Dante Alighieri (–1321)
Author of Inferno
About the Author
Disambiguation Notice:
Since there are other authors called Dante, the works of Dante Alighieri on that author page are now aliased here, instead of the pages being combined.
Image credit: Painting by Sandro Botticelli (c. 1495)
Series
Works by Dante Alighieri
Dante's Inferno: The Indiana Critical Edition (Indiana Masterpiece Editions) (1995) 98 copies, 1 review
The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio (Two-Volume-Set) 1: Italian Text and Translation, 2: Commentary [Singleton] (1973) 50 copies
The Divine Comedy: Inferno (Two-Volume-Set) 1: Text and Translation, 2: Commentary (Two-Volume-Set) (1970) 32 copies
Die Göttliche Komödie. Auswahl. Unter Verwendung der Übersetzung von Hermann Gmelin herausgegeben von Heinrich Nauman (1986) 29 copies
The Divine Comedy: Paradiso (Two-Volume-Set) 1: Italian Text and Translation, 2: Commentary [Singleton] (1975) 29 copies
Tutto Dante. Inferno canto primo. volume 1 — Author — 15 copies
Obras completas : contendo o texto original italiano e a tradução em prosa portuguêsa : volume V 10 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca 7 copies
La Divina Commedia. Inferno-Questioni, temi e ricerche. Per le Scuole superiori (Opere di Dante Alighieri) (2002) 7 copies
The Divine Comedy (Deluxe Hardcover): Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso — Dante Alighieri’s Timeless Journey Through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven (2025) 6 copies
La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata (Le Opere di Dante Alighieri) (Italian Edition) (1994) — Author — 5 copies
Nuova edizione commentata delle opere di Dante. Vita nuova-Rime. Le rime della maturità e dell'esilio (Vol. 1/2) (2019) — Author — 5 copies
Rejna 7-t4: Le vite di Dante dal 14. al 16. secolo: iconografia dantesca (2017) — Autore in riferimento — 5 copies
De goddelijke komedie 2 5 copies
La commedia. Paradiso (Vol. 3) 5 copies
Nuova edizione commentata delle opere di Dante. Opere di dubbia attribuzione e altri documenti danteschi: Opere già attribuite a Dante e altri documenti danteschi (Vol. 7/2) (2021) — Author — 4 copies
Dante: The divine comedy 4 copies
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Vol. 3: Purgatory: Italian Text and Verse Translation [Musa] (1996) 4 copies
Dantis Alagherii operum latinorum concordantiae, curante Societate Dantea quae est Cantabrigiae in Nova Anglia — Author — 4 copies
La letteratura italiana. Storia e testi. Volume 5 - Tomo I - Parte I Vita nuova - Rime - Il fiore - Detto d'amore (1984) — Author — 4 copies
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Vol. 5: Paradise. Italian Text and Verse Translation [Musa] (2005) 4 copies
La Divina Commedia. Paradiso-Questioni, temi e ricerche. Per le Scuole superiori (Opere di Dante Alighieri) (2002) 4 copies
Opere 1 — Author — 4 copies
Lírica 4 copies
Divina Commedia. Per le Scuole superiori. Con e-book. Con espansione online. Purgatorio (Vol. 2) (2016) 3 copies
Divina Commedia. Per le Scuole superiori. Con e-book. Con espansione online. Paradiso (Vol. 3) (2016) 3 copies
The Odes of Dante 3 copies
The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio (Two-Volume-Set) 1: Italian Text and Verse Translation, 2: Commentary [Musa] (2000) 3 copies
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy: Inferno. Text & Commentary(Two Vol. Set) (Volume 1 and 2) (2 Book Series) (1997) 3 copies
????????? ??????? - ?????? 3 copies
Detto d' amore 3 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Biografia, Opere, Bibliografia, 4 — Author — 3 copies
La Commedia. Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso: Testi scelti. Italienischer Text mit deutschen Worterklärungen. Niveau C1 (GER) (2021) 3 copies
8.3: De situ et forma aque et terre — Author — 3 copies
Η ευγλωττία της κοινής γλώσσας 3 copies
Florenz - die steinerne Geliebte (die italienischen Originale samt Umdichtungen von Hans Mühlestein) (1997) 3 copies
Il Canzoniere 3 copies
Concordanza della Commedia di Dante Alighieri: testo critico del poema, rimario e indice analitico — Author — 3 copies
A Mentor classic 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca, 3. La Divina Commedia. Paradiso — Author — 2 copies
Divina Commedia. Inferno. Interpretazione letterale e decodificazione dei versi a fronte. Esposizione e commento di tutti i canti (2007) 2 copies
Rime della maturità e dell'esilio 2 copies
Infernul 2 copies
LA DIVINA COMMEDIA. Edited and Annotated by C. H. Grandgent. Revised by Charles S. Singleton. 2 copies
Den guddommelige komedie Purgatoriet 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Tu - Z 16 2 copies
Dante col sito et forma dell'Inferno 2 copies
Dante 2 copies
The Works of Dante 2 copies
Comento di Christophoro Landino fiorentino sopra La comedia di Danthe Alighieri poeta fiorentino 2 copies, 1 review
The first ten cantos of the Inferno 2 copies
Le terze rime 2 copies
A Mentor book 2 copies
1948 DANTE DIVINE COMEDY ILLUSTRATED GUSTAVE DORE 69 PRINTS WITH DUST JACKET DJ [Hardcover] DANTE 2 copies
Dante Alighieri Monarquia 2 copies
Quaestio de aqua et de terra 2 copies
The purgatory. (Purgatoria I. XXVII) 2 copies
The Divine Comedy: Volume 1: Inferno 2 copies
Tutti le Opere Dr. E. Moore 2 copies
Readings On the Inferno of Dante: Based Upon the Commentary of Benvenuto Da Imola and Other Authorities; Volume 2 (2018) 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca, x10. Gro-Lum 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca, 9. Fed-Gri 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca, 8. Des-Fec 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca, 7. Ch-Der — Author — 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca, 6. Av-Ce — Author — 2 copies
A Divina Comédia Vol 2/2 2 copies
La Vita Nuova Fraticelli 2 copies
La Divina Commedia : schemi, analisi e commento critico dei singoli canti. 2, Purgatorio : testo integrale (1979) 2 copies
Canzoniere (Fraticelli), 2 vols. 2 copies
La letteratura italiana. Storia e Testi. Volume 5 - Tomo I - Parte II Convivio — Author — 2 copies
Antologia della Commedia. Per le Scuole superiori. Con e-book. Con espansione online (2016) 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Som - Tr 15 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Ris - Sol 14 2 copies
Le opere di Dante Alighieri : edizione nazionale. Volume 7: La Commedia : secondo l'antica vulgata 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Pit - Rip 13 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: O - Pis 12 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Lun - N 11 2 copies
La Divina Commedia: testi, strumenti, percorsi: antologia della Divina Commedia con schede critiche, strumenti didattici e percorsi tematici (1999) 2 copies
I quattro poeti italiani: Dante, Petrarca, Ariosto, Tasso [lacks Dante and all pages up to p. 140] 2 copies
La commedia Introduzione 1 copy
Pagine scelte dalle opere 1 copy
A Divina Comédia I 1 copy
Dante og Beatrice 1 copy
Obras completas vol.1 1 copy
Dante - Ed. Verbo 1 copy
Paradiso 1 copy
A reference grammar of medieval Italian according to Dante, with a dual language edition of the Vita Nova (1997) 1 copy
A Divina Comédia II 1 copy
Oeuvres de Dante Alighieri 1 copy
La Divina Commedia-Le parole della Divina Commedia. Dizionario attivo. Per le Scuole superiori (2008) 1 copy
Works of Dante 1 copy
On Monarchy 1 copy
Opere di Dante Aligheri 1 copy
Jest tylko Beatrycze 1 copy
Opere 1 copy
Divina Comedia. Vol.1 1 copy
La divina commedia . Vollständiger Text, mit Erläuterungen , Grammatik , Glossar und sieben Tafeln 1 copy
Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia: Codex Altonensis [facsimile] und Kommentar zum Codex Altonensis 1 copy
INFERNUL VOL2 1 copy
Le Paradis Tome 2 1 copy
Die G�ottliche Kom�odie 1 copy
Die Göttliche Komödie 1 copy
Divina Comédia. Vol.2 1 copy
L'enfer, Tome 2 1 copy
Inferno - La Divina Commedia 1 copy
A divina comédia 1 copy
The Divine Comedy (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature) by Dante Alighieri (2009) Paperback 1 copy
L288 - A divina comédia 1 copy
Paradisul 1 copy
Purgatoriul 1 copy
Divina comedia |Paraíso 1 copy
Divine poem 1 copy
Inferno-Purgatorio-Paradiso 1 copy
La Divina Commedia Di Dante Alighiere Riveduta nel testo e commentata da G. A. Scartazzin 1 copy, 1 review
Divina Comedia 2 1 copy
Divine Comédie (extraits) / Divina commedia (estratti). Edition bilingue français-italien (2007) 1 copy
Dante Autograph 1 copy
Poesía 1 copy
INFERNUL VOL1 1 copy
OBRA COMPLETA 1 copy
Manoscritto n. 3 1 copy
Poetas de Dante 1 copy
Dantes Werke 1 copy
FERRI 1 copy
Inferno Vol.2 1 copy
Божественная комедия 1 copy
Dante Alighieri 1 copy
İlahi Komedya: Cennet 1 copy
Zaljubljeno more 1 copy
İlahi Komedya: Araf 1 copy
İlahi Komedya: Cehennem 1 copy
Собрание сочинений: Т. 2: Новая жизнь; Пир; О народном красноречии; Монархия; Стихотворения (2001) 1 copy
La Divine Comédie de Dante Alighieri: l'Enfer. Tome 1 (Éd.1835-1837) (Litterature) (French Edition) (2012) 1 copy
Opere Scelte 1 copy
Die göttliche Komödie des Dante Alighieri. Erster Theil. Vierte, sehr veränderte Auflage. (German Edition) (2018) 1 copy
Dante összes művei 1 copy
Opere minori vol. 2 Rime 1 copy
الكوميديا الإلهية - الفردوس 1 copy
Paulo and Francesca 1 copy
Il poema sacro cui pose mano e cielo e terra. La Divina Commedia. Ediz. integrale. Con espansione online (2010) 1 copy
DANTE-CHAUCER 1 copy
La Cumégia 1 copy
The Divine Comedy With Side-By-Side Modern English Translation (Classics Retold Side-By-Side Book 2) (2015) 1 copy
Dante's Inferno [Annotated] 1 copy
The Aeneid - 04 1 copy
Il Paranasso Italiano 1 copy
Commento alla Divina Commedia d'anonimo fiorentino del secolo 14., ora per la prima volta stampato 1 copy
Antologia dantesca 1 copy
Opera omnia 1 1 copy
La Divina Comedia: Clásicos para niños (Clasicos para ninos / Classics for Kids) (Spanish Edition) (2017) 1 copy
This Book Announces the Publication in Four Folio Volumes of the Comedy of Dante Alighieri of Florence (1929) 1 copy
Dante per voce sola 1 copy
Dante - I poeti italiani /1 1 copy
Opera omnia 2 1 copy
nel mezzo del cammin.... 1 copy
Classici Italiani Commentati 1 copy
12 sonnetti 1 copy
Seleção de textos 1 copy
La Divina Commedia Angelica 1 copy
A Divina Comédia - vol 1/2 1 copy
Paradiso XVIII-XXXIII. Edizione critica alla luce del più antico codice di sicura fiorentinità (2019) 1 copy
Paradiso I-XVII. Edizione critica alla luce del più antico codice di sicura fiorentinità (2018) 1 copy
Dante, le rime in breve 1 copy
Rime. 1: I documenti 1 copy
Canzone Inedita Di Dante Alighieri in Lode Della Vergine Madre (Classic Reprint) (Italian Edition) (2017) 1 copy
O Purgatório 1 copy
o paraíso 1 copy
Dante's Convivo 1 copy
La Vita nuova di Dante 1 copy
The Classic Collection of Dante Alighieri. Illustrated: The Divine Comedy, The New Life (2024) 1 copy
Divina Comedie, Vol I 1 copy
La Divina Commedia - The Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) Illustrada (Italian Edition) (2012) 1 copy
2 1 copy
Dantes Gœttliche komœdie in bildern von Gustav Doré — Contributor — 1 copy
Cehennem (İlahi Komedya, #1) 1 copy
Cennet (İlahi Komedya, #3) 1 copy
Nuova edizione commentata delle opere di Dante. Divina Commedia. Purgatorio (Vol. 6/2) (2026) 1 copy
Classic Epic Poems 1 copy
The Divine Comedy: Inferno (Princeton Hardcover : Singleton translation : Italian Text and Translation) (1970) 1 copy
℗Il ℗fiore: Il detto d'amore 1 copy
The Divine Comedy: Paradise 1 copy
The Divine Comedy: Purgatory 1 copy
Božská komédia Raj 1 copy
Božská komédia Očistec 1 copy
Božská komédia Peklo 1 copy
La monarchia 1 copy
Božanska komedija : pekel 1 copy
A Divina Comédia (Volume 1) 1 copy
Associated Works
World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time (1998) — Contributor — 497 copies, 2 reviews
The Graphic Canon, Vol. 1: From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Shakespeare to Dangerous Liaisons (2012) — Contributor — 304 copies, 7 reviews
The Best of the World's Classics: Volume VIII Continental Europe II (1909) — Contributor, some editions — 28 copies
The Middle Ages to the 17th Century: Literature of the Western World (1962) — Contributor, some editions — 24 copies
Grolier Classics: Les Miserables, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, French Revolution, Divine Comedy (1956) 19 copies
Oogst Der Tijden. keur uit de werken van schrijvers en dichters aller volken en eeuwen (1940) — Contributor — 12 copies
Sunlight on the River: Poems About Paintings, Paintings About Poems (2015) — Contributor — 11 copies, 2 reviews
The Early Italian poets from Ciullo d'Alcamo to Dante Alighieri (1100-1200-1300) : in the original metres, together with Dante's Vita nuova (2012) — Contributor — 8 copies
Dante per immagini. Dalle miniature trecentesche ai giorni nostri (2018) — Autore in relazione — 5 copies
American Aphrodite: A Quarterly for the Fancy-Free (Volume 1, Number 1) (1951) — Contributor — 3 copies
American Aphrodite: A Quarterly for the Fancy-Free Volume 5 Number 17 (1955) — Contributor — 3 copies
American Aphrodite: A Quarterly for the Fancy Free (Volume 1, Number 2) (1951) — Contributor — 2 copies
American Aphrodite: A Quarterly for the Fancy-Free (Volume 5, Number 20) (1955) — Contributor — 2 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Alighieri, Dante
- Legal name
- Alighieri, Durante degli
- Other names
- Dante
- Birthdate
- n. 1265-05
- Date of death
- 1321-09-14
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- poet
soldier (cavalry)
apothecary
politician - Organizations
- Guelphs
- Relationships
- Pietro di Dante Alighieri (zoon)
- Short biography
- Dante Alighieri, (May 14/June 13, 1265 – September 13/14[1], 1321), was a Florentine Italian poet. Like many in the Florence of his day, he became involved in the conflict between the Guelph and Ghibelline factions. He fought in the Battle of Campaldino (1289) and held several political offices over the years. His central work, the Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy, originally called "Comedìa"), is composed of three parts: the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. Dante was exiled from the city he loved, and addressed the pain of his loss in his work.
- Nationality
- Florence
- Birthplace
- Florence, Italy
- Places of residence
- Verona, Italy
- Place of death
- Ravenna, Italy
- Burial location
- Piazza San Francesco, Ravenna, Italia
- Map Location
- Italy
- Disambiguation notice
- Since there are other authors called Dante, the works of Dante Alighieri on that author page are now aliased here, instead of the pages being combined.
Members
Discussions
3705 Dante's Purgatorio Illustrated DLE in Easton Press Collectors (August 2024)
LE: Dante's The Divine Comedy in Folio Society Devotees (July 2023)
La Vita Nuova in Fine Press Forum (May 2023)
Opinions on older translations of The Divine Comedy? in Book talk (April 2022)
Henry Boyd's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. in Book talk (February 2022)
Divine Comedy in Folio Society Devotees (September 2021)
Paris Review Challenge : The Divine Comedy, Season 1 in Dante's Sitting Room (October 2013)
Crambo's word rhymes with "vice" in Crambo! (June 2012)
Best Translation of The Divine Comedy? in Geeks who love the Classics (December 2010)
Dante's Divine Comedy in 1001 Books to read before you die (November 2008)
Reviews
"Когда-то я в годину зрелых летВ дремучий лес зашел и заблудился…"– так начинается "Божественная комедия", бессмертная поэтическая трилогия, в которой Данте дерзко переосмыслил средневековую традицию "хождений" по загробному миру и религиозных "видений", и создал show more поистине уникальное произведение, в котором мистика сочетается с философией, а притча – с весьма ядовитым политическим памфлетом. Прошли века. Политическая злободневность "Божественной комедии" давно пропала, но остались и бессмертная красота языка Данте, и мощь его литературного таланта, и сила философской мысли, предвосхитившей духовные и нравственные искания гуманистических гениев Возрождения. show less
Can I pick out a favorite canto? How about canto 14, the division of the blasphemers in circle 7. Some surprises here even as the reader has been growing accustomed to Dante's blending of Classical culture and Christianity. Capaneus, one of the seven mythological heroes who attacked the city of Thebes in support of Polynices, son of Oedipus, as told by Aeschylus in [b:The Seven Against Thebes|752713|The Seven Against Thebes (Dover Thrift show more Editions)|Aeschylus|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328866074l/752713._SY75_.jpg|2474147] and Statius in [b:The Thebaid: Seven Against Thebes|677893|The Thebaid Seven Against Thebes|Publius Papinius Statius|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348522460l/677893._SY75_.jpg|663891], is here for his blasphemy against Jupiter/Zeus. Dante thus treats blasphemy against a pagan god in mythology as equal to blasphemy against his Christian God! One might think that theologically you can't end up in the Christian Hell for defying a pagan god, but here you can, as Dante incorporates the Classical period into his Christian universe that takes in all of human history.
The idea that Hell is really a hell of one's own making is presented here as well. Capaneus continues to lash out at Jupiter: "let him hurl his bolts at me, no joy of satisfaction would I give him!" He is still the same person, unchanged, as he was in life, which is a condition of the shades in Hell: they will not ever change, their pride will never allow them to repent. Virgil speaks back to him that "no torment other than your rage itself could punish your gnawing pride more perfectly." This psychologically astute envisioning of Hell is not one I was expecting to encounter; I had been underestimating Dante.
In the second half of the canto we get a fascinatingly allegorical and resonant description of the Man of Crete. This is a colossus representing humankind that lies underneath Mt. Ida and whose tears, representing humanity's tears, are the source of Hell's rivers. Dante takes the idea of such a figure from the Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and combines it with Ovid's description of the fall of man from the Golden Age down through silver and bronze and finally to the Iron Age that he presents in [b:Metamorphoses|1715|Metamorphoses|Ovid|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1622739150l/1715._SY75_.jpg|2870411]; the colossus is fashioned of gold at the head, silver at the chest, brass to his legs, and then iron - except for a right foot made of terra cotta that he places more weight on, which represents the modern Roman Church. Only the gold portion is unbroken, as the tears carve a fissure down the rest of him.
The idea of Hell's rivers being fed by human tears symbolically falling down a figure representing the fall and decay of man is a powerful poetic image. Also very interesting in that it shows how people in every age and every generation think that theirs is a uniquely bad time in history, going all the way back to Ovid! This is nothing new at all; likely in a thousand years people will think that their time is a uniquely bad time, as humanity continues on its way.
And then on a lighter note, we have the pilgrim, perhaps unconsciously, getting a little jab in at Virgil, who could not get them past the gates of the infernal city of Dis separating Upper from Lower Hell that was guarded by devils - Virgil can handle Classical monsters, but Christian devils are beyond his powers and they had to wait on an angel from Heaven to continue their journey. Here Dante most unnecessarily reminds Virgil of his past failure in introducing a question about their current position: "My master, you who overcome all opposition (except for those tough demons who came to meet us at the gate of Dis), who is that mighty one that seems unbothered...". Petty!
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Finally found a translation, Mark Musa’s, that I really get on with. Also watched and read the lectures and notes from Columbia University’s course on the Commedia alongside reading each canto, which are available for free at digitaldante.columbia.edu, an amazing gift. I would have understood a mere fraction of the context, richness, and literary techniques of this work without those. show less
The idea that Hell is really a hell of one's own making is presented here as well. Capaneus continues to lash out at Jupiter: "let him hurl his bolts at me, no joy of satisfaction would I give him!" He is still the same person, unchanged, as he was in life, which is a condition of the shades in Hell: they will not ever change, their pride will never allow them to repent. Virgil speaks back to him that "no torment other than your rage itself could punish your gnawing pride more perfectly." This psychologically astute envisioning of Hell is not one I was expecting to encounter; I had been underestimating Dante.
In the second half of the canto we get a fascinatingly allegorical and resonant description of the Man of Crete. This is a colossus representing humankind that lies underneath Mt. Ida and whose tears, representing humanity's tears, are the source of Hell's rivers. Dante takes the idea of such a figure from the Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and combines it with Ovid's description of the fall of man from the Golden Age down through silver and bronze and finally to the Iron Age that he presents in [b:Metamorphoses|1715|Metamorphoses|Ovid|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1622739150l/1715._SY75_.jpg|2870411]; the colossus is fashioned of gold at the head, silver at the chest, brass to his legs, and then iron - except for a right foot made of terra cotta that he places more weight on, which represents the modern Roman Church. Only the gold portion is unbroken, as the tears carve a fissure down the rest of him.
The idea of Hell's rivers being fed by human tears symbolically falling down a figure representing the fall and decay of man is a powerful poetic image. Also very interesting in that it shows how people in every age and every generation think that theirs is a uniquely bad time in history, going all the way back to Ovid! This is nothing new at all; likely in a thousand years people will think that their time is a uniquely bad time, as humanity continues on its way.
And then on a lighter note, we have the pilgrim, perhaps unconsciously, getting a little jab in at Virgil, who could not get them past the gates of the infernal city of Dis separating Upper from Lower Hell that was guarded by devils - Virgil can handle Classical monsters, but Christian devils are beyond his powers and they had to wait on an angel from Heaven to continue their journey. Here Dante most unnecessarily reminds Virgil of his past failure in introducing a question about their current position: "My master, you who overcome all opposition (except for those tough demons who came to meet us at the gate of Dis), who is that mighty one that seems unbothered...". Petty!
-------
Finally found a translation, Mark Musa’s, that I really get on with. Also watched and read the lectures and notes from Columbia University’s course on the Commedia alongside reading each canto, which are available for free at digitaldante.columbia.edu, an amazing gift. I would have understood a mere fraction of the context, richness, and literary techniques of this work without those. show less
I'm just going to say that Dante is the greatest writer ever, and move on to review this edition.
This edition is great--not as great as Dante, but great. Kirkpatrick's translation is enjoyable, and more or less metrical; he's not afraid to leave in the difficulties and obscurities that you find in the Italian, and he's willing to occasionally just say screw it and throw in something unexpected and perhaps a little reckless. He also has a glorious vocabulary. He is to other Dante translators show more as Cormac McCarthy is to other American novelists, but Kirkpatrick's odd vocabulary is not limited to obscure concrete nouns.
Two things I took away from reading 'Inferno' via Kirkpatrick: first, Virgil is a genuine tragic figure, and can surely be read as a kind of apologetic fiction. Look at Virgil, Dante says, and consider what you--a far inferior human being on so many levels--are throwing away by not being a good Christian! Here is the greatest of poets, the most reasonable of writers, locked out of heaven simply because of his birthdate. Don't waste the unearned good fortune of being born after Christ's coming!
Second: I'm now pretty sure that Dante's dark wood was a suicide attempt. Read canto I, then read the canto of the suicides in Kirkpatrick's translation, and I suspect you'll decide the same. As well as aesthetic sense, it makes biographical sense. Don't bring your scholarship to bear on this, it's my interpretation and I'm sticking to it.
Kirkpatrick's also taken an interesting approach to notes and commentary. Rather than exhaustively annotating every line, he's written mini-essays on each canto, which allow you to get a good feel for what's coming/what you've just read, and then annotated episodes. Kirkpatrick's prose is, as you'd expect from the vocabulary of his translation, rather baroque. So if, like me, you enjoy that kind of thing, voila.
All that said, I suspect most readers will find Hollingdale or Carson (or Pinsky, if you like that kind of thing) a better introduction to Dante. This, however, is an ideal second read. My friends mock me for saying things like this, but: when you come to read Dante again, Kirkpatrick is the way to go. show less
This edition is great--not as great as Dante, but great. Kirkpatrick's translation is enjoyable, and more or less metrical; he's not afraid to leave in the difficulties and obscurities that you find in the Italian, and he's willing to occasionally just say screw it and throw in something unexpected and perhaps a little reckless. He also has a glorious vocabulary. He is to other Dante translators show more as Cormac McCarthy is to other American novelists, but Kirkpatrick's odd vocabulary is not limited to obscure concrete nouns.
Two things I took away from reading 'Inferno' via Kirkpatrick: first, Virgil is a genuine tragic figure, and can surely be read as a kind of apologetic fiction. Look at Virgil, Dante says, and consider what you--a far inferior human being on so many levels--are throwing away by not being a good Christian! Here is the greatest of poets, the most reasonable of writers, locked out of heaven simply because of his birthdate. Don't waste the unearned good fortune of being born after Christ's coming!
Second: I'm now pretty sure that Dante's dark wood was a suicide attempt. Read canto I, then read the canto of the suicides in Kirkpatrick's translation, and I suspect you'll decide the same. As well as aesthetic sense, it makes biographical sense. Don't bring your scholarship to bear on this, it's my interpretation and I'm sticking to it.
Kirkpatrick's also taken an interesting approach to notes and commentary. Rather than exhaustively annotating every line, he's written mini-essays on each canto, which allow you to get a good feel for what's coming/what you've just read, and then annotated episodes. Kirkpatrick's prose is, as you'd expect from the vocabulary of his translation, rather baroque. So if, like me, you enjoy that kind of thing, voila.
All that said, I suspect most readers will find Hollingdale or Carson (or Pinsky, if you like that kind of thing) a better introduction to Dante. This, however, is an ideal second read. My friends mock me for saying things like this, but: when you come to read Dante again, Kirkpatrick is the way to go. show less
"I came around and found myself now searching through a dark wood, the right way blurred and lost. How hard it is to say what that wood was, a wilderness, savage, brute, harsh and wild… My theme will be the good I found there…" (pg. 3)
In my belated quest to acquire, over the course of my adult life, an appreciation of culture that was once considered the responsibility of our education system – but long since abdicated – it pleases me to be able to say that I've now read Dante's show more Inferno. However, I must also say that, in contrast to my previous encounters with Homer, Milton, the scribes of the Bible and others, I rather struggled with this one and did not enjoy it.
This struggle was in part because of my Penguin Classics edition. These are usually dependable, readable editions accessible to the layman – that, in fact, was the imprint's initial raison d'être – but I found this edition of Dante's Inferno plodding. It begins with a dense, 100-page introduction that did more to get me lost in the weeds than bring me out of the forest, and it ends with another 130+ pages of commentaries and endnotes. I know that a reader isn't obliged to read these, of course, but I usually like a deep delve into the scholarly analysis. Here, it sapped my will.
This edition also disappointed in its translation by Robin Kirkpatrick, which is a technical feat, no doubt, but in my opinion a rather tasteless one. From what I understand, Dante's verse is particularly hard to translate – it seems like every word in Italian ends with a vowel, which makes it easier to rhyme than in English – and his austere, unlyrical style does a translator no favours ("his plain style and syntax," Kirkpatrick writes, almost ruefully, "has yet to be absorbed into the repertoire of English poetry" (pg. ciii)). But, even with these caveats, it's still disappointing when the most famous phrase of Dante – the inscription above the gates of Hell, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" – is delivered as the rather more flaccid "Surrender as you enter every hope you have" (pg. 21).
But, translators and editions aside, I also struggled with Dante himself. The narrative was often laborious; the descent into a literal Hell which Dante pursues was lacking in orientation. Many of the denizens of Dante's Hell are political and religious figures from his own time, and to understand the context of their role the reader must undergo a restless flicking backwards and forwards to the endnotes. I got lost in the procession of monstrous creatures, and the thread of narrative was slight. Dante has great ideas, as I shall come onto presently, but these are not easy to discover for yourself as you read. Just about every line, it seems, requires scholarly divination. That plain, unlyrical style I mentioned above was not only unexpected (I was anticipating an Italian Milton), but it meant that in the moments when I was adrift I didn't even have the benefit of a killer phrase to sustain me through a rough patch.
Nevertheless, after the inauspicious journey through the outer rings of Hell, I did start to get a tenuous grasp on what Dante had achieved. The deeper he goes through his infamous Seven Circles of Hell, the better it gets, and by the end my impression of the poem was a favourable one. The poet Dante – as opposed to the character Dante in his Inferno – was an exile from his native land, and his conception of Hell is a sort of mind map for the paths a human soul can find themselves on. Barred from his literal homeland, he navigates the "construct in his mind [of] an intellectual and spiritual homeland" (pg. xxiii).
Dante's journey is not crude religious iconography of brimstone and winged hellspawn, but instead a lucid meditation on the moral challenges people face in their lives. His Hell is not a place for irredeemable sinners, but instead a banal dwelling-place for those who have erred in their lives and have not sought remedy, whether through apathy, sin or ignorance. As Kirkpatrick's introduction puts it, "the sinners in Dante's Hell… have all in some way denied themselves a full realization of their human potentiality and fallen into an alliance with dullness and death" (pg. lxxv). With this orientation in mind, we recognise that Dante's poem is not a gleeful condemnation or vindictive settling of scores, not even when the people he meets in Hell are people he has known in real life. He is gripped by "great sorrow" when he comes across the tortured, bewildered souls, "for many persons of the greatest worth were held, I knew, suspended on this strip" (pg. 31).
Mistakes on these paths of life lead to spiritual and psychological Hell. Dante's construction is a forerunner of Milton's Hell – in Paradise Lost, it is a place you end up if you make bad decisions in your life (which is why Milton's Satan is the lord there – you can't conceive of a worse decision to make in your life than to scorn and rebel against God). Dante was perhaps even more committed to this conception of Hell than Milton. Whereas Milton's Lucifer is rather compelling – a representation of the seductive appeal of secular, or anti-God, reasoning – Dante's Satan, when he finally appears at the end, is without fanfare. He is nothing, a void, an anticlimactic and – were it not for his grossness – pitiable creature, more like a hairy, bovine slug than a threatening demon. Evil is, for Dante, not sin or violence but "sheer banality and tedium" (pg. lxxv), as the Introduction puts it; a void inside that results from false life choices carried to their end. His Hell is made of ice, not fire. It is a deadening bureaucracy, rigorously organised into ossified strata, not a chaotic pandemonium of licentiousness and sin. When Dante emerges into the light of the mortal world at the end of Inferno, representing the decision to pursue a fulfilling (Christian) life, the reader shares his relief. (Kirkpatrick's commentary notes this beautifully: once the banality and tedium of evil is witnessed firsthand, even sin becomes insignificant, and "correspondingly the enjoyment of light is the essential duty of any created being" (pg. 448).)
Dante (both the poet and the character) is, in traversing this landscape, undergoing a courageous meditation on how to live properly. This adventure is, the Introduction says, "an attempt to see what the human mind can achieve when… it anatomizes its own psyche and adjusts its own ethical apparatus to achieve a better performance" (pg. lxxix). That's less thrilling, perhaps, than a tumble into a turbulent, out-of-control, fire-and-mayhem inferno (just how did that word come to mean what it means today? Its popularisers must not have even read Dante). But the mechanics are profound, even if – to a modern English-speaking audience – the execution is not.
I found myself admiring Dante's storytelling choices, even when the poem itself was failing to capture me. To end the story with such an anticlimactic adversary – the banal Satan figure – is a decision that I don't think any writer would have the courage to make today. It's perfect for Dante's message in Inferno, but I suspect most writers would prefer to sabotage their own painstakingly-built philosophy rather than conclude with something so lacking in a crowd-pleasing element. I admired the conception of the Seven Circles of Hell – once I understood it – and the decision by Dante to have Virgil, the Roman (and therefore pagan) poet, as his literal guide through the Inferno – is perhaps one of the great magnanimous acts of any artist in history. Given Dante's influence, the central role of Virgil in his story advocates for the moral legitimacy of pagan, Classical tradition in a Christian world, leading to a harmony between classical and Christian thought. Dante's Inferno is, in this crucial respect, a foundation stone for the Renaissance and the Age of Reason.
I would like such a noble conclusion to be my dominant thought, and I am sure that in time my appreciation for Dante's Inferno and its foundational role in Western culture will be my enduring memory of the book. But, for the purposes of review, it is worth reiterating that I found the book and its translation an often unsatisfying trial. I apologise for being such a heretic, and I don't know which circle of Hell such a statement puts me in (I suspect the sixth), but it's my honest, immediate response to finishing the book. I hope – to return to the quote from Dante with which I opened this review – that my theme has been the good I found here, but I was more stimulated by the ideas when they were unpacked in the introduction and the endnotes, even though these were denser than they needed to be. Dante's conceptual genius seeded all this, of course, but it was hard for me to reap. show less
In my belated quest to acquire, over the course of my adult life, an appreciation of culture that was once considered the responsibility of our education system – but long since abdicated – it pleases me to be able to say that I've now read Dante's show more Inferno. However, I must also say that, in contrast to my previous encounters with Homer, Milton, the scribes of the Bible and others, I rather struggled with this one and did not enjoy it.
This struggle was in part because of my Penguin Classics edition. These are usually dependable, readable editions accessible to the layman – that, in fact, was the imprint's initial raison d'être – but I found this edition of Dante's Inferno plodding. It begins with a dense, 100-page introduction that did more to get me lost in the weeds than bring me out of the forest, and it ends with another 130+ pages of commentaries and endnotes. I know that a reader isn't obliged to read these, of course, but I usually like a deep delve into the scholarly analysis. Here, it sapped my will.
This edition also disappointed in its translation by Robin Kirkpatrick, which is a technical feat, no doubt, but in my opinion a rather tasteless one. From what I understand, Dante's verse is particularly hard to translate – it seems like every word in Italian ends with a vowel, which makes it easier to rhyme than in English – and his austere, unlyrical style does a translator no favours ("his plain style and syntax," Kirkpatrick writes, almost ruefully, "has yet to be absorbed into the repertoire of English poetry" (pg. ciii)). But, even with these caveats, it's still disappointing when the most famous phrase of Dante – the inscription above the gates of Hell, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" – is delivered as the rather more flaccid "Surrender as you enter every hope you have" (pg. 21).
But, translators and editions aside, I also struggled with Dante himself. The narrative was often laborious; the descent into a literal Hell which Dante pursues was lacking in orientation. Many of the denizens of Dante's Hell are political and religious figures from his own time, and to understand the context of their role the reader must undergo a restless flicking backwards and forwards to the endnotes. I got lost in the procession of monstrous creatures, and the thread of narrative was slight. Dante has great ideas, as I shall come onto presently, but these are not easy to discover for yourself as you read. Just about every line, it seems, requires scholarly divination. That plain, unlyrical style I mentioned above was not only unexpected (I was anticipating an Italian Milton), but it meant that in the moments when I was adrift I didn't even have the benefit of a killer phrase to sustain me through a rough patch.
Nevertheless, after the inauspicious journey through the outer rings of Hell, I did start to get a tenuous grasp on what Dante had achieved. The deeper he goes through his infamous Seven Circles of Hell, the better it gets, and by the end my impression of the poem was a favourable one. The poet Dante – as opposed to the character Dante in his Inferno – was an exile from his native land, and his conception of Hell is a sort of mind map for the paths a human soul can find themselves on. Barred from his literal homeland, he navigates the "construct in his mind [of] an intellectual and spiritual homeland" (pg. xxiii).
Dante's journey is not crude religious iconography of brimstone and winged hellspawn, but instead a lucid meditation on the moral challenges people face in their lives. His Hell is not a place for irredeemable sinners, but instead a banal dwelling-place for those who have erred in their lives and have not sought remedy, whether through apathy, sin or ignorance. As Kirkpatrick's introduction puts it, "the sinners in Dante's Hell… have all in some way denied themselves a full realization of their human potentiality and fallen into an alliance with dullness and death" (pg. lxxv). With this orientation in mind, we recognise that Dante's poem is not a gleeful condemnation or vindictive settling of scores, not even when the people he meets in Hell are people he has known in real life. He is gripped by "great sorrow" when he comes across the tortured, bewildered souls, "for many persons of the greatest worth were held, I knew, suspended on this strip" (pg. 31).
Mistakes on these paths of life lead to spiritual and psychological Hell. Dante's construction is a forerunner of Milton's Hell – in Paradise Lost, it is a place you end up if you make bad decisions in your life (which is why Milton's Satan is the lord there – you can't conceive of a worse decision to make in your life than to scorn and rebel against God). Dante was perhaps even more committed to this conception of Hell than Milton. Whereas Milton's Lucifer is rather compelling – a representation of the seductive appeal of secular, or anti-God, reasoning – Dante's Satan, when he finally appears at the end, is without fanfare. He is nothing, a void, an anticlimactic and – were it not for his grossness – pitiable creature, more like a hairy, bovine slug than a threatening demon. Evil is, for Dante, not sin or violence but "sheer banality and tedium" (pg. lxxv), as the Introduction puts it; a void inside that results from false life choices carried to their end. His Hell is made of ice, not fire. It is a deadening bureaucracy, rigorously organised into ossified strata, not a chaotic pandemonium of licentiousness and sin. When Dante emerges into the light of the mortal world at the end of Inferno, representing the decision to pursue a fulfilling (Christian) life, the reader shares his relief. (Kirkpatrick's commentary notes this beautifully: once the banality and tedium of evil is witnessed firsthand, even sin becomes insignificant, and "correspondingly the enjoyment of light is the essential duty of any created being" (pg. 448).)
Dante (both the poet and the character) is, in traversing this landscape, undergoing a courageous meditation on how to live properly. This adventure is, the Introduction says, "an attempt to see what the human mind can achieve when… it anatomizes its own psyche and adjusts its own ethical apparatus to achieve a better performance" (pg. lxxix). That's less thrilling, perhaps, than a tumble into a turbulent, out-of-control, fire-and-mayhem inferno (just how did that word come to mean what it means today? Its popularisers must not have even read Dante). But the mechanics are profound, even if – to a modern English-speaking audience – the execution is not.
I found myself admiring Dante's storytelling choices, even when the poem itself was failing to capture me. To end the story with such an anticlimactic adversary – the banal Satan figure – is a decision that I don't think any writer would have the courage to make today. It's perfect for Dante's message in Inferno, but I suspect most writers would prefer to sabotage their own painstakingly-built philosophy rather than conclude with something so lacking in a crowd-pleasing element. I admired the conception of the Seven Circles of Hell – once I understood it – and the decision by Dante to have Virgil, the Roman (and therefore pagan) poet, as his literal guide through the Inferno – is perhaps one of the great magnanimous acts of any artist in history. Given Dante's influence, the central role of Virgil in his story advocates for the moral legitimacy of pagan, Classical tradition in a Christian world, leading to a harmony between classical and Christian thought. Dante's Inferno is, in this crucial respect, a foundation stone for the Renaissance and the Age of Reason.
I would like such a noble conclusion to be my dominant thought, and I am sure that in time my appreciation for Dante's Inferno and its foundational role in Western culture will be my enduring memory of the book. But, for the purposes of review, it is worth reiterating that I found the book and its translation an often unsatisfying trial. I apologise for being such a heretic, and I don't know which circle of Hell such a statement puts me in (I suspect the sixth), but it's my honest, immediate response to finishing the book. I hope – to return to the quote from Dante with which I opened this review – that my theme has been the good I found here, but I was more stimulated by the ideas when they were unpacked in the introduction and the endnotes, even though these were denser than they needed to be. Dante's conceptual genius seeded all this, of course, but it was hard for me to reap. show less
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