Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man by Barbara Reynolds
Published 2006 · 180,000 words · about 15 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism, Biography
How hard is Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man to read?
Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man scores 57 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 58 out of 100
- Lucid scholarly prose accessible to non-specialists with careful explanation of medieval context.
- Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
- Abstraction: 65 out of 100
- Theological and philosophical abstractions explained with care.
- Information density: 75 out of 100
- Rich with historical, biographical, and literary detail.
- Narrative indirection: 12 out of 100
- Chronological biographical narrative with direct critical commentary.
- Symbolic density: 18 out of 100
- Dante's symbolic system is a central subject of analysis.
- Ironic distance: 100 out of 100
- Earnest and deeply engaged tone throughout.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- Biographical and interpretive arguments are clearly resolved.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- Chronological biography with thematic chapters on the major works.
How Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man is regarded
Dante: The Poet, the Political Thinker, the Man holds a literary regard score of 82 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.