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Poet · Writer · Philosopher · Politician
Italian poet and thinker. In ``The Divine Comedy,'' he magnificently depicted the cosmology of medieval Christendom and the salvation of humans. He is a person who thinks about European literature and language formation.
View in catalogFlorence
Birth
Ravenna
Exile
Divine Comedy
c. 1308–c. 1321
Poem
Dante's exile
1302
Political event · Subject
Map: Natural Earth (PD)
Born in Florence, he was active in the political struggles of the city republic. There was fierce conflict between the papists and the emperor, as well as factions within the city, and literature and politics were inseparable.
While living in exile, he conceived of the Divine Comedy, greatly expanding the possibilities of literature in the vernacular Italian. He combined classical antiquity, Christian theology, and contemporary politics into a single poetic world.
Although Dante's exile was difficult, it gave him a perspective on Florence and Italian politics from the outside. His works are simultaneously engraved with personal grudges and a universal sense of redemption.
By studying Dante, we can understand the process by which the emphasis shifted from Latin culture to the vernacular literature of various regions in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages. He was a person who served as a bridge between the pre-Renaissance intellectual world and modern literature. It is also an important example of the link between urban politics and literature.
