Dante the Theologian

A leading contemporary historian of religion makes a compelling case that will revolutionise understanding of how Dante should be interpreted.

Denys Turner (Author)

9781009168694, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 July 2025

320 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.8 cm, 0.446 kg

'Turner's writing and argumentation is energetic and fresh, with a lightness of touch likely to engage even the most suspicious of his readers.' Rachel K. Teubner, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

An understanding of Dante the theologian as distinct from Dante the poet has been neglected in an appreciation of Dante's work as a whole. That is the starting-point of this vital new book. In giving theology fresh centrality, the author argues that theologians themselves should find, when they turn to Dante Alighieri, a compelling resource: whether they do so as historians of fourteenth-century Christian thought, or as interpreters of the religious issues of our own times. Expertly guiding his readers through the structure and content of the Commedia, Denys Turner reveals – in pacy and muscular prose – how Dante's aim for his masterpiece is to effect what it signifies. It is this quasi-sacramental character that renders it above all a theological treatise: whose meaning is intelligible only through poetry. Turner's Dante 'knows that both poetry and theology are necessary to the essential task and that each without the other is deficient.'

Introduction
1. Theology and Poetry
Hell: 2. Hell: Dante and Aquinas
3. Does Dante's Hell Exist?
Purgatory: 4. Purgation and Purgatory
5. Hope, Memory, and the Earthly Paradise
Paradise: 6. Paradise and Paideia
7. The End of Poetry.

Subject Areas: Theology [HRLB], Medieval history [HBLC1], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]