Dante Alighieri
Italian · 13th–14th century
Author of The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso. The foundational text of hell, purgatory, and heaven as realms a living person navigates.
Connection to Taylor Swift
Invoked for the tradition of love at first sight. Uncle Jerry and Angela place Dante and Beatrice among the great first-glance romances behind Enchanted, noting that Dante built an entire sonnet sequence around a woman he barely knew, the same sustained devotion to a fleeting encounter the song captures.
Notable Works
- The Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso)
Appears in the Archive
Context within the Archive
The Divine Comedy
“I didn't choose this town, I dream of getting out”
Uncle Jerry connects Taylor's use of 'I dream of getting out' to the tradition of dream narratives in literature, citing Dante's Divine Comedy as a canonical example: Dante falls into a slumber and has a dreamlike journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. He wonders whether Taylor's use of 'dream' connects to this literary tradition and how often she uses the dream motif across her catalogue.
Dante and Beatrice
Angela & Uncle Jerry include Dante and Beatrice in the love-at-first-sight list. Uncle Jerry notes that Dante writes a whole sonnet sequence to Beatrice, a girl he sees in a garden whom he takes as an ideal lover.
The Divine Comedy
Uncle Jerry discusses Dante's exile from Florence as one of the foundational literary examples of the exile theme, connecting it directly to the song's central conceit. He notes that Dante wrote the Divine Comedy in part about exile, and that Florence was Dante's homeland in the same way the speaker's relationship is their homeland. The parallel is drawn repeatedly: the exile from Florence maps onto the exile from a relationship, with the outsider perspective enabling identity reconstruction.
The Divine Comedy
“Hell was the journey, but it brought me heaven”
Uncle Jerry reads the line 'Hell was the journey, but it brought me heaven' as carrying the structural echo of Dante's Divine Comedy, where the pilgrim starts in hell, journeys through purgatorio, and finally arrives at paradiso. The movement from suffering through endurance to bliss maps onto the song's arc from past heartbreak to present love. Angela & Uncle Jerry also note the pilgrimage quality of the song's narrative, with Uncle Jerry comparing it to 'a pilgrimage not unlike Dante's or Christian Pilgrim's.'