The Circle of Our Vision: Dante's Presence in English Romantic Poetry

The sudden and spectacular growth in Dante's popularity in England at the end of the eighteenth century was immensely influential for English writers of the period; yet his impact on English writers has rarely been analyzed and its history has been little understood. Byron, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Blake, and Wordsworth all wrote and painted while Dante's work--its style, project, and achievement--commanded their attention and provoked their disagreement. The Circle of Our Vision discusses each of these writers in detail, assessing the nature of their engagement with the Divine Comedy and the consequences for their own writing.