A drawing of Dante on the dust-cover of this new study of the Divine Comedy gives the poet a slightly Oriental look—and is that a helmet he is wearing? The suggestion, anyhow, of the Mongolian and the martial, whether intended or not, may perhaps be linked with the fact that the author is a young North Korean who served with distinction in the Korean army against the Communists before going to America to study philosophy at Yale. Mr Swing is a convert to the Catholic faith and, to judge from this book, his Dante studies have a good deal to do with his religion. He has fed his mind on the strong Christian meat of the Comedy: it has formed in fact his introduction to theology, and he now repays the debt with a theological introduction to it. And because his mind is exceptionally vigorous and original, and because he is very well acquainted with Dante’s poem (though not, I think, with its literary and historical background) he has given us an extremely interesting and even valuable book. So much had better be said at once, and emphatically, because it would be only too easy to multiply objections in detail to Swing’s work, while missing or only half-appreciating its merits as a whole. It is likely to irritate scholars—that irritable race—and on the other hand it takes its subject too seriously to prove easy reading for people who do not already know the Divine Comedy fairly well. Thus it may in effect fall between two stools, leaving the scholars full of their ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’, and the others somewhat bewildered. And that, I am sure, would be a pity; but before I go on to say why, it may be of interest to glance round the field which our young Korean critic has entered as a newcomer.