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Afterlife: An Introduction to Dante's Inferno
Dante's Divine Comedy is an incredible trip through the afterlife. Yet it's audience is often restricted to academics or those with the time to do the necessary research to understand the poem. Afterlife - An Introduction to Dante's Inferno is David Lafferty's exploration of Inferno for those of us who want to an understandable, enjoyable introduction to this amazing literary masterpiece.
Lafferty takes us into the world of Hell (Inferno), the most accessible of the three books of the Divine Comedy. It's a terrifying journey, enhanced by a collection of images depicting the various characters and scenes in Inferno. The book also includes introductory material as well as pointing out much of the symbolism and allegory of the poem. A great starting point for new readers of Dante.
Lafferty takes us into the world of Hell (Inferno), the most accessible of the three books of the Divine Comedy. It's a terrifying journey, enhanced by a collection of images depicting the various characters and scenes in Inferno. The book also includes introductory material as well as pointing out much of the symbolism and allegory of the poem. A great starting point for new readers of Dante.
27 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 15, 2012
60 people want to read
About the author
David Lafferty
8 books65 followersAuthor of "Afterlife - An Introduction to Dante's Inferno" and "Penance - In Introduction to Dante's Purgatory". Keyboard player in Los Angeles area.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 7, 2012
Afterlife- An Introduction to Dante’s Inferno by David Lafferty
David Lafferty’s deceptively simple book does many subtle things. It clearly emanates from a passion he seeks to share, for the profundity of Dante, and an awareness that, as Dante needed Virgil to guide him through the complexity of hell, the reader might benefit from a similar guide here. As a guide Lafferty remains a modest indicator of what there is to see, without imposing his views on what the reader ought to think.
This is very valuable: it certainly invites the reader to turn to the original poetic text, but has removed the initial daunting appearance, the trail through endless and increasing horror, by giving brief over-views of each section, and their essential ‘shades’ and the sometimes amusing societies of sins. He conveys the underlying comedy of ‘punishments to fit the crime’, which imbues the work with the detachment of any writer. Dante becomes thereby another character, part innocent, becoming increasingly wiser, and often humorous. So through Lafferty, the door to the work is held wide and welcoming.
This broad brush quick summary does many other services to Dante. I realised after finishing this Introduction (with its sumptuous and evocative illustrations on each page) that Dante really was the first novelist. Exempt from the libel laws that constrain us, he could both create characters and lead them to their just ends ( I anticipate both Purgatorio and Paradiso here, of course), he could name and shame even the Popes, ( and some personal enemies) and pass on, having had a field day at their expense. Oh how we might enjoy a similar freedom! Apart from the rather hard fate of pagans (who were simply born before christening was an option and are forever in limbo), Dante has very much his own hierarchies of crime!
In this he is a very modern mind. The ordinary venalities, lust, gluttony, miserliness are punished on the upper levels of hell, but those against faith, like heretics, are deeper doomed and those who committed violence, deeper still. Violence against God in the form of suicide or against the Church, blasphemers, sodomites, usurers, and pimps (of all stripes) are seriously damned. So there is a kind of contradiction apparent; on one hand Dante upholds the tenets of Christian doctrine, on the other makes free with interpreting it. For him the ultimate crimes are betrayal of trust (fraud, panderers, and the Simonists who sold or abused the trust of believers and were incarcerated upside down), or the soothsayers and hypocrites who usurped power or influence. But betrayal of the trust of family or nation is the ultimate and deepest sin. Is this not what every novelist attempts? To satisfy the reader that ultimately Justice must prevail. The greater the reason for trust, the deeper the betrayal. Never was it done more convincingly.
If Lafferty has offered Dante to a new (or returning) group of readers then this modest work is an important contribution. It also refreshes all those mythical beasts, Pluto, Medusa, Centaurs, Minotaur, that somehow lie in our collective psyche, and people our dreams. The illustrations are an eclectic and personal choice, some familiar, some less so, but in that too he echoes a work that drew from every source available, classical mythology, Virgil’s Aeneid, and mediaeval church doctrine, all filtered through a single confident self-critical mind. This work respects all the qualities necessary in an emissary.
David Lafferty’s deceptively simple book does many subtle things. It clearly emanates from a passion he seeks to share, for the profundity of Dante, and an awareness that, as Dante needed Virgil to guide him through the complexity of hell, the reader might benefit from a similar guide here. As a guide Lafferty remains a modest indicator of what there is to see, without imposing his views on what the reader ought to think.
This is very valuable: it certainly invites the reader to turn to the original poetic text, but has removed the initial daunting appearance, the trail through endless and increasing horror, by giving brief over-views of each section, and their essential ‘shades’ and the sometimes amusing societies of sins. He conveys the underlying comedy of ‘punishments to fit the crime’, which imbues the work with the detachment of any writer. Dante becomes thereby another character, part innocent, becoming increasingly wiser, and often humorous. So through Lafferty, the door to the work is held wide and welcoming.
This broad brush quick summary does many other services to Dante. I realised after finishing this Introduction (with its sumptuous and evocative illustrations on each page) that Dante really was the first novelist. Exempt from the libel laws that constrain us, he could both create characters and lead them to their just ends ( I anticipate both Purgatorio and Paradiso here, of course), he could name and shame even the Popes, ( and some personal enemies) and pass on, having had a field day at their expense. Oh how we might enjoy a similar freedom! Apart from the rather hard fate of pagans (who were simply born before christening was an option and are forever in limbo), Dante has very much his own hierarchies of crime!
In this he is a very modern mind. The ordinary venalities, lust, gluttony, miserliness are punished on the upper levels of hell, but those against faith, like heretics, are deeper doomed and those who committed violence, deeper still. Violence against God in the form of suicide or against the Church, blasphemers, sodomites, usurers, and pimps (of all stripes) are seriously damned. So there is a kind of contradiction apparent; on one hand Dante upholds the tenets of Christian doctrine, on the other makes free with interpreting it. For him the ultimate crimes are betrayal of trust (fraud, panderers, and the Simonists who sold or abused the trust of believers and were incarcerated upside down), or the soothsayers and hypocrites who usurped power or influence. But betrayal of the trust of family or nation is the ultimate and deepest sin. Is this not what every novelist attempts? To satisfy the reader that ultimately Justice must prevail. The greater the reason for trust, the deeper the betrayal. Never was it done more convincingly.
If Lafferty has offered Dante to a new (or returning) group of readers then this modest work is an important contribution. It also refreshes all those mythical beasts, Pluto, Medusa, Centaurs, Minotaur, that somehow lie in our collective psyche, and people our dreams. The illustrations are an eclectic and personal choice, some familiar, some less so, but in that too he echoes a work that drew from every source available, classical mythology, Virgil’s Aeneid, and mediaeval church doctrine, all filtered through a single confident self-critical mind. This work respects all the qualities necessary in an emissary.
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December 21, 2012"It’s no accident that Boniface ends up in Hell in Dante’s Inferno." Hah! I had been wondering about the "why" of that fate for Boniface.
There are a variety of individuals in hell who are named either explicitly or implicitly. Right now am on a straight read-though without notes, (2nd time) and will have to do another pass at it with following these references.
A personal habit - almost without exception I will read the main text of any important work of philosophy or literature at least one time without following "links", and then go through another pass doing the research.
There are a variety of individuals in hell who are named either explicitly or implicitly. Right now am on a straight read-though without notes, (2nd time) and will have to do another pass at it with following these references.
A personal habit - almost without exception I will read the main text of any important work of philosophy or literature at least one time without following "links", and then go through another pass doing the research.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews