Inferno inside You: The Comedy Project Part 1

By Peter Jobling and Monika Konieczna

Part one of The Comedy Project – an edition which will be six parts in all. Be introduced to Dante’s world in this beautifully illustrated, modern re-imagining of his work.
Dante called his chapters songs, and this book contains the first 17 songs of The Comedy Project, which make up the first half of the Inferno inside You. Traditionally Dante’s journey is considered to be a vision of the afterlife. The reason why people today still read his Comedy is that it is relevant to our real, present-life journeys.
Written as both an extraordinary saga and art book, Inferno Inside You transports readers into some of the remarkable stories which were a vital part of Dante’s imagination. The journey that begins with this book will show readers aspects of life that are hidden, and rarely touched upon by other writers.
Meet leopards, three-headed dogs, and centaurs, a lion, a wolf and a monster. Uncover questions that were unique 700 years ago in the early Renaissance – and discover that they are even more relevant today. It is about people, and the greed and envy of our world – and about love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jan 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789019490

Peter Jobling

Peter Jobling born in the UK in 1949, has lived in Norway since his early twenties. He studied English and Nordic languages at the University of Oslo and taught at the Rudolf Steiner School. He has edited literary anthologies for young people and today works for the Norwegian Heltberg student exchange programme.

Book preview

Konieczna

Introduction

What is Dante’s Comedy and what is The Comedy Project?

Dante’s Comedy is a journey into other worlds. We are taken to the realms of that which is normally hidden. Of the Comedy’s three parts, the first – Inferno – most easily captures the imagination. Yet it is not just ‘the hell of our lives’ that is exposed to us; that can never exist alone. It is the journey through this nightmare, and ultimately the way out. When I first began reading Dante, I wondered how many people actually managed to read this work or any of its many translations. The answer I think is very few, and this is one of the main reasons for The Comedy Project – to make the world of the Comedy available to ordinary people today, 700 years on in in time from when Dante finished his writing.

If you are looking for an English translation of Dante’s Comedy, this is not the place to be. The idea behind this project is to present a displaced version of the Comedy, a re-creation of the original story, freed from the complicated world of a Christian Europe in the Middle Ages. The original work is full of references to all sorts of people and institutions in Florence, Tuscany, Rome, and the waring states of France and Germany. If thecomedyproject leads you to read the original, that is brilliant, but it is not the reason for the project. My goal is to make the world Dante saw accessible – to a broader range of people – who are not necessarily ‘into literature’ but are looking for a good story and human insight. In the process of doing this I have put aside much of the detail and formal structure of the original. Hence – a displaced version.

Detective story writer Dorothy Sayers’ translation of the Comedy from the mid twentieth century was my way into Dante. This version has been criticised, but I still feel after reading many other translations, that Sayers’ approach, her comments and thoughts are so often like a breath of fresh air. The Oxford version by C.H.Sisson was a contrast and sheds light on many of the linguistic aspects of the work. Then there is the Oxford edition by Robert M. Durling which runs parallel page for page with the original Italian and provides that direct comparison of words and expressions that can be so fascinating and entertaining.

Living in Norway has also meant that Trond Berg Eriksen’s «Reisen gjennom helvete», (Journey through Hell) a thorough analysis of the Inferno, has been available. Illustrations – by Botticelli, William Blake, Gustave Doré and Salvador Dali – have also provided great inspiration.

I have always been attracted to writing combined with a visual dimension. Text page after text page of thecomedyproject called for an artist’s hand. One day my son William spoke to me about a Polish artist he had got to know, Monika Konieczna. She had an impressive portfolio of artwork and performance. I contacted her and immediately recognised that here was the potential for an exciting collaboration.

At our initial meeting in Litteraturhuset in Oslo we discussed how a writer and an artist could work together on thecomedyproject, and at the same time each retain their individual integrity. In other words not planned illustrations, but an artist freely interpreting the songs. Monika, with her Catholic upbringing and having been a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wroclaw, Poland, had an immediate ability to go into this visionary world. She appeared at our next meetings with sketches that were unique and inspiring. She went on to develop these into the illustrations that you see in this