As the millennium drew to its dismal close, George Steiner was asked to choose the best book of the past thousand years. He named the Commedia, saying: “Dante’s totality of poetic form and philosophic thought, of ‘local universality’ and language, remains unrivaled. At a time when the notion of culture and of European culture, in particular, is in doubt, Dante is the sovereign underwriter.”
This guy never ceases to amaze me. Here he is, pushing eighty, and instead of dimming the lights and shuffling off to somber senescence, he’s upping the ante and teaching new dance steps.
