La Vita Nuova

“Imagine getting a lesson on the works of Dante from the poet himself. Jonathan Keeble narrates La Vita Nuova, verse Dante wrote in 1295, like a poet who has been asked to explain his own work: with keen interest tempered by a bit of distance, so as not to get carried away. It is the story of Dante’s love for Beatrice, told through the various sonnets he wrote for her, as translated rather floridly by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in the nineteenth century. Keeble keeps Dante’s explanations of the sonnets clear and reasonably conversational, and those interested in life in late medieval Florence will find plenty of interesting nuggets (although, curiously, Dante is careful never to mention the name of the city)." —AudioFile