Dante Alighieri strongly influenced C.S. Lewis’s literary scholarship and imagination.
Lewis studied and wrote about medieval literature, and Dante’s Divine Comedy was especially important to his understanding of medieval cosmology, symbolism, and the imaginative structure of religious poetry. Dante’s influence can also be seen in Lewis’s interest in journeys through spiritual realms and in the relationship between imagination and moral truth.
Lewis wrote the scholarly book The Allegory of Love, published in 1936, which examined medieval traditions of allegorical and courtly love. He also wrote an introduction to an English translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, helping present Dante’s work to modern readers.
Lewis admired many writers, including John Milton, Edmund Spenser, and George MacDonald. However, Dante is the specific medieval author most closely associated with the literary and theological patterns that shaped Lewis’s scholarly outlook.