Why Dante Matters: An Intelligent Person's Guide

by John Took

John Took provides an accessible and entirely original view of one of the most important poets and thinkers in all of Western literature, Dante Alighieri.

Dante is the poet that everyone knows of yet also knows little about. And yet he was probably the most important and powerful poet that the Western world has ever produced. There are many translations of his work in English, but of Dante himself, most people only know about his love object Beatrice, that he was exiled from Florence and that he wrote The Divine Comedy-- but maybe little else.

In his Intelligent Person's Guide , Professor John Took introduces the reader to the principle themes of Dante's the polarities of existence, time and eternity, freedom and destiny, individuality and existence, the multiplicity of human loving. It is by self-confrontation and self-transcendence that we come to understand our human journey through hell, purgatory and on to paradise. These ostensibly somewhat complex ideas are here explained by John Took with pellucid clarity. In the course of this book we are caught up by the imaginative excitement in this study of a poetic genius which we cannot fail to be drawn into ourselves, and to find infectious.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

224 pages, Hardcover

Published December 15, 2020

About the author

John Took is Professor Emeritus of Dante Studies at University College London. His books include L'Etterno Piacer: Aesthetic Ideas in Dante and Dante, Lyric Poet and Philosopher: An Introduction to the Minor Works.

Reviews

[J Earl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why Dante Matters: An Intelligent Person's Guide by John Took is a slog of a book with periodic bright spots. It isn't that it is not accessible for most readers, it is, but if something could have been said in two sentences of eight words each Took seems to enjoy making the point in either one sentence of about 25 words or two sentences of about fifteen words each. Once you get used to his repetitive style with certain phrases and his love of his own authorial voice, it is more bearable, but still far from an enjoyable read.

I had hoped that this would be better than his recent biography of Dante, which was, as one reviewer said (I paraphrase because I'm not going to go look it up) intended as a love letter to Dante himself and not for most other readers. I do think this is better than the biography, but minimally. Of all the critical works and biographical works I have read on Dante, Took's two books easily rate as the least useful simply because of his apparent belief that his writing is poetic. But he confuses poetic with pretentious.

So, why does Dante matter? A lot of reasons, I believe, but good luck discerning them from this muddy mess. The only people I can recommend this to are Dante scholars, and the ones I know (all two of them) were already turned off by the biography, so... The rating is not negative because there is good information here, not a lot truly new or groundbreaking and it requires a masochistic streak to get through it, but it is there.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

So pompous as to be unintelligible. Clearly written by an academic. I love and admire Dante, but this is not a book I managed to finish. The style is suitable for a university course, not the general reader.

[Quirinus Reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in this book as I am a fan of the Divine Comedy and enjoyed an exhibition at the Courtauld which included Botticelli's illustrations. I wanted more knowledge of Dante as I know little about him and never studied him or his work at school.

This book seems aimed at those who already know quite a bit about him, perhaps even a recommended text for a literature or arts degree. I found it quite dense and a bit of a chore to follow in places. It is written in a lot of detail, with a verbose writing style. I think it's a bit of a shame as the author is clearly very knowledgeable and if the writing were a little more succinct or engaging this would be an excellent read. I'm obviously not the 'intelligent person' I thought I was as much of this was lost on me. I came away knowing a little more about Dante, nebulously convinced of his value but unable to construct an argument as to why.

My thanks to netgalley for an electronic proof.

[Vivienne · Rating 2 out of 5]

My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing U.K. for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Why Dante Matters: An Intelligent Person’s Guide’ by John Took in exchange for an honest review.

The publisher describes this as “an accessible and entirely original view of one of the most important poets and thinkers in all of Western literature, Dante Alighieri.”

I agree that Dante Alighieri is an important poet and thinker, however I realised that I don’t have enough knowledge of his work to judge how original John Took’s treatise is. More importantly I didn’t find this at all accessible and I just felt lost.

I struggled and ended up skimming. Overall, I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t the intended audience.

Due to this, I won’t post this feedback to commercial sites.

[Annarella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Growing up in Italy I studied Dante since I was a child so I was curious about this book.
There are plenty of reasons I can think why Dante matters if you can read his works in Italian but somehow this book failed to help to understand other reasons.
It's well researched but it's not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[Quinn da Matta · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not an easy book because the writing style is so archaic and academic that it feels like reading an outdated textbook—the language belongs to a professor from the 1920s and struggles to connect with a modern audience in the 2020s. “An Intelligent Person’s Guide” is the perfect byline because this book does not further any understanding of Dante’s work than textbooks did a hundred years ago. But an intelligent person would definitely love this book.

[Brian Hanson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is NOT, I repeat NOT, an introduction to Dante in the way that, say, Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life is an introduction to that author. It is "An Intelligent Person's Guide", and you may, as I did, become convinced while reading it that you are far from being an "Intelligent Person". The prose seems designed to befuddle. While the author bravely takes on an important task he only ends up shedding darkness on it, not light. Sad.

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

A paragraph should contain more than one sentence. This is unreadable. I wish I bought this online so I could send it back to the fiery pits from where it came.

[Bonnie Kernene · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Dante's Divine Comedy while I was in college, and yes, I enjoyed it. I had hoped that this book would be very insightful into that and his other books. In several ways it was, but then a lot of it was somewhat superficial. It was written well but a bit over thought through quite a bit of it. It is not for the beginner Dante reader. I did not find it easy to keep up with. Just not easy to stay with.