Michael Glover delights in Dante
Feverish Dante chatter, picking apart his politics, his life and his theology, has been filling many serious-minded column inches during this year of the 700th anniversary of his death. But what of editions of his own writings? Have those publishers been busy at it too? Not overmuch.
La Vita Nuova is a kind of quasi-autobiographical prequel to The Divine Comedy. It plays out, in prose and verse, the story of how the young Dante becomes besotted by Beatrice Portinari. Two publishers have reprinted Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s pioneering Victorian translation.