Jumalainen näytelmä: Paratiisi

Dante's classic poem of his journeys through hell and heaven.

Un classico in un'edizione davvero prestigiosa.

Extraordinary illustrations...Gustave Dore....Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In finally sitting down and reading the entire Divine Comedy, I can now see why The Inferno is usually separated from Purgatorio & Paradiso. The Inferno is captivating and paints vivid pictures of what Dante &. Virgil are seeing and experiencing. However Purgatorio & Paradiso seemed to lack this each in their own way. Purgatorio was still able to paint the pictures but not quite as vividly. Perhaps the subject matter was not as captivating as well. Dante certainly had the gift of making Purgatory feel not too bad but also not too good. In Paradiso we switch guides from Virgil to Beatrice. It is then that Dante seems to loose his focus on his surroundings and turns toward fauning over Beatrice's beauty. I figured that the Canto with God in it would have been a bit more powerful & profound. Lucifer's appearance was more awe inspiring than God's. Don't get me wrong, I give credit to the absolute classic that this work is, however I think there are some issues with it from a reader's standpoint. When all of the action is over in the 1st portion of the book it becomes a chore to finish reading it. All-in-all this entire work was beautifully written in the terza rima rhyme scheme which adds a bit of romance to every line read. I have to mention that I think it's funny how people get the details of this work confused with The Holy Bible. There in itself stands testement to how amazing this work has been throughout history. Despite my personal issues with reading it I am honored to have read such famous and renouned piece of historical literature.

In finally sitting down and reading the entire Divine Comedy, I can now see why The Inferno is usually separated from Purgatorio & Paradiso. The Inferno is captivating and paints vivid pictures of what Dante &. Virgil are seeing and experiencing. However Purgatorio & Paradiso seemed to lack this each in their own way. Purgatorio was still able to paint the pictures but not quite as vividly. Perhaps the subject matter was not as captivating as well. Dante certainly had the gift of making Purgatory feel not too bad but also not too good. In Paradiso we switch guides from Virgil to Beatrice. It is then that Dante seems to loose his focus on his surroundings and turns toward fauning over Beatrice's beauty. I figured that the Canto with God in it would have been a bit more powerful & profound. Lucifer's appearance was more awe inspiring than God's. Don't get me wrong, I give credit to the absolute classic that this work is, however I think there are some issues with it from a reader's standpoint. When all of the action is over in the 1st portion of the book it becomes a chore to finish reading it. All-in-all this entire work was beautifully written in the terza rima rhyme scheme which adds a bit of romance to every line read. I have to mention that I think it's funny how people get the details of this work confused with The Holy Bible. There in itself stands testement to how amazing this work has been throughout history. Despite my personal issues with reading it I am honored to have read such famous and renouned piece of historical literature.

Dore illustrations. Beautiful!

One of the absolute summits of western (arguably, world) literature.The general outline is well-enough known: Dante has a vision (on Easter weekend, 1300) in which he visits Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. (The vision frame is external to the poem itself; the Dante inside the poem is the dreamer from the very beginning.) He is guided through the first two realms (well, all of Hell and most of Purgatory) by Virgil, and through the rest of Purgatory and all of Heaven by Beatrice, the focus of his early work La Vita Nuova. He begins in a dark wood, "selva oscura" and ends with the beatific vision of the union of the Christian Trinity and the Aristotelian unmoved mover: "l'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle".On its way he maintains a multi-level allegory, fills it with an encyclopaedia of his day's science, history, and theology, carries out an extended argument regarding the (sad) politics of his day and of his beloved Florence, from which he was an exile, and does so in verse which stays at high level of virtuosity throughout. It's the sort of thing that writers like Alanus de Insulis tried in a less ambitious way and failed (well, failed by comparison: who except specialists reads the De Planctu Naturae these days?).There is no equivalent achievement, and very few at the same level. This would get six stars if they were available.

Throughout The Divine Comedy Dante claims that his is no mere story, but a vision granted to him by the divine. While your personal faith probably plays a role in how you assess that claim, one thing is certain: Dante was a visionary, and The Divine Comedy contains some of the most stunning imagery you'll find in literature. Everyone has heard of Dante's nine circles of hell, but how many know that the ninth circle is surrounded by a living wall of giants, chained for their rebellion? Or that the mountain of purgatory is the land that was thrust up by Lucifer's fall, and atop it sits the Garden of Eden? Or that in paradise the souls of all the protectors of humanity form a huge eagle that addresses Dante, the eagle being formed of countless souls that shine like rubies in the sunlight? Not to mention the ultimate image Dante gives us, of the highest realm of heaven, wherein every soul that has reached paradise joins together to take the shape of a white rose, with God at its center.

It's beautiful stuff, and even in translation Dante's prose proves up to the task of describing it. From the opening of Inferno where Dante has lost his way to the final lines of each canticle that draw our minds to the stars, Dante is a masterful writer. Not only that, but he's an assertive writer as well. While I could easily imagine an author falling back on his beautiful writing and delivering only a milquetoast moral stance (and indeed, Dante mentions this temptation), in The Divine Comedy Dante makes his opinions known on issues large and small. He's not afraid to criticize the practice of blood feuds, or to pillory different orders of monks, or even to call out the leadership of the Church and the rulers of Italy. He places popes and kings in the fires of hell just as readily as he does false prophets and foreign conquerers.

In addition to this, The Divine Comedy serves as perhaps the best memorial for a lost love to ever be written. Dante's first love Beatrice, dead before he began work on The Divine Comedy, is not only placed by Dante among the highest ranks of paradise, but it is through her mercy and care that Dante is granted his vision of the divine. She is credited with not only inspiring his pen, but with saving his soul as well. Through this work Dante immortalizes his lost love, and if there is a love letter that can compare I don't know of it.

The work isn't without its flaws. Paradiso has several cantos that focus on Dante's take on cosmology or astrophysics that aren't only clearly wrong under our modern understanding, but that don't flow particularly well either. They're like Melville's chapters on whale classification in Moby Dick- they struck me as more distracting than atmospheric. Paradiso is also rife with Dante raising theological questions, only to give them unsatisfying answers. I wish Dante had given us more of his brilliant descriptions instead of trying his hand at reconciling the nature of God with real world events. Occasionally in Inferno it feels as though Dante is sticking it to the people he doesn't like in life at the expense of the flow of the canto, while at other times it feels as though Dante is making an exception for historical figures he really liked at the expense of the logic of the divine system he has described (Cato being the prime example, but various Roman and Greek figures throughout raise this issue). Still, these complaints are minor. It's a vision, after all, and so the lack of a concrete system with steadfast rules isn't surprising.

It's the journey that counts, not the destination, and Dante gives us one hell of a journey. It's an epic sightseeing trip through the world of Christian theology, a world that is still heavily influenced by the myths and scholars of ancient Rome and Greece. Though it's not perfect, it's great, and well worth your time.

A true classic that everyone should read but, unfortunately, few will genuinely appreciate. You travel the afterlife from Hell through Purgatory and arrive in Heaven. Along the way you meet various souls (some of whom Dante had been ticked at who today are not known) and realize the very Catholic approach to redemption.

Wow! All I can say is what a pleasurable and enriching experience to have had the opportunity to listen to Dante's legendary poetry read aloud. The only metaphorical example I can think of is the difference between watching an epic film (like "Life of Pi") in 2D or 3D.

Yes! Dante's Divine Comedy book vs. audiobook is on the same proportional movie-going scale! I highly recommend indulging yourself with this audiobook. It's one you'll want to purchase, not borrow!

It is a wonderful read if you have footnotes to understand who the people he is talking about is. I found it fascinating and I hope that I finish it someday.

Contains some wonderful imagery, but seems rather obsolete in certain sections. Still a masterful writing display though, which has had its impact over the last centuries.

If you want the Italian text, with notes in English, you might track down the Grandgent/Singleton Divina Commedia published in (I think) 1972. (There's another, older, one with only Grandgent as editor.)

DRAFT notes - the neologism "trasumanar" in canto 1 of Paradiso (to go beyond the human). Why did Dante coin this new word? At this time in his day.Some of the metaphors sound somehow mixed or even wrong: In the Tuscan, "nel lago del cor m'era durata". Does the "hardening lake of my heart" prefigure the revelation at the end of the Inferno that its deepest pit is frozen? Is the not-burning, a pious reader surprise?

Quintessential tale of recovery - The way out is for Dante to journey deeper into Hell.

In finally sitting down and reading the entire Divine Comedy, I can now see why The Inferno is usually separated from Purgatorio & Paradiso. The Inferno is captivating and paints vivid pictures of what Dante &. Virgil are seeing and experiencing. However Purgatorio & Paradiso seemed to lack this each in their own way. Purgatorio was still able to paint the pictures but not quite as vividly. Perhaps the subject matter was not as captivating as well. Dante certainly had the gift of making Purgatory feel not too bad but also not too good. In Paradiso we switch guides from Virgil to Beatrice. It is then that Dante seems to loose his focus on his surroundings and turns toward fauning over Beatrice's beauty. I figured that the Canto with God in it would have been a bit more powerful & profound. Lucifer's appearance was more awe inspiring than God's. Don't get me wrong, I give credit to the absolute classic that this work is, however I think there are some issues with it from a reader's standpoint. When all of the action is over in the 1st portion of the book it becomes a chore to finish reading it. All-in-all this entire work was beautifully written in the terza rima rhyme scheme which adds a bit of romance to every line read. I have to mention that I think it's funny how people get the details of this work confused with The Holy Bible. There in itself stands testement to how amazing this work has been throughout history. Despite my personal issues with reading it I am honored to have read such famous and renouned piece of historical literature.

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 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.

Siempre creí que como este libro es un clásico de la época medieval iba a ser aburrido, pero no es así. Esta claro que no es una lectura sencilla. Utiliza demasiadas figuras muy rebuscadas y para comprenderlas se debe de tener un amplia conocimiento de la cultura occidental, principalmente de la religión, los personajes bíblicos y la mitología latina. También es necesario conocer de la sociedad en la que Dante vivía. Sin embargo, siempre que lograba entender una figura especialmente rebuscada sentía que era un gran logro. Para este libro me ayudó mucho el prólogo que hablaba de los números que están presentes en la obra, aunque supongo que si hubiera leído una edición con anotaciones se me hubiera hecho más fácil. A veces puede ser tedioso, pero en general es una buena novela y una lectura compleja

I've been lost in the forest before. The worst that has ever happened to me was a bit of confusion and a late supper.When Dante got lost ..."Midway upon the journey of our lifeI found myself within a forest dark,For the straightforward pathway had been lost.Ah me! how hard a thing it is to sayWhat was this forest savage, rough, and stern,Which in the very thought renews the fear."(Inferno, I:1-6)Instead of making it home for dinner, he took an epic journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. He begins in fear, he ends in love:"The Love which moves the sun and the other stars" (Paradiso, XXXIII:145).I've been meaning to read this classic for years. When I saw Barnes & Noble's beautiful leather-bound edition, I couldn't resist.Reading it was a challenge. It's not every day you read a Nineteenth century English translation of a Fourteenth Century Italian text in verse! With the help of a dictionary app and SparkNotes, I fell into the rhythm of the poem and began to understand it. Reading the text aloud (even muttering the cadence under my breath) helped immensely.I'm not qualified to comment on the literary merit of this classic, or the translation. I'll keep my comments to theological issues.*** Go to Hell! ***Dante wrote his masterpiece in exile. He found himself on the wrong side of political power and was banished from his home in Florence on trumped-up charges (xi).The Germans have a word, schadenfreude, which refers to the joy taken at someone else's misfortune. It's not a very flattering quality, but one Dante seems to enjoy. When he arrived in the sixth circle of hell, he wandered around tombs that held heretics who were tortured."Upon a sudden issued forth this soundFrom out one of the tombs; wherefore I pressed,Fearing, a little nearer to my Leader.And unto me he said: "Turn thee; what dost thou?Behold there Farinata who has risen;From the waist upwards wholly shalt thous see him."(Inferno X:28-33)The character from the crypt was none other than Farinata, his real life political enemy. What do you do with a political enemy from earth? Stick him in your literary hell! This is where an annotated text is very helpful (unless you're up-to-date with the people of Fourteenth Century Florence).Unfortunately, Dante's pattern for dealing with some of his enemies has been followed many times in church history. Instead of doing the hard work of loving your enemy, it's easier to just demonize him.*** Highway to Hell ***My edition of The Divine Comedy is filled with illustrations from Gustave Doré. These illustrations taught me something: hell is far more exciting and interesting than heaven. Inferno is far more frequently and graphically illustrated than Paradiso.This attitude—the idea that heaven is boring and hell is exciting—is still around. Perhaps AC/DC popularized it the best:"Ain't nothin' that I'd rather doGoin' downParty timeMy friends are gonna be there tooI'm on the highway to hell"Dante's hell is full of all sorts of interesting (if sadistic) tortures. Some people are burned alive, some turn into trees whose limbs are pecked at by Harpies, some are boiled alive in a river of blood, some are shat upon. Literally. Poop falls from the sky. I'm sure a psychiatrist would have a field day with Dante!If you squint, you can read this torture as divine justice in the light of God's holiness. Realistically, it's another sad example of schadenfreude. Someone needs to go back in time and give him a copy of VanBalthasar's Dare We Hope?*** Disembodied Heaven & the Impassable Deity ***I always knew that I disagreed with Dante's view of hell. I was surprised by how much I disagreed with his heaven—and his Trinity!Dante's God is an Aristotelian construct mediated by Aquinas:"O grace abundant, by which I presumedTo fix my sight upon the Light Eternal,So that the seeing I consumed therein!...Substance, and accident, and their operations,All infused together in such wiseThat what I speak of is one simple light....Withing the deep and luminous substanceOf the High Light appeared to me three circles,Of threefold color and of one dimension,"(Paradiso XXXIII:82-84, 88-90, 115-117)God, for Dante, is an immovable point of perfect light. Three circles symbolize the Trinity, with three different coloured lights. All manifold colours emanate from this point. The heavenly spheres (the planets), all rotate around this point as do the various levels of heavenly worshipers. There is nothing to do in heaven but to be consumed in contemplation.That sounds spiritual, but it's nowhere near biblical. Biblical metaphors include a throne with a blood-stained lamb. Biblical metaphors speak of a river with trees of life lining the banks. Dante's God is a philosophical idea. I'll stick with the Holy One of Israel who breathed his breath into this dust and called it good.Dante's Divine Comedy is a challenging and interesting work to read. Just don't confuse literature with theology.

Hell is fun! in book form.

After a run of newer contemporary novels it can be refreshing to throw oneself into a classic, and it was something of a relief for me to delve into something with a meaty history—and Dante’s Inferno definitely has a meaty history! The Inferno is one of those books that you can’t read without feeling that you’re part of something. It references so many works of literature, and has itself been referenced by so many later works, that just reading it makes you feel a part of something. (It also makes you somehow feel both inadequate and incredibly intelligent all at the same time.) The New American Library version that I read contains a plethora of distracting but helpful footnotes, and John Ciardi’s translation is lyrical and accessible. The book was not nearly as daunting as I thought it would be. The political references are impossible to completely wrap your head around (even with the footnotes,) but once you get past those the story itself is enlightening, disturbing, thought-provoking, and amazingly easy to understand.

eBook

Perhaps this was not the best choice of a book to read at the gym. That decision was certainly not helped by the fact that the eBook version I read had no footnotes.

I'd read the Inferno before, but never Purgatorio or Paradiso, and I was a little disappointed that the physicality I admired so much in the first part was slowly phased out as the poem went on. I suppose Dante was making a point about the difference between the physical world and his relationship to god, but what was so impressive about the Inferno was how he charged a discussion of ideas and morality with a concrete dimension. He made the abstract real.

This was carried over into Purgatorio, although to a lesser extent, but a significant portion of Paradiso seemed to be about his inability to fully render his experience. This seemed to me to be a structural flaw, as we are suddenly asked to once again perceive abstract concepts in an abstract way, and it seems a huge let down.

Or maybe I just needed footnotes to explain it to me.

I find this among the most amazing works I've ever read--despite that the work is essentially Christian Allegory and I'm an atheist. First and foremost for its structure. Recently I read Moby Dick and though it had powerful passages I found it self-indulgent and bloated and devoutly wished an editor had taken a hatchet to the numerous digressions. There is no such thing as digressions in Dante. I don't think I've ever read a more carefully crafted work. We visit three realms in three Canticas (Hell, Purgatory and Heaven) each of 33 cantos and in a terza rima verse in a triple rhyme scheme. Nothing is incidental or left to chance here. That's not where the structure ends either. Hell has nine levels, Purgatory has seven terraces on its mountain and Heaven nine celestial spheres (so, yes, there is a Seventh Heaven!) All in all, this is an imaginary landscape worthy of Tolkien or Pratchett, both in large ways and small details. I found it fitting how Dante tied both sins and virtues to love--a sin was love misdirected or applied, and the lower you go in hell, the less love there is involved, until at the lowest reaches you find Satan and traitors encased in a lake of ice. Then there are all the striking phrases, plays of ideas and gorgeous imagery that comes through despite translations. This might be Christian Allegory, but unlike say John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress it's far from dry or tedious and is full of real life contemporaries of Dante and historical figures. There are also Dante's guides here. His Virgil is wonderful--and the perfect choice. The great Latin poet of the Aeneid leading the great Italian poet who made his Tuscan dialect the standard with his poetry. Well, guide through Hell and Purgatory until he changes places with Beatrice. Which reminds me of that old joke--Heaven for the climate--Hell for the company.And certainly Hell is what stays most vividly in my mind. I remember still loving the Purgatorio--it's the most human and relatable somehow of the poems and Paradise has its beauties. But I remember the people of Hell best. There's Virgil of course, who must remain in limbo for eternity because he wasn't a Christian. There's Francesca di Rimini and her lover, for their adultery forever condemned to be flung about in an eternal wind so that even Dante pities them. And that, of course, is the flip side of this. Dante's poem embodies the orthodox Roman Catholic Christianity of the 1300s and might give even Christians today pause. Even though I don't count myself a Christian, I get the appeal of hell. In fact, I can remember exactly when I understood it. When once upon a time I felt betrayed, and knew there was no recourse. The person involved would never get their comeuppance upon this Earth. How nice I thought, if there really was a God and a Hell to redress the balance. The virtue of any Hell therefore is justice. These are the words Dante tells us are at hell's entrance.THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING CITY,THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL PAIN,THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST. JUSTICE URGED ON MY HIGH ARTIFICER;MY MAKER WAS DIVINE AUTHORITY,THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE. BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGSWERE MADE, AND I ENDURE ETERNALLY.ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE.It's hard to see Dante's vision matching the orthodox doctrine as just however, even when I might agree a particular transgression deserves punishment. Never mind the virtuous and good in limbo because they weren't Christians or unbaptized or in hell because they committed suicide or were homosexual. And poor Cassio and Brutus, condemned to the lowest circle because they conspired to kill a tyrant who was destroying their republic. My biggest problem with hell is that it is eternal. Take all the worst tyrants who murdered millions, make them suffer not only the length of the lifetimes of their victims but all the years they might have had, I doubt if you add it up it comes to the age of the Earth--never mind eternity. Justice taken to extremes is not justice--it's vindictiveness and sadism. Something impossible for me to equate with "the primal love." Yet I loved this work so much upon my first read (I read the Dorothy Sayers translation) I went out and bought two other versions. One by Allen Mandelbaum (primarily because it was a dual language book with the Italian on one page facing the English translation) and a hardcover version translated by Charles Eliot Norton. Finally, before writing up my review and inspired by Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club, I got reacquainted by finding Longfellow's translation online. Of all of them, I greatly prefer Mandelbaum's translation. The others try to keep the rhyming and rhythm of the original and this means a sometimes tortured syntax and use of archaic words and the result is forced and often obscure, making the work much harder to read than it should be.

There is so much going on in The Divine Comedy that one reading is not enough to try to comprehend this book. Someone could, and I am sure many have, spend a lifetime reading and studying this.

The Divine Comedy is a long, narrative poem in three parts that tells of the still living Dante's visit to Hell and Purgatory, guided by the poet Virgil and ascension to Paradise, lead by his ideal woman, Beatrice. The author uses allegory to describe the journey of the soul toward God, and on the way reveals much about his own scientific andpolitical idealogies and medieval Christian theology. In The Inferno, the underworld is rife with a variety of mythological creatures. Dante is able to meet with the damned, including a number of prominent figures in history and literature, as well as his own personal acquaintences. There are nine concentric circles of Hell, where deeper levels house greater sinners and punishments. Satan is bound in a lake of ice in the deepest circle at the center of the Earth. In Purgatorio, Dante climbs through the seven terraces of mount Purgatory, each housing penitents guilty of one of the seven deadly sins. He joins the penitents in their pilgrimmage and purges himself of sin in order that he might see his beloved Beatrice and ascend into Heaven. Dante and Virgil meet many souls along the way who are surprised to see the living Dante among them. As a resident of Limbo, Virgil takes his leave before the ascension into heaven. Beatrice meets Dante and guides him through the nine celestial spheres. Dante discovers that all souls in Heaven are in contact with God and while all parts of heaven are accessible to the heavenly soul, its ability to love God determines its placement in heaven. The Paradiso is a poem of fullfilment and completion and, contrary to The Inferno, does have a happy ending fitting of the title, Comedy.I tried reading a few different translations but preferred those that were more prose than poetry. If my first language was Italian I'm sure I would have enjoyed the original terza rima rhyme scheme, but any attempt at a similar rhyme scheme in English just doesn't work for me. Sadly, I found The Inferno and Purgatorio to be the most interesting realms of Dante's visit, but I'll chalk that up to the nature of Heaven being beyond our human ability to even imagine. I would hate to be one of the many whose sins were called out by the author so blatantly, but I have to admit that if the work were contemporary I might even find it humorous at times. At least I would be able to relate better. Overall it is an interesting and fairly quick read (if you skip all of the footnotes and commentary that take more lines than the poem itself) that I would recommend to anyone curious about this acclaimed work of literature.

This is the sort of work that seems beyond review. It is a classic of the highest order, one which I have only just scratched the surface. From even the barest reading, it is obvious that this work would reward close study and careful consideration. As someone who is not a specialist in poetry, particularly of this era, Christian theology, or the historical context, I can only record my impressions as someone reading this for its literary value. This review is based on the Everyman's Library edition of the Divine Comedy, which includes the Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. It is translated by Allen Mandelbaum. I found the translation pleasurable to read, and it shows through some of Dante's poetry. Having heard readings of it in its original language, I can hardly imagine any translation really capturing its poetic brilliance, but such is the challenge facing all translations of poetry. While I cannot compare it with other translations, I did find this one an enjoyable experience to read.This edition also contains extensive end notes throughout. Unless one is steeped in the theology and history, this work would be impenetrable without these notes. Dante is constantly alluding to individuals of historical note (often only within his context), the political rivalry between the Black and White Guelphs plays an important role and the work is rife with symbolism (beyond the obvious punishments detailed in the Inferno!). Further, and most importantly, Dante is engaged with the philosophical and theological debates of the day, and he tries to defend certain positions in this work. I would have been lost without the notes here. Indeed, one of the most rewarding things about reading the poem is learning about the history and philosophical/theological context. Reading an edition without extensive notes not only makes the text more difficult to understand for a modern reader, but deprives one of one of the most rewarding experiences in reading it.The Inferno is the most famous of the three books, and it is no small wonder why. Dante's depiction of the levels of hell is riveting and powerful. The imagery throughout is engrossing. It is interesting, however, that Dante recognizes that his abilities to describe, in imagistic terms, what he observes diminish as he rises through Pugatory and Heaven. He consistently invokes higher and higher deities to help him match these sights poetically. Yet, taken in the imagery of the poem, none of the works is more immediately powerful than the Inferno. One of the most interesting aspects of the poem is how Dante rises to meet this challenge. While in the Inferno, Dante is able to describe all manner of punishment and pain, his descriptions of heaven often turn on the blinding nature of its beauty. Its beauty is such that his eyes fail, and the correspondingly imaginative nature of his poetry falls short. He compensates by revealing the beauty of his heaven in other ways. Most notably is that he does so by showing how the divine nature of heaven can meet all of his questions and intellectual challenges. The joy and beauty of heaven is revealed in its ability to provide rational coherence. While I may be over-intellectualizing Dante here (I am no scholar of this material), it was the intellectual nature of his work that really struck me.One final portion of the work that I found particularly moving is that Dante is a human being observing what he does, and this comes through in his emotions and questions most of all. Though he recognizes that the punishments of hell must be just (because they are divine justice), he pities those who suffer them. I wrestled with the same questions, and the reader cannot help but feel sympathy for these souls as Dante describes their punishments. Dante is our guide through these questions, and even if I as a reader am less than satisfied with the answers Dante comes with, he struggles with them. It is not merely a description and celebration of the divine, but rather a real struggle to understand it, and reconcile it to our own conception of justice and the world. This makes the work an interactive intellectual exercise, one works on the same problems that Dante does.

Personally, I'm a bit of a purist. I was halfway through the Inferno section when I looked into the details behind the translation. The problem with translating a rhyme from one language to another--and keeping the phrase rhymed--required the translator to completely butcher both the wording of the original and the English language as a whole. At times, whole lines are added to the cantos that were not even in the original Italian version. I'm not touching it until I find a non-rhyming version that is more directly translated from the original.But still, it's a good read, so 4 stars.

I've read the book twice. First time I got lost after Purgatorio, second time I finished with astounding understanding even amazed myself. The book is more than just an imaginary piece of work. It was Dante's spiritual journey in his own understanding, marvelously relevant to anyone who is in his/her own pursuit. The book even violently shook me during my darkest spiritual struggle... Besides that, the structure, philosophy, language, you can never finish reading Dante.

The edition I'm reading is Cary's, and, while I appreciate his command of iambic pentameter, I find him much harder to follow than Mandelbaum. I would recommend Cary or Longfellow for poetry, and Mandelbaum for comprehension, if given the choice between various translations.As for the actual book itself - well, it's the Divine Comedy. It's amazing. The Inferno is my favorite of the three, with the sheer of joy of Paradiso bumping it up to second. Purgatorio is the last of the three, because it drags a bit more than the other two. I wish I could go back and read this with a literature class or something, so that I could catch all the allusions and references - not being an Italian contemporary of his leaves quite a bit of the book stuck in obscurity, but I imagine that's easy remedied with a competent Virgil of your own to guide you through it.

This Allegory is the completed works of Dante transgressing the three stations (hell, purgatory, and paradise) in a way where one can truly understand the pain and suffering he went through to literally discover himself. The Divine Comedy is still to this day a highly read book by all ages and should continue to be so. With this take on the Allegory however did not follow the original Italian Vernacular and there by took away the authenticity of the epic.