The Divine Comedy: Inferno

By Dante

The first volume of The Divine Comedy—Dante begins his downward journey through the seven circles of Hell.

Considered to be one of the greatest literary works of all time, Dante's immortal drama of a journey through Hell is the first volume of his Divine Comedy. In the Inferno, Virgil guides Dante the pilgrim-poet through the depths of Hell, which is organized by the categories and subcategories of the sinners who dwell there. Dante first encounters the seven deadly sins on his journey—lust, gluttony, avarice, wrath and sloth—and then goes on to encounter even greater wickedness on his downward descent, before finally confronting the "evil worm" Lucifer, who flaps his wings while gnawing a hole into God's creation.

This edition includes:
-A concise introduction that gives readers important background information
-A chronology of the author's life and work
-A timeline of significant events that provides the book's historical context
-An outline of key themes and plot points to help readers form their own interpretations
-Detailed explanatory notes
-Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern perspectives on the work
-Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book group interaction
-A list of recommended related books and films to broaden the reader's experience

Enriched Classics offer readers affordable editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and insightful commentary. The scholarship provided in Enriched Classics enables readers to appreciate, understand, and enjoy the world's finest books to their full potential.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Feb 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781451685619

Dante

Dante was born in Florence, Italy, in 1265. Heir of a poor but noble family, he was one of the seven elected officials in charge of the government of Florence. Civil war was common in Florence at the time and the issues were further complicated by the question of Papal influence. In 1300, Dante along with his fellow magistrates confirmed anti-papal measures. When in 1302, the French prince acting under orders from the Pope captured power in Florence, Dante was sentenced on charges of corruption and opposition to the Church and exiled from Florence on pain of execution by burning if he ever returned. He spent the rest of his life in exile, pining for his native city. He withdrew from active politics to a large extent and concentrated on his literary creations. We do not know exactly when Dante began work on The Divine Comedy. He had been moving about from court to court after his exile and 1n 1317 had settled at Ravenna, where he completed his great work. Extant correspondence shows that the first and second parts of The Divine Comedy, the "Inferno" and the "Purgatario" were generally known around 1319. The last part, the "Paradiso" was completed only in 1321. Dante died at Ravenna on 14 September 1321 and the last thirteen Cantos of the "Paradiso" were published posthumously.

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Cover: The Divine Comedy, by Dante

The Divine Comedy

Inferno

Dante

Supplementary material written by Frederic Will

Series edited by Cynthia Brantley Johnson

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The Inferno:

GIVING THE WORLD HELL

At the beginning of the Inferno, we are introduced to a man who could well be our contemporary. In the middle of his life he is lost, conflicted about the direction he should take, and menaced by opponents. A lion, a she-wolf, and a leopard confront him, and he is nearly done for when suddenly a figure appears. It is the Roman poet Virgil, who will be his guide through the dark landscape which lies ahead of him: a voyage through Hell.

The Inferno, completed in 1314, is only the first third of Dante’s great work, The Divine Comedy. In the second and third sections, Dante voyages through Purgatory, and finally to Paradise. While for many readers Dante’s first journey is the most interesting, it is useful to remember that in Dante’s time the blessings of paradise were the sole justification for Dante’s intrepid travels. The three-part structure of The Divine Comedy was crucial to Dante’s authorial vision, and the focus on the number three, which has great significance in Christian theology, extended into the smallest details of the work. While this translation is rendered as a prose narrative, the original work is an epic poem, employing a terza rima verse structure. Each stanza of the poem consists of three lines, the first and third of which rhyme together, while the middle line rhymes with the first and third lines of the following three-line stanza. Each book of The Divine Comedy—Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso—consists of thirty-three roughly coequal cantos which, added together, total ninety-nine cantos. Add the one introductory canto, you have a total of one hundred. This number, ten times itself, was considered perfect in medieval mystical thought. The entire poem, therefore, can be seen as an elaborately wrought divine puzzle and an intricately worked prayer to God.

European and American critics of the past century have consistently praised the literary value and lasting human importance of The Divine Comedy. However, Dante’s Commedia has not always been widely admired. The great German poet Goethe, for example, wasn’t sure what to think. At one point (in Rome, July l787) he says, "I found the Inferno monstrous, the Purgatorio ambiguous, and the Paradiso boring." In Italy, the work was virtually forgotten during the nineteenth century, while in European literary circles of the time the Inferno was found too coarse, violent, and medieval. It was not until a famous twentieth-century American poet, T. S. Eliot, published his own master work, The Waste Land (1922), that appreciation for Dante’s work was rekindled. The Waste Land, a modernist poetic masterpiece that examines the hell following World War One, bears several similarities to Dante’s Inferno, and Eliot, an influential champion of Dante, alludes to The Divine Comedy several times in his work. Eliot showed cynical modern readers that the shades, the sinners, and the tormented inhabitants of The Waste Land are the direct descendants of the citizens of Dante’s Hell—and the brothers and sisters of us all.

The Life and Work of Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in the last days of 1265. For parallels to the vitality of that environment we would need to go back to ancient Athens, with its bubblingly vital city-state culture of the fifth century B.C. Mid–thirteenth-century Florence was exploding with political fervor, economic drive, and artistic creativity. Many citizens participated actively in their local government. At the same time, serious rifts appeared in the politics of the city, and the instability of the resulting clashes left many people endangered by swift changes in the political winds—Dante himself was exiled in 1302. But it also sparked a brilliance that contributed lasting beauty and understanding to the growth of modern culture.

Born into a family of medium wealth and recent nobility, Dante seems to have enjoyed a happy enough childhood, with two sisters and a brother. He was carefully educated by both the Dominicans and the Franciscans, two monastic orders founded in the early thirteenth century, famous for the high-quality teaching their monks provided. Dante read widely from youth on, focusing especially on Italian and Provençal poets. His first friend was the poet Guido Cavalcanti, but he was only the first, for Dante plunged vigorously into the vital creative and cultural life of Florence. More than a few of the figures we meet in the Inferno were from Dante’s immediate circle. He married about 1285, and had two sons and (it has been conjectured) two daughters. In 1289 he took part in his first military campaign, and in 1295 he began to participate actively in city politics. He was involved in governance, in street supervision, and more broadly in resisting those projects of the papacy that infringed on Florentine sovereignty. It was in connection with the latter efforts that Dante, on a mission to Rome, found himself condemned, on trumped-up charges, to banishment and fine, and ultimately to death by burning. From that time on, Dante did not return to Florence. We know only episodes from the last twenty years of his life in banishment, but come away with a picture of ebbing political hopes, close friendships with patrons, and, beyond that, a difficult, intellectually restless life of exile.

Of Dante’s life and work, the last thing—the most important thing—to be mentioned is Beatrice, his muse. Dante first saw Beatrice when he was nine and she was eight. Though she would become of utmost importance to his work, he glimpsed her only occasionally from then on up to her death in 1290. Beatrice was real, but also ideal, from the start. Dante identified Beatrice’s name and form with the supreme grace of the Virgin Mary, which ultimately calls him to Paradise. Beatrice sheds her influence over the whole Commedia, interceding for him in Hell, and sparing and guiding him as he rises through Purgatory to the blinding light of Heaven.

Historical and Literary Context of the Inferno and The Divine Comedy

Political Turmoil: Florence, the Papacy, and the Empire

Dante’s life and city were part of a vastly complex and rapidly changing medieval world of new commerce, proto–nation-states, stretching global frontiers, and new technologies for warfare and labor. The world-political struggle looming around the rapidly developing city of Florence was basically a struggle between the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy. Politics within the city of Florence largely concerned attitudes toward these two major power blocs. In 1266, when Dante was only a few months old, the Church and its Guelf party (the party of the Papacy) won a major battle against the imperialist Ghibellines at the Battle of Benevento. The rulers of the new mercantile cultural Florence were ardent supporters of the Guelf party yet at the same time eager to maintain their independence from the Papacy (no small balancing act, and a political tightrope along which Dante tried to walk).

The historical setting of Dante’s Florence would have been sufficiently complex as just described. But the Empire-Papacy split did not allow for easy allegiances, and within the Guelf party, in Florence, there were two factions, the established, aristocratic Blacks and the newly arrived, mercantile Whites. The Whites, the party to which Dante belonged, were determined to maintain a working balance between Papacy and Empire. The Blacks, on the other hand, were willing to deal with the Church to maintain their own advantage. The exile of Dante, the determinant fact of his spiritual life, derived from his advocacy of the White party.

All of these struggles impinged concretely on Dante’s life and work. The Inferno is littered with victims of political corruption, fraudulent manipulation, overcivilized vice—and with the moral fortitude of Aeneas, Beatrice, Cato, and the author, figures of ascent and faith. Dante had many temperaments, but he was always a realist. He wrote from his experience of a world in which the greatest secular and religious powers he believed in were fighting one another for both his pocketbook and his soul.

Classical Roman Literature and the Beginnings of Vernacular Literature

To understand the miracle of Dante’s artistic achievement, we need to appreciate the matrix from which it was born. Two centuries before Dante began to write, literature in the West was recorded in Latin and based on Roman culture and history. Foremost among the Roman poets, for Dante, was Virgil, whom Dante made his guide through Hell in the Inferno. In the Aeneid (19 B.C.), which Dante knew by heart, Virgil describes the aftermath of the great Trojan War. Under the leadership of Aeneas, the defeated Trojans sail to Latium, in southern Italy, and found what is to become the Roman Empire, thus to be considered the direct ancestors of the Italians. Dante revered Virgil for having grasped the seminal importance of Aeneas, the hero of the Aeneid, for both the Roman Empire and the Papacy— the two sustaining pillars of Dante’s own world—were made possible by the voyage of the Trojans as described in Virgil’s epic poem.

Not long after the end of the first millennium, a new, more popular, more localized literature began to emerge from under the shadow of this heritage. Its languages were the forerunners of modern Italian, French, and Spanish—the vernacular—as opposed to Latin, which remained the formal language of law and the Church. This is the literature that forged the tradition of which Dante’s work would be part. In both France and Italy courtly poetry was being produced by troubadours, while longer texts were being created by writers of romance. (The Romance of the Rose, completed about 1274, was a powerful example of the new imagination.) This literature was fueled by the burst of creative intellectual life then under way. The new universities of France and especially of Italy were making themselves centers of creativity in the arts as well as in science and theology. Meanwhile, the immensely influential texts of Aristotle were being released into the mainstream of Western culture in a series of important translations, and thinkers and spiritualists like Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Thomas Aquinas were inspiring radical new perspectives on human existence.

To all of these new movements Dante was a lively heir, as were his successors Petrarch and Boccaccio, who drove forward the powerful engine of modern Italian literature. Petrarch (1304–74) brought the sonnet to a new peak, while Boccaccio (1313–75) created, in his ribald Decameron, what might be considered the first novel. But it was Dante who truly opened up the new Italian language and made it available to both of these brilliant successors.

CHRONOLOGY OF DANTE’S

LIFE AND WORK

1265: Dante Alighieri born.

1277: Begins study of Latin. He is promised in marriage to Gemma Donati.

1283: Writes his first lyrics after his first encounter with ideal true love, Beatrice.

1285: Marries Gemma Donati.

1287: First child. Dante participates in military campaigns.

1290: Beatrice dies.

1292: Dante finishes writing the Vita Nuova, a lyrical work about his love for Beatrice.

1300: Corso Donati, the main figure of the Black Guelfs, is banished. Dante is elected one of six priors (governors) of Florence.

1301: Dante thought to have been on mission to Pope Boniface VIII.

1302: Dante’s allegiance to the Whites becomes perilous, as that party is banished from Florence. He is condemned to exile by the Black priorate.

1303: Dante lingers in Tuscany, hoping to return to Florence.

1304: Composes the Convivio, a philosophical work.

1307: Visits Paris. Begins work on The Divine Comedy.

1311: Completes De Monarchia, a treatise on government, and De Vulgari Eloquentia, defending the use of vernacular languages for serious writings.

1312: Meets Emperor Henry VII.

1313: Completes the Inferno.

1321: Dante is guest of Can Grande della Scala at Verona.

1317–1321: Resides at Ravenna under patronage of the Count of Polenta.

1321: Dies of malaria in Ravenna.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF

Inferno

1215: Guelfs and Ghibellines, warring political factions in Florence, begin a power struggle for control of the city that spans two generations.

1273: Thomas Aquinas completes Summa Theologica.

1274: Edward I crowned king of England at Westminster.

1277: Roger Bacon imprisoned for heresy.

1280: Kublai Khan founds Yuan Dynasty in China.

1281: Pope Martin IV ascends to the Vatican Papacy.

1282: In the Sicilian Vespers, the Sicilians rebel against French domination of Sicily, and most of the French on the island are massacred.

1284: Genoa defeats Pisa at the Battle of Meloria, initiating its decline.

1288: Osman I founds Ottoman Empire.

1291: Mamelukes conquer Acre, ending Christian rule in the East.

1294: Kublai Khan dies.

1296: Frederick II becomes king of Sicily.

1297: Genoese defeat Venetians in major sea battle.

1299: Treaties are made between Venice and the Turks.

1300: Pope Boniface VIII announces Jubilee Year.

1301: Boniface sends Charles of Valois and his army to quash anti-Church forces in Florence.

1302: First meeting held of French states-general.

1306: Robert Bruce crowned king of Scots.

1308: Edward II crowned king of England.

1312: Henry VII crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

1313: Henry VII dies.

1316: Edward Bruce crowned king of Ireland.

1320: Peace of Paris established between Flanders and France.

1322: Battle of Muehldorf fought; Frederick of Austria defeated and taken prisoner by Louis of Bavaria.

1325: Aztecs found their capital, Tenochtitlán. It will become Mexico City after the Spanish conquest and subsequent independence of Mexico.

1326: Osman I, ruler of Turkey, dies.

1327: Edward II, deposed by English parliament, succeeded by Edward III.

CANTO I

Dante, astray in a wood, reaches the foot of a hill which he begins to ascend; he is hindered by three beasts; he turns back and is met by Virgil, who proposes to guide him into the eternal world.

MIDWAY UPON THE JOURNEY OF OUR LIFE¹

I found myself in a dark wood, where the right way was lost. Ah! how hard a thing it is to tell what this wild and rough and difficult wood was, which in thought renews my fear! So bitter is it that death is little more. But

Reviews for The Divine Comedy

[laurochka-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read the Longfellow translation and despite a huge lack of historical knowledge about Dante's contemporary Florence I really enjoyed Inferno.

The imaginative punishments are gruesome enough to capture your attention and the whole poem is successful in painting quite a visual image of Dante's incarnation of hell.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not entirely sure what translation this was, as it was a free ebook. In any case, it was a little difficult to read at times, but it seemed okay as a translation. The text itself is beautiful: I wish I could read it in the original.

[takieya · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I had a collected copy of The Divine Comedy which I gave up for these three volumes. Inferno was excellent. I felt that it lived up to the translation that I read, and surpassed it in some ways. With the addition of contemporary pop-culture references throughout, we have a Hell in a very faithful to the original work. I definitely recommend these books to anyone who’s interested in The Divine Comedy.

[therebelprince · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm not a religious man in the least, but - like the great works of Classical composers, or the Sistine Chapel - that's hardly a consideration when reading a soaring work of near-ancient literature. Esolen's translation is marvellous, attempting to keep rhyme, meter and meaning in check, without ever sacrificing beauty. What results is a work of epic poetry which, while adhering to rules, is more than happy to flaunt them when necessary. Dante's vision is quite clever, and - although you will need copious notes at times to understand the medieval Italian history references - a sublimely beautiful piece.

[angelag86 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dante's journey through Hell ranks in my top 5 favorite books. I especially like this translation, as it keeps the language modern enough to be readable, but is still beautiful. Also, there are plenty of foot and end notes to explain middle age-phrases and historical references many people may not be familiar with.

[lilycowper-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I hate Shakespeare so I didn't think I'd like this, but I did. Really cool, every scene became real in my head, the black and white, cartoon version at least. The craziest part -- hell is real, to Dante and all the Catholics who read it when it was first published. How horrifying for them. Next time my grandmother wants me to go to mass with her, I'll go. He's a beautiful writer, and so modern but I don't know if thats just the English translation. Interesting perspectives on sin. It's like he knows to sin is a natural part of being human, which I keep forgetting. I hate to read those little summaries they give you because I want to read it the same way people have been for hundreds of years. He sort of invented hell, or he really saw it. The world was much more spiritual back then so to be honest I wouldn't rule it out. Maybe he saw all this in a dream. I don't know if I completely got this book but I'm just gonna keep reading it until I do. It's better if you don't read others' explanations of books like these, I think, because it is better to read it how people have always read it, and you can preserve your original reactions, based on your personal background in religion, nationality, language, faith, and sin. Maybe you think you belong in hell, maybe you think you belong in heaven, or maybe you don't believe in either or God or maybe you have your own definition of purgatory, and this will change the way we all feel about what Dante describes.

[jerry2book-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

On my trip to Italy I was able to re-read Dante's Inferno. I was struck by how he cleverly inserts his enemies and contemporary villains into the epic. Also, I cannot help but wonder if the ingenious torments he comes up for each sin are original with Dante. Of course, I love it that Dante doesn't hesitate to place Popes in various circles of Hell. The way he and Virgil have to dodge demons makes the trip an exciting adventure. I must admit I fully enjoyed this version by Charles Eliot Norton with the explanatory notes. I did want to add ...Fierce rivalries often split the dominant faction. So in 1302 the “Black” Guelfs, in alliance with Pope Boniface VIII, succeeded in expelling the “Whites.” Among the White Guelfs at this time was Dante (1265–1321), who had held public office. Doomed to spend the rest of his life in exile, he wrote the Divine Comedy while in exile. So, Dante puts Popes Nicholas, Boniface and Clement in the 8th and 9th circles of hell for fraud. Boniface is Dante's number one foe.

[bibleblaster · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'd never read this, though references to it abound in countless books, movies, etc. I found the translation (having not even the slightest knowledge of Italian) very readable/accessible/beautiful in parts. Recommendation: if you want to find out the source of most of what we think about hell, go to hell...with Dante.

[bruce_deming_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was the most difficult book to understand i have ever read do to so many old local events and characters in it. It was hell but I am glad i got through it. it felt like an acomplishment

[auroraw_6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Poetry like this touches your soul Dante was a lot like Mozart a daring rebel and a genius

[collingsruth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's interesting but I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. The morality seems rather heavy-handed, maybe I'm not digging deep enough into it.

[catherinestead · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I first tried reading this about ten years ago when I was studying medieval history, and didn't get very far. In fact, I can tell you that I got to the end of Canto 5, because that's where the margin notes in my copy finish. Reading it now, I can't imagine why I didn't get further. This was a translation by Dorothy L. Sayers (first published 1949), and I found it very accessible and easy to read. In her introduction, Sayers explains that she has stuck to the terza rima in which the original was written, sacrificing (she says) a little verbal accuracy in favour of retaining the speed and rhythm. She also explains at some length her approach to the rhyme-scheme and metre, her use of a wide range of English vocabulary including some colloquial phrases, and the ways in which she has tried to preserve the humour and tone of the original. I think that Sayers achieved great success in this: the vocabulary is gloriously rich, ranging from phrases which are positively Shakespearean all the way to the contemporary vernacular, and just about everything in between. The poetry is evocative and flows well, and the various tones and changes of mood are superbly conveyed.The book has extensive notes on the significant people encountered by the character of Dante in his journey through hell, and on the symbolism and imagery used by Dante the writer, which are not only engaging and well-written but also exceedingly useful. The introduction sets out the historical context in some detail, which is also very helpful: I could have given a detailed history of the Guelfs and Ghibellines ten years ago, but this time I was more than a little reliant on this introductory information to refresh my memory. The diagrams and maps of Dante's hell are also beneficial, as is the glossary of all the characters encountered. Together, the poetry and notes make this a very accessible translation for those who are unused to poetry, unfamiliar with the historical figures, or both. I found the story (if I can call it that) to be more easily understood than I had expected it to be, and also more entertaining than I had anticipated. I did, however, find that the various circles of hell began to merge together in my mind as in some cases there was either little detail given about them or they were very similar to other circles. I expected most of the symbolism in the book to pass me by - most symbolism generally does - but between Dante's own explanations and that in the notes I was able to appreciate far more than I expected to, and to overlook much less than I feared. The commentary on the political situation at the time, as well as that on the Church, is very definitely partisan - but is nonetheless insightful. I have the remainder of the Divine Comedy in the Sayers translation awaiting me on the shelf, and am now very definitely looking forward to reading it.

[blintnatc · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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[depstein-512720 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

As much as I enjoyed reading about the tortures he designed for his Florentine political opponents, I spent entirely too much time reading about all these characters in the footnotes. He designed an interesting underworld that was essentially Christian but integrated diverse figures from the Bible, contemporary Italy, classical Greece and Rome, and Classical mythology.

[northlaw · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have finally read the Inferno and if I am going to be honest, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. Not being a student of Italian literature and having read Clive James' English translation there was probably a lot I was missing, in the original, but I found that it was really just a horror story with the added s pice of the author being able to denigrate persons he didn't like. All this would have been extremely entertaining at the time when the names were topical, but I do not understand why it is considered such a classic. It was just a litany of various types of physical torture with no overarching point that I could see, except to list all that horror.

[akikorye · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This translation replaced names- so many names! Added modern phrases.

I appreciate that I may not have been able to real the original(or earlier translation) so easily (well, I'm not sure, but this is the only translation I've read) but I could not accept the replacement of the names. South Park's Cartman? Please. I prefer purer translations. The the addition of modern phrases and names stuck out like a sore thumb. I would be reading easily, then get so thrown off that I had to stop.

Now, I've read this, and I don't know how much of it was from the original, and how much the translator replaced. Now I feel like I have to re-read it, with a different translation.

It wasn't written in 2013, so don't translate it like it was. Please.

What was intact, the messages and the stories, all that makes this a classic, earns my four stars. Since I'm rating this particular translation, however, I'm giving it two. If I find out later that earlier translations are written in a way that I can easily read, then I'll come back and only give it one star.

[hillaryrose7 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A handsome book, but a clunky and awkward translation.

[hopeevey · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is my first exposure to Dante's writing. I was looking for poetry by a different author when I came across this translation. When I saw the narrator, I decided it was time to read/hear some Dante :)

Dante sure thought a lot of himself! Good grief, even when he's singing the praises of some denizen of limbo, he's doing so in the context of being the vehicle of their remembrance among the living. You've probably heard the idiom, "damning with faint praise." Over and over, Dante praises himself with faint condemnation. No, Dante, it's not actually all that terrible that you trembled with fear while faced with the horrors of the pit.

I want to read an annotated translation of The Inferno. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure he was mocking and calling out some of his contemporaries, as well as commenting on figures from the past.

Most of the work came from describing and talking to the denizens of the various neighborhood of perdition, but he didn't stint on describing the environs. He readily sketched the horrific backdrops to his interactions, giving just enough detail to be clear, but leaving space for the imagination to fill in the unmentioned horrors. This is not at all bedtime listening.

I seemed to sense some negative commentary on Church doctrine, but I'm not sure if that was in the text, or if that came from my 20th/21st century perspective. For instance, he lamented the number of people, even great and good people, condemned to Limbo simply because they lived before the establishment of Christianity. To my ear, that's a reason to question the church - but to Dante it may have been just another thing that was and didn't need to be questioned.

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked this classic poem more than I expected. I may have lucked out with the translation, but I found the Inferno much easier to read than the excerpts I remember from my high school textbook. I also had the added context of having taken several classes on Florentine history in college, and I could spot a few of the cultural references Dante makes. Overall, this made for much richer reading than I expected and I'm tempted to picked up the next two books in the Divine Comedy.

[theidlewoman · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The primary virtue of the Oxford / Sinclair edition is the parallel text, which means that you can both appreciate the beauty of Dante's original, and make sure that you miss none of the finer points by following the English translation. Each canto has its own introduction and endnotes, which means that important contextual information is always at hand. Inferno is for me by far the most engaging cantica, as Dante creates ever more imaginative tortures for the souls condemned to each circle of Hell. An absolute classic.

[dr_cicle · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was kind of hard to understand but once I got it, it turned out to be super interesting.

[lissabeth21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Amazing and bizarre. To have lived in a time awhen the fires and ice of hell were as real as the sun rising each day. The horrors of The Inferno were certainly cautionary, but not exactly in keeping with what modernity would deem the correct weight of sins. On to Purgatorio.

[librarylord99 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Stick with the original, this is "clever" yet not "readable."

[chwiggy · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Dieser Klassiker birgt so einige schöne, vielfältige und wundervolle Zitate, doch es ist kein einfaches Lesen. Oft fehlt dem modernen Leser das Wissen, um alle genannten Personen einordnen zu können. Dieser Mangel ist vermutlich dafür verantwortlich dafür, dass das Buch zwischen den Zitaten eher als Probe dient, wie gewillt man ist, sich durch seitenweise Verse durchzukämpfen. Leider geht darin die Schönheit und die Metaphorik des Textes für mich verloren. Vermutlich müsste man sich jeden Vers einzeln vornehmen, um das Werk wirklich zu verstehen.

[buffalopoet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Gets 5 star for the translation as much as the masterpiece itself - Pinsky really puts the fun back in the Inferno! ; )

[judithrs · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

.The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: the Inferno. A verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum. 1982. I had big plans to spend the summer studying The Inferno. I didn’t and ended up skimming part of it to be ready for the book club. I will go back and read it more carefully and study the maps and the notes that are included as read Purgatorio before our next meeting. This masterpiece deserves much more than I have given it.

[mybucketlistofbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Works like this have always intimidated me. I think pretty linearly and will usually take what I read literally before thinking about it much, or having it explained to me. Also, I’m not a believer so it was guaranteed I would miss many of the allusions in this. However I am happy to say while I did not really catch on to all of it, I was able to grasp the meaning of most of it…and I have to say I kind of enjoyed it. It helped a lot having the translators summary and notes to guide me along. So while I am not going to become an avid reader of poetry for now at least, I am not quite as intimidated as I was!

[mlyons1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you haven't walked through Hell with Dante, I highly recommend you do so immediately. It's quite nice.

[audacity88_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Mildly amusing, though this ostensibly pure Christian author clearly has a perverse streak running through him. (As does the Christian God, so not surprising.)

[thatotter-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read the Ciardi translation in college, and this had a similar feel. It read a little more like prose than poetry--it's unrhymed, though it still has a nice rhythm. Really drags when you get closer to the end, though.