Dante (c.â1265 â 1321)
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Dante was born in Florence
his mother died when he was 9
father (was probably a moneylender) remarried
Dante fell in love with a girl (Beatrice) when he was 9, but was promised to another (Gemma), who he married and had 4 kids with
Beatrice features in his work, Gemma doesn't
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Dante's Divine Comedy is widely regarded the greatest literary work in the Italian language, which he kind of pioneered. You could think maybe of him as the "Italian Shakespeare". Perhaps Italian speakers think of Shakespeare as the "English Dante"
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Dante is fanfiction of Virgil, which is fanfiction of Homer
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Engels praising Dante when trying to appeal to Italians to make communism happen
("post" should be "poet", oops)
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"Dante was both the last post of the Middle Ages and the first post of modern times. Today, as in 1300, a new era is approaching. Will Italy give us the new Dante, who will mark the hour of birth of this new, proletarian era?" - Engels, 1893, preface to Italian edition
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> Dante's depictions of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven provided inspiration for the larger body of Western art and literature
> He influenced Chaucer, Milton, Tennyson and others
>In Italy he is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet")
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> "I'm going to get tasked by God to traverse Hell, Purgatory and Heaven and I'll get to do it with my favourite historical writer and also that woman I had a crush on who isn't my actual wife, oh also the popes are all in Hell."
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If you ever feel insecure about your writing, remember that Dante Alighieri wrote a self-insert shipping revenge fic about the fucking Bible and it was so good it's all but considered canon by most denominations of Christianity
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Replying to
it's good to get a reminder that every person who changed the course of history and culture forever was literally just some guy ð
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history, mostly just a bunch of dudes
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lol, a mean tweet accusing shakespeare of being a second-rate midwit, inferior to the much-esteemed University Wits
the guy attacking shakespeare is now primarily known for being the hater that named him
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