A LIFE OF DANTE

A brief literary biography like this should leave the listener with an impression of a writer's major work and some understanding of how his life informed that work. A LIFE OF DANTE doesn't leave much of an impression. Despite an unimpeachable reading by British actor John Shrapnel, the recording bogs down in its descriptions of the politics and history of medieval Italy. This, of course, is the groundwork upon which THE DIVINE COMEDY was written, but a short work like this is unable to provide any real synthesis, and the result is a litany of names and dates that does little to illuminate Dante's masterpiece. D.B. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 02]