The Esoterism of Dante
by René Guénon
translated by Denis Poisson
René Guénon, the founder of the Traditionalist, Perennialist movement of the 20th and 21st centuries, was involved in the study of the unorthodox, esoteric forms of many of the major world religions, specialising in their doctrines and the societies who follow them. One of his related great interests was the study of the layers of meaning in classical spiritual texts. Springboarding off the works of Gabriele Rossetti and Eugène Aroux, Guénon took the opportunity to point out that these scholars may have missed a significant layer of meaning in their respective analyses of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy.
In The Esoterism of Dante, he gives us the keys to previously unsuspected layers of the seminal text, suggesting a spiritual initiatory path for a proposed esoteric Christian order.
About the Black Letter Press edition
This exceptional new translation by Perennialist, world religions specialist, and esoteric book reviewer Denis Poisson (from the Foolish Fish YouTube channel) brings a new lease of life to this fascinating text, doing for René Guénon what he, in turn, did for Dante, by bringing to the fore the hidden meanings of Guénon’s playful prose which had previously been missed by linguistically-focused, but esoterically untrained translators.
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Cover design by Sarah B. Bolen.
Hardcover Edition
104 pages. Hardcover bound in night-blue Fedrigoni Imitlin, with gilding on front cover and spine. 160 gram black endpapers. Printed on 115 gsm wood-free, age-resistant Munken Premium Cream paper. Sewn book block, black ribbon bookmark and black headbands.
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Press, reviews, endorsements
Book Review by Foolish Fish - watch on YouTube here
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About the Author
The late René Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon (1886 – 1951), also known as Abdalwahid Yahia (Arabic: عبد الـواحد يحيی; ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Yaḥiā), was a French intellectual who wrote on topics ranging from esotericism, "sacred science” and "traditional studies”, to symbolism and initiation.
In his writings, Guénon proposes to hand down eastern metaphysics and traditions, these doctrines being defined by him as of "universal character", and adapt them to western readers "while keeping strictly faithful to their spirit".
Initiated into Islamic esotericism from as early as 1910 when he was 24, Guénon mainly wrote and published in French, and his works have been translated into more than twenty languages; he also wrote in Arabic an article for the journal Al Marifah.
