Dante's Descent

Dante Alighieri is a philosopher who employs esotericism primarily, but not only, to protect himself and his works from literal burning. Roger M. Barrus demonstrates this through an analysis of La Vita Nuova (The New Life) and the Convivio (The Banquet), that shows that Dante is not, as he presents himself, a poet who turns to philosophy as consolation for the loss of a woman he loved from afar. Dante is a philosopher who uses the poetry of courtly love to explain the nature of his true love as a philosopher—wisdom in the widest sense—and to give an account of a crisis that led him to turn to the practical concerns of political philosophy. On this basis, Barrus argues that Dante’s Inferno, the first section of The Divine Comedy, an epic poem of a journey through a more-or-less Christian version of Hell, is actually an account of the veritable hell of Italian politics in his day, as Dante learned in part from his own bitter experience. Dante gives this account “between the lines,” in the anomalies that abound in his tale, which actually hints at his real intention. Following these clues, Roger M. Barrus arrives at the figure of a philosopher who deserves to be recognized as one of the founders—perhaps the first founder—of modernity, including the modern international system of nation-states.