"Here failed the strength of my high fantasy;/Already though my will and my desire/Were, as a balanced wheel is moved, turned by/The love that moves the sun and other stars."
Ascent to Love is a study guide (or perhaps, more accurately, an interpretive overview) of Dante's Divine Comedy. I heard someone say once that Peter Leithart is a better literary critic than a theologian, and based on what I've read of his stuff so far, it seems to check out. This was excellent. He charts a course through the three parts of the Comedy and ties it all together as a pursuit of Love--not the smarmy emotion of so many Hollywood movies, but the burning, bright holiness that makes everything work. Dante begins wandering in a dark wood. He is lost, hunted, and unable to reach his life's goal. But his cries are heard, and he is sent a guide--the great poet Virgil--to show him the way out of his errors. His journey is the wonderful song of the Commedia.
