The Double Exile and Sickness of Dante Alighieri
Poet involved
What happened
While serving as a diplomat for Florence, Italy, the politician and poet Dante Alighieri was caught away from home when a hostile political faction seized total control of the city. He was falsely accused of corruption and permanently exiled under pain of being burned at the stake if he ever returned. This sudden, traumatic separation forced Dante into a bitter life of wandering, during which he narrowly survived poverty and malaria to write his masterpiece away from his beloved home.
Literary impact
Dante's forced exile was the direct catalyst for 'The Divine Comedy'. His profound personal bitterness and yearning for cosmic justice transformed his poetry from simple courtly love sonnets into a sweeping, world-changing epic that fundamentally established the Tuscan dialect as the literary language of Italy.
Source: Wikipedia
