism, except for several moments of light-hearted humor brought in at just the right moment. Like his readers, Gibson intuited that some of his lectures are weightier than others. I did feel a bit out of my depth. I worried I might be the wrong audience. I am familiar with Lewis, but not as familiar with Sayers and Williams. I learned though that all three wrote fiction as well as nonfiction. Gibson told me enough about each one that I didn't feel that way for long.

I realized Sayers and I could be friends in another time. She had to be students' favorite professor, just based on her letters. She admitted that she hadn't truly read all of the Divine Comedy until age 51 she realized, despite using quotes from Dante's work. When she did fully read this work, she became a Dante addict. What's interesting is the timing for Sayers. She grabbed Dante's Inferno as she and her husband made their way to their backyard Bunker during World War II. I imagine her reading about going down deep into Hell with Dante and Virgil while residing down deep in the bunker. No wonder the story resonated with her. War is already Hell. She quite literally is in the depths below her home while reading. She finished the book and then went to work on translating Dante into easy to read English. Her three-volume series of lectures on The Comedy, as she referred to it, is Introductory Papers on Dante, Further Papers on Dante, and The Poetry of Search and The Poetry of Statement. Two works Gibson discusses in this book, Lewis' The Allegory of Love and Williams' The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante , are now immortalized here for future reading.

Chapter four needs the warning from Inferno - "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Joking aside, the chapter joins the "Is Dante writing an allegory or is this symbolism?" debate with Lewis, Sayers, and Williams, bringing in T.S. Eliot, Erich Auerbach and Charles Singleton. I would understand and then lose that spark of understanding. I had to search the differences online, and I have a master's degree in English literature and language! lol Either my migraine attacks stole my thinking cap for the moment, or the argument needed a side-by-side chart. The book version may have one. I will read the chapter again in the new copy, but here's what the Internet shared in my searches this week -

Allegory is a story, poem, or picture that has a lesson offered. George Orwell's Animal Farm and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels come to mind. The characters, events, and places of action present abstract ideas or a message as an extended metaphor in this narrative. Symbolism is smaller scale. The writer takes an image within a narrative to provide a meaning that gives the reader a richer interpretation of the story.

I thought of a symbol from a movie I just watched: 1998 hit Rom-Com, You've Got Mail, . The movie is about Kathleen Kelly, owner of The Shop Around the Corner, who is pen-pals with Joe Fox, rival owner of Fox Books. Neither of them knows yet that they are enemies in real life. Joe with his massive chain is why her bookstore is failing. She asks her boyfriend Frank Navasky what it is she actually does besides owning a bookstore. Frank waxed poetic while at his just-purchased second typewriter. He types that she is "a lone reed, standing tall, waving boldly in the corrupt sands of commerce." I love that scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkuzd...

When an ancient writer's works feel inaccessible, I have a hard time pushing through. When I finally feel that spark of his or her intellect and genius - Boom! I'm a fan and telling everyone about that author. I imagine that's what happened to Gibson's trio. I am going to ask my local library to purchase this book because enjoyed this biographical book of literary criticism. I shared some insights early since the book is now published, and I received the ARC the same week. I've added new insights now that I've finished the book in the wee hours of the morning.

The Way of Dante is available now for purchase for those interested in joining Gibson as he explores the conversations and debates of some of the 20th centuries greatest Christian writers - Dorothy Sayers, C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. If you wish to ask your library to purchase it, log into your library's site with a valid library care and look for a link on your local library's site that says something like "Suggest A Title," or "Recommend Title for Purchase." You can also use Libby/Overdrive app's "Recommend" button. For the extravert, visit a librarian at your library's circulation desk and provide the book's ISBN-13, which I found under "Product Details" on Amazon: 978-1514013397.  

[Rory Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although ostensibly a book about Dante Alighieri’s (d.1321) Divine Comedy, the focus of the book was looking at how Dante was read, through the lenses of the early twentieth century writers: Dorothy Sayers, Charles Williams and CS Lewis.

Each of those authors has written many works, and each has been a subject of their own individual biographies and literary analyses. Putting them all together and looking at how they read and commented upon each other’s readings of Dante is an inspired idea for a book. It led to some fascinating examples of how they responded to each other, especially CS Lewis’ comments upon Sayers translation of Dante.

For readers unfamiliar with the works and interests of Sayers, Williams and Lewis, it would have been helpful to provide a little more background information about them in the Introduction. Their characters and perspectives do begin to come through, as the book gradually unfolds, but for a better appreciation of the earlier chapters of this book, readers may find it helpful to scan an online biography of those figures, before opening the book.

One particularly welcome aspect of the book is that it is fairly liberal in its quoting and referencing of Dante, so the book provides some helpful insights into Dante himself. However, in chapter 2 the book comments on Sayer’s translation of Dante, making comparisons with other translations. The force of the points is inevitably lost for readers who are not familiar with the translations of Sayers, and others. It would have been helpful to provide the occasional example, placing Sayers translation alongside one of those other translations, so that readers can see for themselves what aspects are being praised or critiqued, and precisely how they are different.

It wasn’t entirely clear to me who the ideal readership of this book is. The referencing and quoting, as well as some of the abstruse analogies and comparisons, gives the impression that this is a firmly academic book which is intended for university students and those with specialist interests. But then in places occasional comments seem to imply that the book is targeted at a less specialist readership. For example, chapter 4 encourages readers to skip that particularly analysis of ‘allegory,’ if it seems too boring.

It is a brave author who is content to put the word ‘boring’ into the mind of readers. It reinforces the question of who are those expected readers, and why does the book contain material which they might find boring? Wouldn’t it have been better to target a specific readership and to ensure that all the chapters were appropriately written to be not-boring for that specific readership?

Overall, a great idea for a book, with some interesting insights on the twentieth century reading of an outstanding medieval poem, but perhaps more clarity about the intended readership could have helped sharpen the content of the book in places.

(These are honest comments on a free ARC digital version of the text).

[FD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very triggering, in a positive way, given my close relation to Dante, having studied it in school, as a compulsory text.
It gives interesting insights into the way the original Divine comedy can be interpreted , and most of all it is written very succinctly and in a very good academic manner.

I certainly was kept hooked, particularly given the questions which arose in my mind. I have never looked at things in this manner.

thank you net galley for the preview copy.