Dante the Theologian

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.'