This volume is the first to examine in parallel the ways in which twentieth- and twenty-first century Anglo-American Dante scholarship and Italian dantistica have studied key issues at the centre of the poet's oeuvre. It offers a critically and contextually informed overview that concentrates on the main trends, features, and specificities of both traditions, as well as their points of contact. Leading scholars discuss the history and development of the principal questions that characterize the present-day study of Dante and his writings - questions related to Dante's biography, his religious and political beliefs, his literary and doctrinal readings and knowledge, and the position of his writings in modern critical developments.