Dante Alighieri: A Divided and Divisive Figure

Dante Alighieri, the medieval Italian lyric poet, has long been the province of right-wing scholars with conservative standards. However, recently, an English conservative prime minister changed all that (probably unbeknown to him) when he declared publicly that he believed in gay marriages because he believed in marriage, thus lifting the interdict on Dante’s sexual identity, clearing it of the idealistic mist in which it had been clouded for centuries with the support of relevant texts susceptible of a loaded interpretation as if a sexual issue could demean such a genius or take anything away from the pathos of The Divine Comedy.