To Heaven with Dante: A Transpersonal Journey

I cannot be the only one who thinks the work of this great Master is exclusively about Hell. 'Dante? - oh, you mean Dante's Inferno!' they say. NO! That's not it. There's far, far more.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 278 pages
Publication date: 05 December 2022
Publisher: Archive Publishing

Many English-speaking people who desire to be educated often attempt to read Dante, the most renowned, least read of all classical poets, and find him impossible. In my thirties, I did just that: where do I begin? The library yielded a translation of The Divine Comedy - a great fat epic in three volumes. Wading into the Inferno, I struggled through a couple of sections and decided this wasn't for me. Too gloomy, too stilted, too difficult to grasp - and above all - too many words. I gave up almost at once. I cannot be the only one who, as a result of that kind of experience, thinks the work of this great Master is exclusively about Hell. Dante? - oh, you mean Dante's Inferno! they say. NO! That's not it. There's far, far more. Dante wrote in Italian to reach ordinary people like me who needed the story itself. He wrote in the vernacular about the famous of the time - well-known entertainers and politicians, poets and artists, churchmen and musicians, the great and the awful. He wanted to be understood by everyone, including those not too well-versed in Latin. What a story this is, I thought, when finally I was properly introduced to it. Why don't we all know this story? Dante is so warm-hearted, so exciting, so full of hope and humor, justice and joy - but, like me, my friends hardly ever get into Hell, let alone out of it and on. My aim is to tell Dante's story in the way.

It was all in his imagination, yet so vividly brought to life in his poem that irresistibly it invites us to accompany him on a life-changing, life-saving adventure of our own. The tale begins when, depressed and lost in a Dark Wood, Dante.

Weight: 514g
Dimension: 155 x 234 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781906289560