A precursor and companion to Eric Auerbach's renowned Mimesis, Dante: Poet of the Secular Worldis both a comprehensive introduction to the work of one of the greatest of poets and an argument about what it means to be civilized. Here Auerbach makes a provocative, paradoxical, but remarkably persuasive case that it is to Dante, supreme among religious poets, that we owe the concept of a distinctly secular realm. Auerbach argues that it is in Dante's early love lyrics, but above all in the Divine Comedy, that our modern concern with the individual human being, born under specific historical circumstances and exhibiting a particular psychological make-up, first comes into its own. It is a startling but still striking claim, especially at a time like ours when the boundaries between faith and reason are newly contested. <br><br>Tracing the idea and history of the human in poetry from Homer through Provencal song, Auerbach goes on to provide a complete overview of Dante's achievement as poet, culminating with an extraordinary reading of the Divine Comedy. This short, wise, penetrating book is a guidebook through the work of one of the world's greatest poets, as well as a rare and accessible example of modern literary criticism at its best.<br><br>CONTENTS<br>I. Historical Introduction; The Idea of Man in Literature<br>II. Dante's Early Poetry<br>III. The Subject of the &quot;Comedy&quot;<br>IV. The Structure of the &quot;Comedy&quot;<br>V. The Presentation<br>VI. The Survival and Transformation of Dante's Vision of Reality<br>Notes<br>Index