Book Description
The "Divine Comedy" was entitled by Dante himself merely "Commedia," meaning a poetic composition in a style intermediate between the sustained nobility of tragedy, and the popular tone of elegy. The word had no dramatic implication at that time, though it did involve a happy ending. The poem is the narrative of a journey down through Hell, up the mountain of Purgatory, and through the revolving heavens into the presence of God. In this aspect it belongs to the two familiar medieval literary types of the Journey and the Vision. It is also an allegory, representing under the symbolism of the stages and experiences of the journey, the history of a human soul, painfully struggling from sin through purification to the Beatific Vision. Contained in this volume is the first part of the "Divine Comedy," the "Inferno" or "Hell," from the translation of Charles Eliot Norton.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book.......2007-07-03
I found Dante's Inferno to be in excellent shape, a great book, and plan on purchasing volumes II and III.
Medieval vision of the afterlife.......2007-05-01
This was required reading for a graduate course in medieval history.
Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321) "Devine Comedy" weaved together aspects of biblical and classical Greek literary traditions to produce one of the most important works of not only medieval literature, but also one of the great literary works of Western civilization. The full impact of this 14,000-line poem divided into 100 cantos and three books is not just literary. Dante's autobiographical poem Commedia, as he titled it, was his look into the individual psyche and human soul. He explored and reflected on such fundamental questions as political institutions and their problems, the nature of humankind's moral actions, and the possibility of spiritual transformation; these were all fundamental social and cultural concerns for people during the fourteenth-century. Dante wrote the Commedia not in Latin but in the Tuscan dialect of Italian so that it would reach a broader readership. The Commedia was a three-part journey undertaken by the pilgrim Dante to the realms of the Christian afterlife: Hell, (Inferno), Purgatory, (Purgatorio), and Paradise, (Paradisio).
The poem narrated in first person, began with Dante lost midlife. He was 35 years old in the year 1300 and in a dark wood. Being lost in the dark wood was certainly an allegorical device that Dante used to express the condition of his own life at the time he started writing the poem. Dante had been active in Florentine politics and a member of the White Guelph party who opposed the secular rule of Pope Boniface VIII over Florence. In 1302, The Black Guelphs who were allied with the Pope, were militarily victorious in gaining control of the city and Dante found himself an exile from his beloved city for the rest of his life. Thus, Dante started writing the Commedia in 1308 and used it to comment on his own tribulations of life, and to state his views on politics and religion, and heap scorn on his political enemies.
Dante's first leg of his journey out of the dark wood was through the nine concentric circles of Hell (Inferno), escorted by his favorite classical Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid. Dante borrowed heavily from Virgil's Aeneid. Much of Dante's description of hell had similarities to Virgil's description in his sixth book of the Aeneid. Dante's three major divisions of sin in hell where unrepentant sinners dwelled, had their sources in Aristotle and Augustinian philosophy. They were self-indulgence, violence, and fraud. Fraud was considered the worst of moral failures because it undermined family, trust, and religion; in essence, it tore at the moral fabric of civilized society. These divisions were inversions of the classical virtues of moderation, courage, and wisdom. The fourth classical virtue, justice, is what Dante came to believe after his journey through hell that all its inhabitants received for their unrepentant sins. There were nine concentric circles of hell inside the earth; each smaller than the previous one. For Dante the geography of hell was a moral geography as well as a physical one, reflecting the nature of the sin. Canto IV describes the first circle of hell, Limbo, which is where Dante met the shades, as souls where called, of the virtuous un-baptized such as Homer, Ovid, Caesar, Aristotle, and Plato.
In the four circles for the sin of self-indulgence Dante met shades who where lustful, gluttons, hoarders and wrathful. In the second circle of Hell, lustful souls were blown around in a violent storm. In Canto V, one of the great dramatic moments of the poem, Dante had his first lengthy encounter with an unrepentant sinner Francesca da Rimini, who committed adultery with her brother-in-law. Like all the sinners in hell, Francesca laid the blame for her sin elsewhere. She claimed to be seduced into committing adultery after reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. At the end of the scene, Dante fainted out of pity for Francesca.
In Canto X, the sixth circle of hell reserved for heretics who are punished by being trapped in flaming tombs, Dante took the opportunity to use the circle to chastise political leaders for participating in political partisanship. A Florentine who was a leader in the rival Ghibbelline political party, Farinata degli Uberti, accosted Dante. Both men aggressively argued with each other, recreating in hell the bitterness of partisan politics in Florence. Farinata predicted Dante's exile. Dante used this Canto to show the dangerous tendencies of petty political partisanship that he harbored.
The seventh circle of hell was subdivided into three areas where sinners were punished for doing violence against themselves, their neighbors, or God. In Canto XIII Dante encountered Pier della Vigne in the wood of the suicides. The shades there were shrubs who had to speak through a broken branch. Pier spoke to Dante about how he had been an important advisor to Emperor Frederick II, and how he blamed his fall, and his suicide, on the envy of other court members. This Canto was especially important because Dante came to grips with his own "future" fall from political power and exile. Pier's behavior served as a strong example to Dante how not to act in exile. Whether he had been tempted to commit suicide is not clear; however, he certainly had been prone to the selfish and despairing attitude that Pier represented.
The last two circles of hell contained the sinners of fraud. In the eighth circle, there were ten ditches for the various types of fraud such as Simony, thievery, hypocrisy, etc. Canto XIX described the third ditch, which contained those guilty of Simony, the sin of church leaders perverting their spiritual office by buying and selling church offices. Simonists were buried upside down in a rock with their feet on fire. Pope Nicholas III mistakenly addressed Dante as Pope Boniface VIII who was the current Pope in 1300, and whose place in hell was thereby predicted. This is not surprising since Boniface was the person most responsible for Dante's exile. In an interesting literary twist, Nicholas "confessed" to Dante, as if he was a priest, his sin of greed and nepotism. He admitted that even after becoming Pope he cared more for his family's interests than the good of the whole Church. Dante responded to Nicholas' "confession" with a stinging condemnation of Simony drawn from the Book of Revelation. After this encounter, Dante came to understand that hell was a place of justice.
Canto XXXIV, the last one in the Inferno, depicted Satan with three heads. Each head was chewing the three worst sinners of humankind. The middle head was chewing on the head of Judas Iscariot, who was a disciple to Jesus and his betrayer. The other two heads were chewing Brutus and Cassius; the murderers of Julius Caesar, and the two men Dante faulted for the destruction of a unified Italy. Dante considered the two ultimate betrayals against God and against the empire as the worst betrayals perpetrated in the history of humankind.
Thus, Dante's intent in his Commedia was to teach fourteenth-century readers that if one wanted to ascend spiritually towards God then one needed to learn the nature of sin from the unrepentant. By doing this, one could learn to overcome the same tendencies found in themselves. He wanted people to realize what he had come to learn that political partisanship would only stand in the way of unifying Italy and keep it from regaining any of its former glory that it enjoyed during the time of the Roman Empire.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in literature and medieval history.
Abandon hope..........2006-11-18
"Midway life's journey I was made aware/that I had strayed into a dark forest..." Those eerie words open the first cantica of Dante Alighieri's "Inferno," the most famous part of the legendary Divina Comedia. But the stuff going on here is anything but divine, as Dante explores the metaphorical and supernatural horrors of the inferno.
The date is Good Friday of the year 1300, and Dante is lost in a creepy dark forest, being assaulted by a trio of beasts who symbolize his own sins. But suddenly he is rescued ("Not man; man I once was") by the legendary poet Virgil, who takes the despondent Dante under his wing -- and down into Hell.
But this isn't a straightforward hell of flames and dancing devils. Instead, it's a multi-tiered carnival of horrors, where different sins are punished with different means. Opportunists are forever stung by insects, the lustful are trapped in a storm, the greedy are forced to battle against each other, and the violent lie in a river of boiling blood, are transformed into thorn bushes, and are trapped on a volcanic desert.
If nothing else makes you feel like being good, then "The Inferno" might change your mind. The author loads up his "Inferno" with every kind of disgusting, grotesque punishment that you can imagine -- and it's all wrapped up in an allegorical journey of humankind's redemption, not to mention dissing the politics of Italy and Florence.
Along with Virgil -- author of the "Aeneid" -- Dante peppered his Inferno with Greek myth and symbolism. Like the Greek underworld, different punishments await different sins; what's more, there are also appearances by harpies, centaurs, Cerberus and the god Pluto. But the sinners are mostly Dante's contemporaries, from corrupt popes to soldiers.
And Dante's skill as a writer can't be denied -- the grotesque punishments are enough to make your skin crawl ("Fixed in the slime, groan they, 'We were sullen and wroth...'"), and the grand finale is Satan himself, with legendary traitors Brutus, Cassius and Judas sitting in his mouths. (Yes, I said MOUTHS, not "mouth")
More impressive still is his ability to weave the poetry out of symbolism and allegory, without it ever seeming preachy or annoying. Even pre-hell, we have a lion, a leopard and a wolf, which symbolize different sins, and a dark forest that indicates suicidal thoughts. And the punishments themselves usually reflect the person's flaws, such as false prophets having their heads twisted around so they can only see what's behind them. Wicked sense of humor.
Dante's vivid writing and wildly imaginative "inferno" makes this the most fascinating, compelling volume of the Divine Comedy. Never fun, but always spellbinding and complicated.
Customer Reviews:
Golden Oldies.......2004-04-12
First of all, a warning: the "Comedy" is a complex work, and we are constantly updating our understanding of it. However, once one has finished whatever annotated and/or translated version is currently at the apex of knowledge, it is well worth going back to Sayers. I would dare to say that this is one of the classic translations, one of the best from that phase of Dante studies (for example, though she is obviously tempted towards a Freudian reading, she actually tries to resist its more absurd results). Its funny how many Danteans still do not get beyond the Inferno...
Sayers Meets Dante: Interpreting the Poet's Voice..........2004-02-21
This review relates to the volume 1 of Dante Alighieri's
-The Divine Comedy-, Hell; Translated by Dorothy L. Sayers,
Penguin Classics, 1949. 346 pp.
Other reviewers have spoken to the perceived weaknesses
and problems with this particular translation and
volume, with Ms. Sayers' "Introduction" and "Notes."
Perhaps one should be warned before entering its portals,
as constructed by Ms. Sayers, that this is not an "easy"
Hell to assimilate.
Yet, at the beginning of her "Introduction," she presents
the offering in an inviting fashion: "The ideal way of
reading -The Divine Comedy- would be to start at the first
line and go straight through to the end, surrendering to
the vigour of the story-telling and the swift movement
of the verse, and not bothering about any historical
allusions or theological explanatios which do not occur
in the text itself. That is how Dante himself tackles
his subject."
Some readers may not find Ms. Sayers' translation to be
one that lends itself to "swift movement of the verse."
The value here, however, is the wealth of information
provided in both the "Introduction", the Notes, and
in the map drawings which clearly help the mind's eye
understand the "lay-out" of Hell as depicted by Dante.
The value of Ms. Sayer's "Introduction" is its clear
presentation of HER view of Dante, his work, his value,
his meaning, and his emphases.
She concentrates on the Images of Hell and on the Christian
doctrine implicit in the work. This translation is in
keeping with that emphasis, for it is structured,
somewhat restricted, and presents "Dante's" voice
as more attuned to the didactic and lecturing. Even the
voices of the denizens of Hell have the tones of
stern lesson-learning rather than evoking pity for
their failed virtue and blind human proclivities.
The problem with some readers, and some viewers of
Christianity, is trying to reconcile the idea of
stern, unrelenting, eternal Judgment and damnation
for sins with the idea of God's eternal Love, or as
Ms. Sayers translates the second tercet of Dante's
*terza rima* on the lintel of the entrance to Hell:
Justice Moved My Great Maker; God Eternal
Wrought Me: The Power, And The Unsearchably
High Wisdom, And The Primal Love Supernal.
Ms. Sayers will have no human shilly-shallying with
Dante's intent or the purpose of Hell. And that,
though it may appall some readers, is to the good;
for it forces the reader to confront whether or not
he or she accepts or does not the Christian doctrinal
views -- and helps the reader to understand the
serious nature of choosing one's faith and one's
religion, or not.
After each Canto, Ms. Sayers uses the same very
helpful devices for explaining the preceding Canto:
first, she discusses the main Images to be found in
that particular Canto in a very clear, full, doctrinal
way -- and then, she has the numbered notes which
explain allusions and phrases which Dante uses in
the work.
For instance, after Canto I, we find: "The Images.
-The Dark Wood- is the image of Sin or Error -- not so
much of any specific act of sin or intellectual perversion
as of that spiritual condition called "hardness of heart",
in which sinfulness has so taken possession of the soul as
to render it incapable of turning to God, or even knowing
which way to turn." Similarly, after Canto III, we find
this note concerning the phrase "the good of intellect":
"In the -Convivio- Dante quotes Aristotle as saying:
'truth is the good of the intellect'. What the lost souls
have lost is not the intellect itself, which still functions
mechanically, but the -good- of the intellect: i.e., the
knowledge of God, who is Truth."
This is an excellent edition for the scope of Ms. Sayers'
medieval scholarship and doctrinal insights. Though it
may be hard sledding for the tender-hearted. There
have always been several ways of seeing the road to
Hell -- in this version, once one strays from the
straight and narrow, there is only the crooked and
pit-full, not pitiful.
-- Robert Kilgore.
A readable translation with helpful notes and introduction.......2002-01-05
Having wanted to read Inferno for a long time, I was glad to find Dorothy Sayers' translation since I value her own writing. I'm no scholar, so I can't compare this critically to the numerous other translations available. I just come looking to enjoy reading and understanding great classic literature on occasion. It takes a great deal of background information to appreciate this work. The Divine Comedy can be examined from many different angles: Poetry, allegory, theology, a spiritual journey, a love story. Sayers' introduction and notes, and the diagrams and drawings in this book were a great help to me. Some may argue that the scholarship is a bit dated, but Sayers clearly loved The Divine Comedy and wanted her readers to appreciate it also. The result of her work was a very interesting reading experience for me, better than I expected. I particularly enjoyed the insights she incorporated into the notes from Charles Williams' book, The Figure of Beatrice. (Sayers dedicated her translation of The Divine Comedy to Williams.) The verse might make it a little more difficult to get the meaning until you get used to it, but I think it's worth the effort. Once I found a good reading pace, I didn't find the rhyming forced as some readers have. (It might seem that way if you look for it.) It must be a difficult thing to try to give readers of English the same experience that Dante's Italian readers had and I think that was Dorothy Sayers' goal. She got me interested enough to take seriously her claim that readers of Dante are cheating themselves if they stop after Inferno. On through Purgatory to Paradise ... It must only get better from here.
A very outdated translation.......2001-04-09
Dorothy Sayers was a fine mystery author and a knowledgable scholar of medieval literature. And once upon a time, this *was* one of the best available translations in English. Times change, however, and new English translations have come along that do a far better job than Sayers' does.
The biggest problem with Sayers translation, in my humble opinion, is her attempt to preserve Dante's rhyme scheme. In her introduction, The fact of that matter is that Italian is a language in which rhymes are frequent, easy, and melodious. In English, having every other line rhyme just sounds cloying and contrived. It also makes the reading more difficult, because of the inverted syntax, archaic vocabulary, and awkward rhythmsand that Sayers has to use in order force the rhymes in there. Oh sure, the fact that she was able to it at all is impressive. But it still doesn't make for a palatable rendition Dante's supple language (which, even to modern Italians reads smoothly and vernacularly, and not at all awkward.) Those who really want some retention of Dante's rhymes would do far better with Robert Pinsky's translation (which uses 'soft rhymes' and doesn't force them when they won't fit). Alan Mandelbaum's and John Ciardi's translations are good too.
Another problem with Sayers edition are the notes. While, on the one hand, they can very helpful to a first-time reader, they are also outdated. If you want to know what Oxford scholars thought about Dante a half-century ago, Sayers notes are great for that. And I don't say that to be dismissive, those 1940's Oxford medievalists had a lot of very good things to say. However, the fact of the matter is that Dante studies-- and medieval scholarship have changed a lot in the past half-century-- and reading her notes is something like reading a half-century old textbook of American history. They leave out a lot of things that probably ought to be discussed.
An even bigger problem with the notes here, I think, is that the author too readily presents her notes as "The Truth" (with a capital "T") about the poem-- as if there were only one correct way to interpret it and its details. Her interpretations are often insightful, suggestive, and they will greatly help the first-time reader-- but they are so didactic in their style that they may overlyy contrain the reader's freedom of interpretation. It's more like she's trying to use her notes to tell you, "The poem means this", rather than using them to background information and context so that you can figure out what *you* think it means on your own.
And, at the risk of sounding like I'm "politically correct", the fact of the matter is that there also are some biases in her notes that, to me, seem rather glaring today. This is particularly evident where she explains why Dante places Mohammed in the part of Hell with the schismatics. Rather than simply pointing out that medieval Christians erroneously believed that Islam began from a schism within Christianity, Sayers uses the occasion to make a few denigrating comments about Islam (which she insists upon referring to as "Mohammedism"). Again, I don't hold this against Sayers per se... She wrote this book among and for a coz y community of Oxford Christians over a half-century ago.... and it's naturally going to be show its colors in that regard. But, for us folks who are reading it today, in the 21st century, well... maybe the notes just need to be updated a bit.
Anyway, when all's said and done, Dante's work is masterful, and even Sayers' awkward translation and outdated notes can't completely conceal that. However, I really think readers would be better off sticking to the Ciardi, Mandelbaum, or Pinsky translations of the _Inferno_. (My preference is for the Pinksy, but to each his own...)
Perfection.......2001-03-06
If Shakespeare's moral is love, Dante's is also. We must not read Divine Comedy with simplicity, even the episode of the sodomites (homosexuals) is ambiguous: Dante praises his master the most. Wasn't it a critic on his time prejudices? Dante holds Middle Ages and surpasses all.
Customer Reviews:
A classic only for $17.98.......2007-06-08
NOTE: Barnes and Noble sells it for only $17.98 in store or online.
Great translation.The classic black and white illustrations by THE master Gustave Dore. A must for your classics library. I bought it at B&N, very happy with the quality of paper and the lay-out.
This title is quite large in size, almost coffee table book style. Not for dragging around the beach.
Highly recommended!
dante, longfellow and dore'.......2007-04-18
this is a beautiful book and contains all three volumes of the divine comedy. the longfellow translation is very clear and readable and i like the fact that he didn't try to reproduce the rhyme. the language is only slightly outdated in places, but i don't mind that since it is a very old poem and the slightly formal language gives it a classic feel. the original woodcut illustrations are wonderful, there are many of them, and the whole thing adds up to a very nice volume.
Customer Reviews:
Divine Comedy.......2003-11-07
This is a fantastic edition of the Inferno. It is the 1st time I've ever read the Divine Comedy besides excerpts attempting to ape the terza rima. While such exerpts are gratifying the way a 3rd generation video tape of a movie may be, it is far more fullfilling to read a 'literal' representation of the Italian text in English and then frame that within the borders of the original Italian. Singleton's notes are also exceptional and lead to a very complex reading of the text. In short, for someone who cannot speak a word of Italian but wants to have the richest reading of the text, from language to content to the culture the poem draws upon, this is the text to purchase. When I complete the Inferno I plan to complete the rest of the Dante's masterpiece with Singleton holding my hand.
CHARLES SINGLETON's translation of Divine Comedy.......1999-04-05
I capitalize CHARLES SINGLETON because amazon.com pile their customer reviews into one long list, admitting no differences between translations. SINGLETON's very literal prose best serves the reader who would read the original Italian, and clarify his reading by referring to the facing English translation. You needn't have studied Italian for this, though some skill in another Romance language is very helpful. But if you insist on getting your terza rima secondhand, read Pinsky's Inferno(Pinsky has yet to bring over the Purgatorio and Paradiso).
Book Description
One of the supreme works of world literature in Peter Dale's contemporary terza rima translation-the best single-volume edition available.
Product Description
The "Divine Comedy" was entitled by Dante himself merely "Comedia,"meaning a poetic composition in a style intermediate between the sustained nobility of tragedy, and the popular tone of elegy." The word had no dramatic implication at that time, though it did involve a happy ending. The poem is the narrative of a journey down through Hell, up the mountain of Purgatory, and through the revolving heavens into the presence of God.
Book Description
Dante's classic work, as translated by Longfellow.
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Dante's Purgatorio (The Divine Comedy, Volume 2, Purgatory) (The Divine Comedy)
Dante's Paradiso (The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise) (The Divine Comedy)
Paradise Lost (Penguin Classics)
Divine Comedy: Inferno (Cliffs Notes)
Dante's Inferno
