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) 99 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
La Divina Commedia. Inferno-Questioni, temi e ricerche. Per le Scuole superiori (Opere di Dante Alighieri) (2002) 7 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca 7 copies
The Divine Comedy (Deluxe Hardcover): Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso — Dante Alighieri’s Timeless Journey Through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven (2025) 7 copies
De goddelijke komedie 2 5 copies
Rejna 7-t4: Le vite di Dante dal 14. al 16. secolo: iconografia dantesca (2017) — Autore in riferimento — 5 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
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
Dantis Alagherii operum latinorum concordantiae, curante Societate Dantea quae est Cantabrigiae in Nova Anglia — Author — 4 copies
Dante: The divine comedy 4 copies
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Vol. 5: Paradise. Italian Text and Verse Translation [Musa] (2005) 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
Opere 1 — Author — 4 copies
La Divina Commedia. Paradiso-Questioni, temi e ricerche. Per le Scuole superiori (Opere di Dante Alighieri) (2002) 4 copies
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Vol. 3: Purgatory: Italian Text and Verse Translation [Musa] (1996) 4 copies
Lírica 4 copies
Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy: Inferno. Text & Commentary(Two Vol. Set) (Volume 1 and 2) (2 Book Series) (1997) 3 copies
Divina Commedia. Per le Scuole superiori. Con e-book. Con espansione online. Purgatorio (Vol. 2) (2016) 3 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Biografia, Opere, Bibliografia, 4 — Author — 3 copies
Florenz - die steinerne Geliebte (die italienischen Originale samt Umdichtungen von Hans Mühlestein) (1997) 3 copies
La Commedia. Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso: Testi scelti. Italienischer Text mit deutschen Worterklärungen. Niveau C1 (GER) (2021) 3 copies
Η ευγλωττία της κοινής γλώσσας 3 copies
????????? ??????? - ?????? 3 copies
Detto d' amore 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
Il Canzoniere 3 copies
Concordanza della Commedia di Dante Alighieri: testo critico del poema, rimario e indice analitico — Author — 3 copies
The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio (Two-Volume-Set) 1: Italian Text and Verse Translation, 2: Commentary [Musa] (2000) 3 copies
8.3: De situ et forma aque et terre — Author — 3 copies
Le opere di Dante Alighieri : edizione nazionale. Volume 7: La Commedia : secondo l'antica vulgata 2 copies
The Divine Comedy: Volume 1: Inferno 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
Le terze rime 2 copies
The Works of Dante 2 copies
Quaestio de aqua et de terra 2 copies
Dante 2 copies
Den guddommelige komedie Purgatoriet 2 copies
Dante col sito et forma dell'Inferno 2 copies
Infernul 2 copies
LA DIVINA COMMEDIA. Edited and Annotated by C. H. Grandgent. Revised by Charles S. Singleton. 2 copies
1948 DANTE DIVINE COMEDY ILLUSTRATED GUSTAVE DORE 69 PRINTS WITH DUST JACKET DJ [Hardcover] DANTE 2 copies
A Mentor classic 2 copies
The first ten cantos of the Inferno 2 copies
The purgatory. (Purgatoria I. XXVII) 2 copies
Dante a tempo di rap 2 copies
Antologia della Commedia. Per le Scuole superiori. Con e-book. Con espansione online (2016) 2 copies
La Divina Commedia Angelica 2 copies
Tutti le Opere Dr. E. Moore 2 copies
La Vita Nuova Fraticelli 2 copies
Canzoniere (Fraticelli), 2 vols. 2 copies
La Divina Commedia : schemi, analisi e commento critico dei singoli canti. 2, Purgatorio : testo integrale (1979) 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: O - Pis 12 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Lun - N 11 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Ris - Sol 14 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Som - Tr 15 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Tu - Z 16 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca, x10. Gro-Lum 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca, 9. Fed-Gri 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca, 8. Des-Fec 2 copies
La Divina Commedia: testi, strumenti, percorsi: antologia della Divina Commedia con schede critiche, strumenti didattici e percorsi tematici (1999) 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca, 7. Ch-Der — Author — 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca, 6. Av-Ce — Author — 2 copies
I quattro poeti italiani: Dante, Petrarca, Ariosto, Tasso [lacks Dante and all pages up to p. 140] 2 copies
A Divina Comédia Vol 2/2 2 copies
Enciclopedia dantesca: Pit - Rip 13 2 copies
Comento di Christophoro Landino fiorentino sopra La comedia di Danthe Alighieri poeta fiorentino 2 copies, 1 review
La letteratura italiana. Storia e Testi. Volume 5 - Tomo I - Parte II Convivio — Author — 2 copies
A Mentor book 2 copies
Rime della maturità e dell'esilio 2 copies
Readings On the Inferno of Dante: Based Upon the Commentary of Benvenuto Da Imola and Other Authorities; Volume 2 (2018) 2 copies
Dante Alighieri Monarquia 2 copies
Paradiso 1 copy
Oeuvres de Dante Alighieri 1 copy
A reference grammar of medieval Italian according to Dante, with a dual language edition of the Vita Nova (1997) 1 copy
Poetas de Dante 1 copy
OBRA COMPLETA 1 copy
Works of Dante 1 copy
On Monarchy 1 copy
Manoscritto n. 3 1 copy
A Divina Comédia II 1 copy
Dante - Ed. Verbo 1 copy
A Divina Comédia I 1 copy
Pagine scelte dalle opere 1 copy
Obras completas vol.1 1 copy
Inferno Vol.2 1 copy
Le Paradis Tome 2 1 copy
Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia: Codex Altonensis [facsimile] und Kommentar zum Codex Altonensis 1 copy
L'enfer, Tome 2 1 copy
INFERNUL VOL2 1 copy
Dante og Beatrice 1 copy
Jest tylko Beatrycze 1 copy
İlahi Komedya: Cehennem 1 copy
Divine Comédie (extraits) / Divina commedia (estratti). Edition bilingue français-italien (2007) 1 copy
La Divina Commedia-Le parole della Divina Commedia. Dizionario attivo. Per le Scuole superiori (2008) 1 copy
İlahi Komedya: Araf 1 copy
La commedia Introduzione 1 copy
İlahi Komedya: Cennet 1 copy
INFERNUL VOL1 1 copy
Божественная комедия 1 copy
Purgatoriul 1 copy
Paradisul 1 copy
L288 - A divina comédia 1 copy
The Divine Comedy (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature) by Dante Alighieri (2009) Paperback 1 copy
Zaljubljeno more 1 copy
Divina comedia |Paraíso 1 copy
Собрание сочинений: Т. 2: Новая жизнь; Пир; О народном красноречии; Монархия; Стихотворения (2001) 1 copy
Divine poem 1 copy
FERRI 1 copy
Poesía 1 copy
Inferno-Purgatorio-Paradiso 1 copy
Dante Alighieri 1 copy
Divine Comedy (Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classic Collection) by Dante Alighieri (2016-08-04) 1 copy
A divina comédia 2 1 copy
Divina Comédia. Vol.2 1 copy
Divina Comedia. Vol.1 1 copy
Dantes Werke 1 copy
Opere di Dante Aligheri 1 copy
Inferno - La Divina Commedia 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
A divina comédia 1 copy
Dante Autograph 1 copy
Die G�ottliche Kom�odie 1 copy
Die Göttliche Komödie 1 copy
Opere 1 copy
La divina commedia . Vollständiger Text, mit Erläuterungen , Grammatik , Glossar und sieben Tafeln 1 copy
Il Paranasso Italiano 1 copy
La Cumégia 1 copy
DANTE-CHAUCER 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's Inferno [Annotated] 1 copy
The Divine Comedy With Side-By-Side Modern English Translation (Classics Retold Side-By-Side Book 2) (2015) 1 copy
The Aeneid - 04 1 copy
Commento alla Divina Commedia d'anonimo fiorentino del secolo 14., ora per la prima volta stampato 1 copy
Opera omnia 2 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
nel mezzo del cammin.... 1 copy
Classici Italiani Commentati 1 copy
12 sonnetti 1 copy
Seleção de textos 1 copy
A Divina Comédia - vol 1/2 1 copy
Antologia dantesca 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
Classic Epic Poems 1 copy
2 1 copy
o paraíso 1 copy
Nuova edizione commentata delle opere di Dante. Divina Commedia. Purgatorio (Vol. 6/2) (2026) 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
Dantes Gœttliche komœdie in bildern von Gustav Doré — Contributor — 1 copy
Cennet (İlahi Komedya, #3) 1 copy
Cehennem (İlahi Komedya, #1) 1 copy
Divina Comedie, Vol I 1 copy
La Divina Commedia - The Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso) Illustrada (Italian Edition) (2012) 1 copy
℗Il ℗fiore: Il detto d'amore 1 copy
La Divine Comédie de Dante Alighieri: l'Enfer. Tome 1 (Éd.1835-1837) (Litterature) (French Edition) (2012) 1 copy
The Divine Comedy: Inferno (Princeton Hardcover : Singleton translation : Italian Text and Translation) (1970) 1 copy
A Divina Comédia (Volume 1) 1 copy
Božská komédia Peklo 1 copy
The Divine Comedy: Paradise 1 copy
The Divine Comedy: Purgatory 1 copy
Božská komédia Raj 1 copy
Božská komédia Očistec 1 copy
La monarchia 1 copy
Božanska komedija : pekel 1 copy
Associated Works
World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time (1998) — Contributor — 499 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
"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
Dante’s famous The Divine Comedy lies at the intersection of art and theology. I love artful renditions of theology. Further, it is known as the best work of poetry ever to grace the language of Italian. Therefore, I decided to look for a good translation. I’ve enjoyed Longfellow’s poetry in the past, and when I saw that he undertook an adaptation, I chose to give it a go.
Unfortunately, Longfellow seemed to stick a little too close to the Latin roots of the original Italian. Many show more English words seemed to represent Latinized English rather than modern Anglo English. Dante wrote in the vernacular, not in Latin, the language of scholars. The result? This translation seems to consistently choose words that confuse the reader more than convey to her/him the spirit of Dante’s language. The artfulness of Dante’s original is maintained, especially in consistent alliterations. However, entirely gone is Dante’s appeal to the people.
The vivid, memorable scenes of the Inferno are lost in Longfellow’s poetic sophistication. Having read widely in history, I’m quite used to archaic writing. This work, however, takes archaisms to a new standard. Entire sentences are rendered in a Victorian manner that is based on classical languages instead of common English. The result deludes rather than enlightens. Again, this was not Dante’s intent.
Yes, Longfellow was a professor of Italian at Harvard. Yes, he is an acclaimed poet, one of the best that America has ever produced. This work does not bring the best outcome from his skill. He appeals to a highbrow readership whose style was more in vogue during his century. It’s out of touch with modern sentiment, and it’s out of touch with Dante’s appeal to the masses. Dante may guide us from Hades through purgatory and into paradise; unfortunately, Longfellow’s ethereal language does not convey the beauty of the original, and as such he leaves us in the hell of ignorance instead of the heavenly bliss of true knowledge.
If you want to experience Dante’s beautiful imagery, try another translation. There exist plenty that do the trick. Longfellow’s translation requires a nearby dictionary and plenty of stamina. show less
Unfortunately, Longfellow seemed to stick a little too close to the Latin roots of the original Italian. Many show more English words seemed to represent Latinized English rather than modern Anglo English. Dante wrote in the vernacular, not in Latin, the language of scholars. The result? This translation seems to consistently choose words that confuse the reader more than convey to her/him the spirit of Dante’s language. The artfulness of Dante’s original is maintained, especially in consistent alliterations. However, entirely gone is Dante’s appeal to the people.
The vivid, memorable scenes of the Inferno are lost in Longfellow’s poetic sophistication. Having read widely in history, I’m quite used to archaic writing. This work, however, takes archaisms to a new standard. Entire sentences are rendered in a Victorian manner that is based on classical languages instead of common English. The result deludes rather than enlightens. Again, this was not Dante’s intent.
Yes, Longfellow was a professor of Italian at Harvard. Yes, he is an acclaimed poet, one of the best that America has ever produced. This work does not bring the best outcome from his skill. He appeals to a highbrow readership whose style was more in vogue during his century. It’s out of touch with modern sentiment, and it’s out of touch with Dante’s appeal to the masses. Dante may guide us from Hades through purgatory and into paradise; unfortunately, Longfellow’s ethereal language does not convey the beauty of the original, and as such he leaves us in the hell of ignorance instead of the heavenly bliss of true knowledge.
If you want to experience Dante’s beautiful imagery, try another translation. There exist plenty that do the trick. Longfellow’s translation requires a nearby dictionary and plenty of stamina. show less
54. Paradiso by Dante Alighieri
translation and notes: Jean Hollander & Robert Hollander
published: 1320, translation 2007
format: 956-page Paperback, with original Italian, translation and notes
acquired: September 2019
read: Sep 1 – Nov 9
time reading: 53 hr 53 min, 3.4 min/page
rating: 5
locations: 😇
about the author: Florentine poet, c. 1265 – 1321
A very different feel to this than Inferno or Purgatorio. There is a lot less narrative, and especially a lot less personal narrative. The show more short entertaining personal biographies are replaced with long, idea heavy speeches on theological issues, with philosophical explorations and a close look at St. Thomas, who is somewhat personified by Beatrice. It's also oddly all a little impersonal. When Dante sees what is essentially God, his questions are on the physics of the place. But curiosity drives all and book ends by Dante essentially saying the wheels of his mind are still churning.
This is a kind of science fiction as Dante travels through space - to the moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in that order. (Each is a reference to a virtue. They are, in order, faith, hope, love, prudence, fortitude, justice and temperance.) The sun is a highlight and includes a somewhat famous dance of the stars. Whereas Saturn is mostly silent, as a place of contemplation. Each is a higher level of heaven. From Saturn Beatrice takes Dante to the starry sphere, in a way, outer space, and then up the Jacob's ladder to a crystalline sphere and then finally to Empyrean, a place where the saved souls of heaven reside in a kind of rose and listen to heavenly music. Here angels travel from God to the souls, acting like bees, bringing the nectar of god's love to the rose of saved souls. But when Dante turns to ask Beatrice about this, this Beatrice, "my sweet beloved guide", who has become more beautiful with each stage of the book, to points were Dante cannot handle her beauty, he finds in her place in old man. Beatrice has completed her mission with him and taken her own place in the rose. Dante will complete his own mission with this St. Bernard.
A few of these cantos have been criticized down the ages as essentially non-poetic philosophy, and some as outright dull. The many references within references are so obscure that some took hundreds of years to decipher and some remain mysterious making this some work. (Although the Hollander notes did all the work for the reader and it was more than enough and well appreciated. I found it interesting that Hollander argues Paradise probably needed more refinement and Dante ran out of time.) But it has many more meaningful moments than dull ones. Dante's prayer to Beatrice and St. Bernard's prayer to Mary near the end standout as quite beautiful and elegantly constructed.
Purgatory was Dante's mastery of his will. Paradise is where he learns mastery of his intellect. The desire of god and knowledge combined to one, the truth inseparable, expressed in a variety of ways, including ones that are sexually charged: “for drawing near to its desire, so deeply is our intellect immersed that memory cannot follow after it." But Dante is on a serious mission. He is trying to reason out the contractions of free will and an all knowing god, obsessed with justice not found on earth, and the contradiction of Christ's crucifixion (using his predecessors as guides). When he writes "the glory of the vengeance for His wrath” - the reference to is to Christ's sacrifice, and to the justice of it! Dante's world explains that this crucifixion was the only possible way to resolve Adam's original sin.
As in all these books, Paradise is heavily political for Dante and his age. And there are many personal elements. His ancestor prophesizes his exile, telling him “you shall learn how salt is the taste of another man’s bread and how hard is the way, going down and then up another man’s stairs." The down and up the stairs a reference to hoping for better news of his exile and failing to find it. He mentions in backhanded way that he personally prays to Mary twice day. And he always wonders about his world. Looking down from space, he see “the little patch of earth that makes us here so fierce”, and late in the Paradise asks God to “look down upon our tempests here below”. Rapture is had, even if Dante can't capture it because (1) he wasn't able to take it all in, (2) he isn't able to remember all of what he experienced and (3) he isn't able to express what he remembers in words. But it left him thinking.
2020
https://www.librarything.com/topic/322920#7326521 show less
translation and notes: Jean Hollander & Robert Hollander
published: 1320, translation 2007
format: 956-page Paperback, with original Italian, translation and notes
acquired: September 2019
read: Sep 1 – Nov 9
time reading: 53 hr 53 min, 3.4 min/page
rating: 5
locations: 😇
about the author: Florentine poet, c. 1265 – 1321
A very different feel to this than Inferno or Purgatorio. There is a lot less narrative, and especially a lot less personal narrative. The show more short entertaining personal biographies are replaced with long, idea heavy speeches on theological issues, with philosophical explorations and a close look at St. Thomas, who is somewhat personified by Beatrice. It's also oddly all a little impersonal. When Dante sees what is essentially God, his questions are on the physics of the place. But curiosity drives all and book ends by Dante essentially saying the wheels of his mind are still churning.
This is a kind of science fiction as Dante travels through space - to the moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in that order. (Each is a reference to a virtue. They are, in order, faith, hope, love, prudence, fortitude, justice and temperance.) The sun is a highlight and includes a somewhat famous dance of the stars. Whereas Saturn is mostly silent, as a place of contemplation. Each is a higher level of heaven. From Saturn Beatrice takes Dante to the starry sphere, in a way, outer space, and then up the Jacob's ladder to a crystalline sphere and then finally to Empyrean, a place where the saved souls of heaven reside in a kind of rose and listen to heavenly music. Here angels travel from God to the souls, acting like bees, bringing the nectar of god's love to the rose of saved souls. But when Dante turns to ask Beatrice about this, this Beatrice, "my sweet beloved guide", who has become more beautiful with each stage of the book, to points were Dante cannot handle her beauty, he finds in her place in old man. Beatrice has completed her mission with him and taken her own place in the rose. Dante will complete his own mission with this St. Bernard.
A few of these cantos have been criticized down the ages as essentially non-poetic philosophy, and some as outright dull. The many references within references are so obscure that some took hundreds of years to decipher and some remain mysterious making this some work. (Although the Hollander notes did all the work for the reader and it was more than enough and well appreciated. I found it interesting that Hollander argues Paradise probably needed more refinement and Dante ran out of time.) But it has many more meaningful moments than dull ones. Dante's prayer to Beatrice and St. Bernard's prayer to Mary near the end standout as quite beautiful and elegantly constructed.
Purgatory was Dante's mastery of his will. Paradise is where he learns mastery of his intellect. The desire of god and knowledge combined to one, the truth inseparable, expressed in a variety of ways, including ones that are sexually charged: “for drawing near to its desire, so deeply is our intellect immersed that memory cannot follow after it." But Dante is on a serious mission. He is trying to reason out the contractions of free will and an all knowing god, obsessed with justice not found on earth, and the contradiction of Christ's crucifixion (using his predecessors as guides). When he writes "the glory of the vengeance for His wrath” - the reference to is to Christ's sacrifice, and to the justice of it! Dante's world explains that this crucifixion was the only possible way to resolve Adam's original sin.
As in all these books, Paradise is heavily political for Dante and his age. And there are many personal elements. His ancestor prophesizes his exile, telling him “you shall learn how salt is the taste of another man’s bread and how hard is the way, going down and then up another man’s stairs." The down and up the stairs a reference to hoping for better news of his exile and failing to find it. He mentions in backhanded way that he personally prays to Mary twice day. And he always wonders about his world. Looking down from space, he see “the little patch of earth that makes us here so fierce”, and late in the Paradise asks God to “look down upon our tempests here below”. Rapture is had, even if Dante can't capture it because (1) he wasn't able to take it all in, (2) he isn't able to remember all of what he experienced and (3) he isn't able to express what he remembers in words. But it left him thinking.
But now my will and my desire, like wheels revolving
with an even motion, were turning with
the love that moves the sun and all the stars
2020
https://www.librarything.com/topic/322920#7326521 show less
Dante’s Divine Comedy is famously organized into three sections: hell (inferno), then purgatory, and finally paradise. The first section (hell) is generally considered the greatest of the three, and Robert Pinsky attempts to re-translate the verses in this edition. Dante intentionally wrote the Divine Comedy in the Italian of commoners (instead of the Latin of scholars) so that the masses could read it. Therefore, it is appropriate for Pinsky to translate the Inferno in a way that the show more average modern reader can understand. In my view, he is successful in this attempt.
The pilgrim/narrator, who is an everyman living on earth, is guided into hell by Virgil, who is considered a great pagan living in the outer circles of hell. The Inferno represents a dystopia that only gets worse as one descends into the center. Its story of vices, not virtues, vividly portray the tragedy of the human condition, filled with thieves, betrayers, lusters, and hypocrites. One’s condition while alive on earth is only amplified in the afterlife. Although wedded to the Christian tradition, this version of hell is most representative of the ancient Romans and Greeks.
Images like Brutus (who betrayed Julius Caesar) and Judas Iscariot (who betrayed Jesus Christ) sitting near the center of hell still fill the western psyche. Lucifer (Satan) sits at the center of hell, which lies at the center of earth. These images continue to fill popular culture and stem from Dante’s imagination more than Judeo-Christian Scriptures. The story of the Inferno is very dark and reminds the reader of darker parts of her/his own experiences on earth. Ironically, for Dante, hell is not a place of fire and brimstone but of self-absorption and never-ending sadness.
Many in the modern world will reject Dante’s conception of the universe, which is based on medieval adaptations of Greco-Roman philosophy. We are much more scientific and not as otherworldly. Our concept of virtues and vices likewise correspond with our modern consciousness. Judas Iscariot and Brutus are not our archenemies as much as Hitler and Stalin. To the modern ear, Dante’s world seems utterly foreign. Nonetheless, Dante’s dark imagery (from the 1300s) will remind the reader of human nature today. Dante’s conception of the afterlife starts in the present-life.
That’s why the modern reader should still attend to Dante, despite his medieval bearings. He understands human nature well. His poetic imagery is poignant and clairvoyant. He represents eras of human history that the literate public should not forget. Pinsky’s modern translation makes him once again accessible. show less
The pilgrim/narrator, who is an everyman living on earth, is guided into hell by Virgil, who is considered a great pagan living in the outer circles of hell. The Inferno represents a dystopia that only gets worse as one descends into the center. Its story of vices, not virtues, vividly portray the tragedy of the human condition, filled with thieves, betrayers, lusters, and hypocrites. One’s condition while alive on earth is only amplified in the afterlife. Although wedded to the Christian tradition, this version of hell is most representative of the ancient Romans and Greeks.
Images like Brutus (who betrayed Julius Caesar) and Judas Iscariot (who betrayed Jesus Christ) sitting near the center of hell still fill the western psyche. Lucifer (Satan) sits at the center of hell, which lies at the center of earth. These images continue to fill popular culture and stem from Dante’s imagination more than Judeo-Christian Scriptures. The story of the Inferno is very dark and reminds the reader of darker parts of her/his own experiences on earth. Ironically, for Dante, hell is not a place of fire and brimstone but of self-absorption and never-ending sadness.
Many in the modern world will reject Dante’s conception of the universe, which is based on medieval adaptations of Greco-Roman philosophy. We are much more scientific and not as otherworldly. Our concept of virtues and vices likewise correspond with our modern consciousness. Judas Iscariot and Brutus are not our archenemies as much as Hitler and Stalin. To the modern ear, Dante’s world seems utterly foreign. Nonetheless, Dante’s dark imagery (from the 1300s) will remind the reader of human nature today. Dante’s conception of the afterlife starts in the present-life.
That’s why the modern reader should still attend to Dante, despite his medieval bearings. He understands human nature well. His poetic imagery is poignant and clairvoyant. He represents eras of human history that the literate public should not forget. Pinsky’s modern translation makes him once again accessible. show less
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