Dante’s political thought has long constituted a major area of interest for Dante studies, yet the poet’s political views have traditionally been considered in isolation from his other concerns. Consequently, the symbolic and poetic values which Dante attaches to political structures have been largely ignored or marginalised by Dante criticism. Addressing this omission, Claire Honess’s study of Dante’s ‘poetry of citizenship’ focuses on such issues as the relationship between the individual and the community, the question of what it means to be a citizen, and — above all — the ways in which notions of ‘cities’ and ‘citizenship’ enter the imagery and structure of the Commedia.