Dante's Divine Comedy: The Inferno

by Nikki Moustaki

Cliffs Test Preparation Guides help students prepare for and improve their performance on standardized tests ACT Preparation Guide CBEST Preparation Guide CLAST Preparation Guide ELM Review GMAT Preparation Guide GRE Preparation Guide LSAT Preparation Guide MAT Preparation Guide MATH Review for Standardized Tests MSAT Preparation Guide Memory Power for Exams Police Officer Examination Preparation Guide Police Sergeant Examination Preparation Guide Police Management Examinations Preparation Guide Postal Examinations Preparation Guide Praxis I: PPST Preparation Guide Praxis II: NTE Core Battery Preparation Guide SAT Preparation Guide SAT II Writing Preparation Guide TASP Preparation Guide TOEFL Preparation Guide with 2 cassettes Advanced Practice for the TOEFL with 2 cassettes Verbal Review for Standardized Tests Writing Proficiency Examinations You Can Pass the GED Cliffs Quick Reviews help students in introductory college courses or Advanced Placement classes Algebra I Algebra II Anatomy & Physiology Basic Math and Pre-Algebra Biology Calculus Chemistry Differential Equations Economics Geometry Linear Algebra Microbiology Physics Statistics Trigonometry Cliffs Advanced Placement Preparation Guides help high school students taking Advanced Placement courses to earn college credit AP Biology AP Calculus AB AP Chemistry AP English Language & Composition AP English Literature & Composition AP United States History Cliffs Complete Study Editions are comprehensive study guides with complete text, running commentary and glossary Chaucer's Prologue Chaucer's Wife of Bath Hamlet Julius Caesar King Henry IV, Part I King Lear Macbeth The Merchant of Venice Othello Romeo and Juliet The Tempest Twelfth Night See inside back cover for listing of Cliffs Notes titles Registered trademarks include: GRE, MSAT, the Praxis Series, and TOEFL (Educational Testing Service): AP, Advanced Placement Program, and SAT (College Entrance Examination Board); GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Council); and LSAT (Law School Admission Council.) Divine Comedy: Inferno

Genres: Reference

88 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1969

About the author

Nikki Moustaki is the author of The Bird Market of Paris: A Memoir, as well as twenty-five books on the care and training of exotic birds. She holds an MA in creative writing, poetry, from New York University, an MFA in creative writing, poetry, from Indiana University, and an MFA in creative writing, fiction, from New York University. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in poetry, as well as many other national writing awards. She splits her time between New York City and Miami Beach.

Reviews

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like to think that I am a reasonably educated Western woman, but I am the first to note that some books are too difficult to read without help. Thus, for some books I also concurrently read the Cliffs Notes (the savior of high school literature students who merely skimmed through the book). And I would have been lost in a dark wood without this particular volume.

After some introductory material, the book has Summaries and Commentary on the Cantos (occasionally, when two Cantos are interrelated, taking them as a unit). The Summaries are very good in identifying all those whom Dante meets in Inferno (they are mostly Italian, and one cannot tell them apart without a scorecard); some shades also forecast the near future, since Dante backdated his Comedy to the year 1300, several years before the actually writing of the material. The Commentary also notes different interpretations of the text, and raises questions (Dante and Virgil normally travel to the left and down, but twice they go to the right and down; and in a late Canto, the concept of someone’s shade being in Inferno while that person’s body is still on Earth, unable to repent, raises deep theological problems).

Though this is a book that no one will be testing me on (I graduated from high school in 1976, and from college in 1980), I am grateful that the Cliffs Notes exist.

[Vince Ackerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

the actual Divine Comedy, Inferno was really hard to read. this was much easier.