Mark Vernon guides us through the great poem, giving light, gathering insights from other commentators, granting us a sensitive, fresh perspective. “Dante’s spiritual pilgrimage through hell, purgatory, then up through the seven heavens to a vision of the Mystic Rose is one of the masterpieces of human imagination. “As late modern readers and writers, we live at an unfortunate remove from much of the greatest literature of earlier epochs principally in thinking of it solely as literature, whose chief meaning and value can be exhaustively described in strictly critical categories. We scarcely remember how to see poetry-or any of the arts-as belonging to a fuller vision of reality, with spiritual as well as purely aesthetic dimensions. This is an unfortunate state of affairs in regard to any literary text of consequence, but in regard to a work of the magnitude and splendor of The Divine Comedy it is tragic. An approach like Mark Vernon’s is precisely the remedy required if one wants truly to see the poem for what it is, and to see through the poem to what it adumbrates.” Here at last is one for which we can be grateful. Like Virgil guiding Dante, Vernon accompanies the reader on the fascinating journey from hell through purgatory to paradise he is a delightful companion, and I for one learnt a great deal from the experience.” 'There has long been need for a scholarly but deft guide to Dante’s masterpiece, not just as a literary curiosity but as a profound examination of the meaning of life in a world less material than ours. A marvelous book that blew away a lot of my assumptions about The Divine Comedy.”Īuthor of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr.

I started highlighting sentences I wanted to think about, but ended up with yellow stripes everywhere: there are insights on every page.

This is not just a description of what happens and who we meet, it’s an invitation to read The Divine Comedy as a way to change our own consciousness and embrace a more spacious reality: everything is bigger on the inside. “Just as Dante had Virgil, we have Mark Vernon: the perfect guide to Dante’s epic and fantastic journey.

Dante's divine comedy