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The Divine Comedy

(La Divina Commedia #1-3)

Dante Alighieri,

Allen Mandelbaum (Translator),

Eugenio Montale (Introduction)

4.04 · Rating details · 133,350 ratings · 4,397 reviews

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption.

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonge ...more

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Hardcover, 798 pages

Published August 1st 1995 by Everyman's Library (first published 1320)

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Oct 29, 2011 Manny rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: transcendent-experiences, celebrity-death-match, why-not-call-it-poetry, life-is-dante, science-fiction

For the Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament, The Divine Comedy versus 1984

Gabriel, Michael and Raphael
Celestial Architects
Eternity

Dear Mr. O'Brien,

Thank you for your response to our recent tender. After due deliberation, we must regretfully inform you that we have decided not to implement your interesting plan for restructuring and downsizing the afterlife.

Our accounting department confirms your statement that it would be more cost-effective only to retain Hell and wind up operations in Purg ...more

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Aug 28, 2020 Tammie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classic

The Devine Comedy, a classic/poetry book, was a 5+ star read.
This epic poem centers around main character Dante and his travels through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. The Divine Comedy is a work of art and I’m truly glad I read it- that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a difficult read and I did some heavy research before tackling it. I honestly wanted to understand what I was reading and who the characters mentioned were. Dante’s journey through Hell (Inferno) was the most exciting and interesting part o ...more

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Aug 05, 2021 Steven Godin rated it really liked it

Shelves: italy

When, disappearing, from our hemisphere,
The world's enlightener vanishes, and day
On all sides wasteth, suddenly the sky,
Erewhile irradiate only with his beam,
Is yet again unfolded, putting forth
Innumerable lights wherein one shines.
Of such vicissitude in heaven I thought,
As the great sign, that marshaleth the world
And the world's leaders, in the blessed beak
Was silent; for that all those living lights,
Waxing in splendour, burst forth into songs,
Such as from memory glide and fall away.

****

"O thou
When, disappearing, from our hemisphere,
The world's enlightener vanishes, and day
On all sides wasteth, suddenly the sky,
Erewhile irradiate only with his beam,
Is yet again unfolded, putting forth
Innumerable lights wherein one shines.
Of such vicissitude in heaven I thought,
As the great sign, that marshaleth the world
And the world's leaders, in the blessed beak
Was silent; for that all those living lights,
Waxing in splendour, burst forth into songs,
Such as from memory glide and fall away.

****

"O thou Almighty Father, who dost make
The heavens thy dwelling, not in bounds confin'd,
But that with love intenser there thou view'st
Thy primal effluence, hallow'd be thy name:
Join each created being to extol
Thy might, for worthy humblest thanks and praise
Is thy blest Spirit. May thy kingdom's peace
Come unto us; for we, unless it come,
With all our striving thither tend in vain.
As of their will the angels unto thee
Tender meet sacrifice, circling thy throne
With loud hosannas, so of theirs be done
By saintly men on earth. Grant us this day
Our daily manna, without which he roams
Through this rough desert retrograde, who most
Toils to advance his steps. As we to each
Pardon the evil done us, pardon thou
Benign, and of our merit take no count.
'Gainst the old adversary prove thou not
Our virtue easily subdu'd; but free
From his incitements and defeat his wiles.
This last petition, dearest Lord! is made
Not for ourselves, since that were needless now,
But for their sakes who after us remain.

****

We from the bridge's head descended, where
To the eighth mound it joins, and then the chasm
Opening to view, I saw a crowd within
Of serpents terrible, so strange of shape
And hideous, that remembrance in my veins
Yet shrinks the vital current. Of her sands
Let Lybia vaunt no more: if Jaculus,
Pareas and Chelyder be her brood,
Cenchris and Amphisboena, plagues so dire
Or in such numbers swarming ne'er she shew'd,
Not with all Ethiopia, and whate'er
Above the Erythraean sea is spawn'd.

Amid this dread exuberance of woe
Ran naked spirits wing'd with horrid fear,
Nor hope had they of crevice where to hide,
Or heliotrope to charm them out of view.
With serpents were their hands behind them bound,
Which through their reins infix'd the tail and head
Twisted in folds before. And lo! on one
Near to our side, darted an adder up,
And, where the neck is on the shoulders tied,
Transpierc'd him. Far more quickly than e'er pen
Wrote O or I, he kindled, burn'd, and chang'd
To ashes, all pour'd out upon the earth. ...more

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Apr 09, 2021 Ria rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 3stars

“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”

gif

excellent fanfiction.

it's obviously an excellent poem BUT i guess i just did not enjoy it as much as u all did. last year we talked about this shit a lot in uni so i finally decided to read the whole thing.
i did not really like Paradiso so there's that.
Dante is such a name dropper.
gif

i'm too lazy to write a review *let's be honest, no one cares about my opinion on this* so look at these:

...more

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Mar 22, 2018 Henry Martin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: permanent-collection

I've been slowly chewing my way through this one for a while. There are already so many reviews that what I have to add seems unimportant.

In crux - the writing is wonderful, the theme relevant today as much as when it was written (minus the contemporary Florentine politics, which are noted throughout the work) and the journey of soul towards transcendence all-encompassing.

It's not an easy work to read, but then again, none of the great ones are. Should everyone read it? Everyone should at leas ...more

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Aug 13, 2018 samantha Bookworm-on-rainydays rated it really liked it

While a little hard to read at times but this is still a classic and a good read.

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Dec 15, 2013 Antonomasia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: medieval-works, italy, epic-poems-and-novels-in-verse, poetry, 2013, ebooks-kindle, religion, 14th-century

[Clive James translation]

At the mid-point of the path through life, I found
Myself lost in a wood so dark, the way
Ahead was blotted out. The keening sound
I still make shows how hard it is to say
How harsh and bitter that place felt to me—
Merely to think of it renews the fear—
So bad that death by only a degree
Could possibly be worse. As you shall hear,
It led to good things too, eventually,
But there and then I saw no sign of those,
And can’t say even now how I had come
To be there, stunned a ...more

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Jul 22, 2020 Luís rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, favorites, poetry, germany-austria-italy

The Divine Comedy is so divine (I pass the redundancy) that we can bring some of Dante's narration to our day. Without necessarily dividing our moments into stages, and we do not even have to die to see the scenes we have passed. Nowadays, humanity, so sordid and unmasked, acts, treating one another personally, as if it had a particular Heaven of false power, knowing that it lives a real Hell. Worse still is not to reach out to the next, pushing them to innumerable Purgatory at once, offering no ...more

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Sep 23, 2017 Shyam rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

Everything it is to be a human being is brought to form and consequence within a single structure that makes The Divine Comedy the most massive metaphor of western culture." —From the Introduction

"Midway in our life's journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood . . ."
—Inferno, Canto I, 1-3

I first heard those words from Don Draper in the trailer for the opening episode of Mad Men*'s sixth Season, when it first aired in 2013 . . .

Fast forward 4 years.

I' ...more

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Mar 01, 2021 Fiona rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, e-books, in-translation, classics

When he wrote The Divine Comedy, Dante was already a well known writer. He had been exiled from Florence for political reasons. In the poem, he is the poet pilgrim and Virgil, a poet who inspired Dante, is his guide. He will protect Dante and guide him physically and spiritually through Hell and Purgatory. He has been sent by Beatrice, Dante’s idealised childhood love to whom he dedicated much poetry and who, in this poem, symbolises Heavenly Wisdom. The story is of Dante’s journey, in the When he wrote The Divine Comedy, Dante was already a well known writer. He had been exiled from Florence for political reasons. In the poem, he is the poet pilgrim and Virgil, a poet who inspired Dante, is his guide. He will protect Dante and guide him physically and spiritually through Hell and Purgatory. He has been sent by Beatrice, Dante’s idealised childhood love to whom he dedicated much poetry and who, in this poem, symbolises Heavenly Wisdom. The story is of Dante’s journey, in the middle of his life (nel mezzo), through life to salvation. He must descend into Hell to eventually ascend to Paradise.

Inferno / Hell is a series of circles, often with sub levels, each containing sinners in different categories, worsening as we go deeper into Hell. On the gates of Hell are written the words, ‘Lasciate ogne speranza, voi chi intrate’ - ‘Abandon all hope, you who enter here’ - as, once you are in, you can never leave. Dante is not dead so he is able to pass all the way through. Minos, ex ruler of Crete, acts as judge and indicates to which circle of Hell each sinner must go. Before entering the first circle of Hell, we pass through Limbo which contains those who are unbaptised and includes those who were born before the Christian Era, such as the Virtuous Pagans, which includes Virgil, Homer, Horace, Ovid and Lucan. The group acknowledges Dante’s status as one of them - bearing in mind he is writing this, what an ego! As he descends through the circles of Hell, he meets many famous and infamous people, some from history, some his contemporaries, and some from myth. The vast majority are men. Many are Dante’s political enemies and much of the poem is a diatribe against Florence and those who exiled him. Dante sometimes feels compassion for the sinners he meets but Virgil generally chides him for that. The punishments meted out to the sinners become more extreme, more imaginative and more vile the deeper into Hell we go.

What kind of mind did Dante have to think up all these cruel and unusual punishments? What sin has he committed that he feels he has to embark, through the poet pilgrim, on such a journey, examining his own identity with reference to each category of sinner? Some of the punishments can be linked to passages in the Bible but not all.

Purgatory - As in Hell, the punishments inflicted upon the penitents are grotesque. I read this with something approaching morbid fascination!

Paradise - Dante recounts the poet’s journey through an eternal world, navigated through a hierarchy of light and by way of the nine planets. He eventually sees God.

I struggled most with Paradise. Inferno and Purgatory were interesting on so many levels but Paradise, if this doesn’t sound too absurd, was just too religious for me! Nevertheless, there was a definite feeling of joy - or perhaps relief on my part! - at the end of the journey.

Countless academics have dedicated their lives to studying this work. I don’t know of any other that has such depth or that has so many levels on which it can be studied, i.e. religion, the Bible, Christian, Church and papal history; Greek and Roman myth and history; Florentine and wider Italian history and politics (Guelph & Ghibelline); European history; philosophy; scientific investigation; music; literature / poetry. I read it on the Georgetown University My Dante website which provides a guided reading that I found very helpful and informative. It has taken me two full months to read and study it and yet I know I’ve only scratched the surface of its meanings. I’ve written out many beautiful passages that I’m sure I’ll return to but it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever read the full poem again. ...more

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Jul 24, 2015 poncho rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, read-in-2015

What can one say about The Divine Comedy that hasn't been said? An analysis? Many scholars have already done that — and quite outstandingly, I must say, to a degree that I would never achieve. A funny meta review of sorts? It's already been done. So I guess it's like Solomon said and there's no new thing under the sun about this masterpiece: it needs no explanations about its grandeur and it does itself justice.

My only remaining words would be an endorsement upon this edition published by Oxford ...more

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May 27, 2020 Valérie (ValReads) added it

Dante has just escaped death when he met Virgil, who takes him to the afterlife. to hell, to the mountain of purification and to paradise. in hell they climb the seven circles and meet countless sinners who tell them their story and their suffering. Until in the end they meet Lucifer. At the Purification Mountain, the singing relaxes and becomes brighter. It is also told that there are days and nights and Dante and Virgil are asleep, which is different from hell. The two climb the mountain and m ...more

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Aug 09, 2020 Jin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

FINALLY. I have finally read this book till the end! I wished I would have read this book while going to school. Since Dante has included so many well-known fiction and non-fiction figures from his time, it was hard to follow each poem because I had to look up and memorize which figure was where out of which reason. Thankfully, the book version had a comprehensive introduction explaining the background of Dante and added additional remarks to names mentioned in the poems itself.

As mentioned in ...more

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Sep 24, 2007 Solomon rated it liked it

Sure--why not write a trite, pithy review of one of the great works of Western Literature? Fuck it! Yes, it's beautifully poetic, but Dante is also intolerably self-righteous and hilariously bitter in it, skewering, roasting, and tearing to pieces (quite literally) his detractors, enemies, and some people that he maybe just didn't like much. The tortures are sometimes hilarious and in no way biblical...it is disturbing to think that people used to believe a lot of this silliness...oh, and that s ...more

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Jan 04, 2014 Kalliope rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classical, 2014, translation, renaissance

I just read the introduction of this edition. It is not very long and very good and with an excellent discussion on the difficulties of translating the terza rima into English.

I particularly enjoyed the discussion of the structure of the Commedia as a cathedral.

I shall read Dante's text in a different edition.

And I have about at least two more introductions from other editions. ...more

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Aug 19, 2008 Pat Settegast rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I have travelled a goodly distance since I last read the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, and what a long strange trip its been. So, it was with an introspective bit of drollness that I embarked on this reread.

I was fascinated with Inferno as a teenager and between Dante Alighieri and Robert Smith/Rimbaud it is, frankly, nothing short of a miracle that I didn't put enough reasons together to wind-up as a fleshy tree with harpies perched in my branches somewhere in the lower circles of hell--if I have travelled a goodly distance since I last read the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, and what a long strange trip its been. So, it was with an introspective bit of drollness that I embarked on this reread.

I was fascinated with Inferno as a teenager and between Dante Alighieri and Robert Smith/Rimbaud it is, frankly, nothing short of a miracle that I didn't put enough reasons together to wind-up as a fleshy tree with harpies perched in my branches somewhere in the lower circles of hell--if you catch my drift. Yeah, I was one tortured soul...

Now, I seem to have arrived in the dread "Existance Age" of my life. In evidence, I need only cite my thinning hair, second mortgage, life insurance, and All American guilt complex. This is also why it's taking me longer than necessary to read Richard Ford's Independence Day--each line just seems like something I'm thinking, and it's hard to be objective with the reading and view it simply as a book. And, it may very well explain why, as I listened to The Divine Comedy with this audiobook edition, I found Purgatorio so fascinating--when as a teenager I couldn't skim through it fast enough.

The Divine Comedy is more of a journey than a book, and as a journey it has stages and waypoints... also its not a trip everyone needs to take. I, for one, never plan on visiting Meca or for that matter, the Mormon General Conference; they're just not my kinds of trips. But, having grow-up in a Televangelist Supercult, The Divine Comedy is just the right kind of retrospective for me. Reasons are abundant but are typified by the way the book helps me look objectively at my spiritual life.

Here is the short list: First, according to Dante, pretty much everybody in hell is Italian and Catholic; second, my tattoo fantasies of the illustrations by Gustave Dore; third, the striking absense of a bathroom break; fourth the paragraph-long metaphores which fill each canto in the same way a bazaar of guillemots might fill something bigger than a breadbox but smaller than a dinghy if there was but some form of guillemot filling aparatus or perhaps a working decoy; fifth, placing people I dislike in different levels of hell--BTW I've decided Walter Kirn is my arch-enemy; and sixth (but hardly last) the unanswerable question of why Dante is obsessed with a woman who isn't his wife and figures her in the seat of grace while the woman he's married to is no doubt fixing his meals, cleaning his dishes, and caring for his kids, while he is writing the Divine Comedy (like some kind of Catholic Penthouse Forum Letter) and this is somehow OK because he still makes it to heaven.

I'll be honest, I've never been able to finish The Divine Comedy. I get to wandering around in Paradiso like a redneck in Walmart and keep on loosing my place due to profound boredom (unlike a redneck in Walmart). Afterall, "Heaven is a place," to quote David Byrne, "a place where nothing ever happens." Maybe someday Paradiso will be the part I just can't get enough of, but for now I'm content with my life in purgatory. I kind of like the idea that I can impress people just by casting a shadow and meeting old friends in really uncomfortable situations. ...more

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Jan 03, 2017 Sentimental Surrealist rated it really liked it

Shelves: doorstopper, literature, collection, poetry, classics, medieval, religion, dante-alighieri, why-havent-i-read-this-yet, own-but-havent-read

When I was but a young Sentimental Surrealist, I went through a big King Arthur phase, and so my mom took me to the Renaissance Faire. Here I saw a version of the Divine Comedy where a dude dressed as an imp treats our boy Dante to all matters of torments. Among other things, he gives him a wet willy, makes him run into the audience and scream "I am strong, sensitive, and I want to be loved!", dumps a bucket of ice on his head, and, for our climax, trounces the good poet in a wrestling match.

I' ...more

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Nov 10, 2011 Whitaker marked it as celebrity-death-match · review of another edition

For CELEBRITY DEATH MATCH PURPOSES ONLY: The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh versus The Divine Comedy

*More doggerel than verse, but for what it's worth...

I. Inferno

Into a dark and gloomy wood
Strolled the little bear and his friends.
They found a cave and by it stood
And wondered if it did descend
To hell or rise to paradise.
Would this match see them sacrificed?

The circles had been so designed
To damn the souls who lived in sin.
And each were thus to zones consigned
To suffer punishment wit ...more

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Sep 25, 2020 Amy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, classic-lit, audio

The Original Heaven Is For Real

In my head, The Divine Comedy is one of those books you need to be an Oxford Don to read, much less understand. It is a classic but, like, not a readable classic. And it is a dang intimidating one.
So, I was pleasantly surprised when it proved to be such an easy audio book. I give full credit to the translators and narrator. Each chapter begins with a little description of the ensuing pages which makes things clear and easy to follow.
Not being an Italian noble fro ...more

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Oct 13, 2013 Mattia Ravasi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: silver-keys

Best Books Ever #1: https://youtu.be/Pqjwt8RcqGw

Possibly the best historical display of the power and potential of books. And also the best one ever written and all that. ...more

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May 30, 2014 Alan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-original-language

Dante in English is heavy, while in Italian he is light, fast, almost a lyric poem. Palma's version is the lightest, fastest I've found. Often you hardly notice he's rhymed in tercets--his rhymes are so modern, unforced, and his syntax is so English.
Decades ago I visited the Casa di Dante in Firenze, and on the wall, printed on one large sheet of paper (2 x 1.5 m) was the entire Divina Commedia, 33 canto columns across, three horizontal lines for the three books. Like a long lyric poem.

True, D ...more

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Oct 16, 2009 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Dante's Divine Comedy is the story of the soul’s journey from the depths of despair to pure enlightenment, and you don't have to be a Catholic or even religious to be awed and inspired by it. If you ignore all the academic dust that has settled on this astounding creation over the seven hundred years since it was written, and imagine it more as an adventure movie with better special effects than The Matrix and with a deeper message than The Seventh Seal, you'll set off on a journey across space Dante's Divine Comedy is the story of the soul’s journey from the depths of despair to pure enlightenment, and you don't have to be a Catholic or even religious to be awed and inspired by it. If you ignore all the academic dust that has settled on this astounding creation over the seven hundred years since it was written, and imagine it more as an adventure movie with better special effects than The Matrix and with a deeper message than The Seventh Seal, you'll set off on a journey across space and time that you’ll never forget.

The great love of Dante’s life was Beatrice, whom he first glimpsed in Florence in 1274, when she was eight years old and he was nine, and he spent the rest of his life idolising her, long after her marriage and early death. He wrote his La Vita Nuova in praise of her beauty and purity, and it is one of the world’s greatest romantic poems, but he felt that it didn’t do her justice, and he went on to compose the Divine Comedy as his unprecedented and unsurpassed monument to her. He started it when he was 29 years old and finished it just before his death 27 years later, in 1321, and it hasn’t been out of print since.

Dante, approaching middle-age, descends into Hell and is guided through the terrible circles of damned souls by the poet Virgil, and past Satan himself, who stands in ice to his waist, before attaining Purgatory. It is in Purgatory that souls who escaped Hell are cleansed and made ready for promotion to Paradise. At the peak of Mount Purgatory, Virgil – who lived before the Incarnation and can go no farther – hands Dante over to Beatrice, and together they make their way to the Godhead. Dante spends eternity with the girl he first saw and fell in love with 47 years earlier.

As well as reading it as homage to Love and the soul’s struggle towards perfection, it is jam-packed with gossip and details about the people and the politics of Florence at the time. Dante is often criticised for peopling Hell with his enemies and Paradise with his friends, but whatever the case he left us with a huge range of vividly drawn characters that really bring those times to life. And naturally the sinners tend to be a lot more fun than the saints. As in the Canterbury Tales, we can recognise these people easily today: the devious politicians, the star-crossed lovers, the dictators and gang bosses, the holier-than-thou brigade and the ones who just couldn’t make up their minds. If human nature has changed at all since Dante, it’s only been for the worse.

This is a book that has exerted an incredible influence down the centuries, especially on artists. If your imagination is a bit jaded, just type ‘Dante Durer’ into Google to come up with fantastic engravings from the Renaissance master, or ‘Dante Blake’ to view William Blake’s more restrained and impressionistic but no less powerful impressions. There is no shortage of English translations, either, the best to date being the new one by Robert Pinsky.
...more

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Feb 11, 2020 rrolland rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Dante to Virgil: *heart eyes*

Is this self-insert fanfiction?

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Apr 27, 2020 Gary Beauregard Bottomley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I read Dante for the first time three years ago, then again, a year ago, and then again, last week, and then I reread it this week. In addition, I watched the Yale course, Dante in Translation for the third time last week, while concurrently reading Virgil’s Aeneid, and read Dante’s de Monarachia, and recently I just finished reading the Old Testament and Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplex. Also, about a week ago I listened to the course by Sr. Mary Clement Davlin on the Divine Comedy (I want to ...more

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Jul 01, 2013 Scriptor Ignotus rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literature, classics, christianity, poetry, favorites

Dante's Divine Comedy is one of the classics of western literature for a reason. It represents, in many respects, the intellectual summation of the high middle ages. It is riddled with symbols and allegory, frequent references to classical history and mythology, and sports, particularly in Paradiso, an impressively deep exploration of theological questions and the nature of divinity and divine love. The extent to which contemporary political questions figure prominently in the narrative was surp ...more

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Jan 23, 2017 Biblio Curious rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics-western, 30-favorites-post-2017

*happy dance* It's a lifer! What a gem this was.

My nifty review:
http://www.biblioatlas.com/2017/04/th... ...more

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Nov 12, 2011 ·Karen· marked it as partially-read · review of another edition

Celebrity Death Match Final

The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh versus The Divine Comedy

Cue aerial shot of two women walking in a green leafy park. One shouts up to the camera that appears to be hovering about fifteen feet above her head

SUE: Hello Ladies and Gentlemen! And welcome to the grand final of The Great British Bake-off!

Camera swoops down to eye-level. We see these two:

[image error]

MEL: Yes, the Great British Bake-off has taken us on an incredible journey over the past eight ...more

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Mar 11, 2020 Kathleen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: death, philosophical, classic, poetry, great-books, mythological, translated

“As harp or viol—in tempered harmony,
their many strings stretched tight—still ring and sing,
even to those who do not catch the tune,
so, though I did not understand their hymn,
an air now gathered that enraptured me
from lights appearing there throughout the cross.”

There are many insightful reviews of this classic, full of helpful explanations and elucidations. This won’t be one of them. When it comes to my understanding of what I’ve just read here, I’m like the person who goes to the museum, looks ...more

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Jun 17, 2013 Roy Lotz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: religion-mysticism-theology, highly-recommended-favorites, best-words-best-order, lets-get-medieval

Having a surfeit of time with which to listen to audiobooks since starting my new job, I decided that I might as well revisit this old classic. The recording was a good one—featuring musical interludes in between each canto—and so I prepared myself for some Christian epicness. But now, having finished, I’m somewhat disappointed.

I know that the fault is not Dante’s (well, at least not mainly his fault), since I liked the poem so much the first time. I would suggest that it was because I listened Having a surfeit of time with which to listen to audiobooks since starting my new job, I decided that I might as well revisit this old classic. The recording was a good one—featuring musical interludes in between each canto—and so I prepared myself for some Christian epicness. But now, having finished, I’m somewhat disappointed.

I know that the fault is not Dante’s (well, at least not mainly his fault), since I liked the poem so much the first time. I would suggest that it was because I listened to it rather than read it, but that hasn’t prevented my enjoyment of anything else. It could be the translation. The version used in the audiobook was decidedly inferior to the Longfellow translation I originally read—being more prosaic and modern. But the strange thing was that Dante, stripped of his poetic trappings and presented as a story, became petty.

Yes: there is a current of extraordinary pettiness that runs through The Divine Comedy. With the bitterness of an exile, Dante puts all of his political enemies in Hell, all of his allies in Purgatory or Heaven. To a modern reader this may seem merely natural. But consider: he is attempting a narrative that seeks to integrate all human and divine knowledge—to integrate both pagan and Christian art forms—and Dante still can’t help taking jabs at his foes.

Also stunning is his arrogance. Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven notwithstanding, the only thing supernatural about this poem is Dante’s ego. He could have made anyone the hero: St. Thomas Aquinas, Charlemagne, St. Augustine. But he chose himself. Dante is Dante’s own hero. How could the man—who had never done anything extraordinary in his life—venture to portray himself as such a favorite of God that he would be led up to the highest sphere of Heaven itself? What’s more, he sets Beatrice—the woman he lusted after—nearly on a level with the Virgin Mary! Just think about that for a second. Throughout the entire poem Dante is presuming to know the Mind of God. What profounder blasphemy can be committed by a poet? It’s absurd, really.

But I bet I would have a similarly disappointed reaction to a modernized and simplified version of Shakespeare. Poetry without the poetry is paltry. And who am I—who is writing an internet book review on one of the greatest poems of all time—to judge another for being arrogant?
...more

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Feb 17, 2015 Amanda rated it did not like it

I started to read this in the hopes that it would enrich my understanding of Italians. Apparently Dante is one of Italy's top homeboyz. However after a few cantos I have come to the conclusion that reading The Divine Comedy is almost as bad as reading The Holy Bible. This is what I was thinking as I read, "Who is talking now? What do the words they're saying even mean? Wait, what? That sentence was completely unintelligible. Oh my god, how many more pages?" ...more

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About Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri

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Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the comic story-teller Boccaccio and the poet Petrarch, he forms the classic trio of Italian authors. Dante Alighieri was born in the city-state Florence in 1265. He first saw the woman, or rather the child, who was to become the poetic love of his life when he Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the comic story-teller Boccaccio and the poet Petrarch, he forms the classic trio of Italian authors. Dante Alighieri was born in the city-state Florence in 1265. He first saw the woman, or rather the child, who was to become the poetic love of his life when he was almost nine years old and she was some months younger. In fact, Beatrice married another man, Simone di' Bardi, and died when Dante was 25, so their relationship existed almost entirely in Dante's imagination, but she nonetheless plays an extremely important role in his poetry. Dante attributed all the heavenly virtues to her soul and imagined, in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy, that she was his guardian angel who alternately berated and encouraged him on his search for salvation.

Politics as well as love deeply influenced Dante's literary and emotional life. Renaissance Florence was a thriving, but not a peaceful city: different opposing factions continually struggled for dominance there. The Guelfs and the Ghibellines were the two major factions, and in fact that division was important in all of Italy and other countries as well. The Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor were political rivals for much of this time period, and in general the Guelfs were in favor of the Pope, while the Ghibellines supported Imperial power. By 1289 in the battle of Campaldino the Ghibellines largely disappeared from Florence. Peace, however, did not insue. Instead, the Guelf party divided between the Whites and the Blacks (Dante was a White Guelf). The Whites were more opposed to Papal power than the Blacks, and tended to favor the emperor, so in fact the preoccupations of the White Guelfs were much like those of the defeated Ghibellines. In this divisive atmosphere Dante rose to a position of leadership. in 1302, while he was in Rome on a diplomatic mission to the Pope, the Blacks in Florence seized power with the help of the French (and pro-Pope) Charles of Valois. The Blacks exiled Dante, confiscating his goods and condemning him to be burned if he should return to Florence.

Dante never returned to Florence. He wandered from city to city, depending on noble patrons there. Between 1302 and 1304 some attempts were made by the exiled Whites to retrieve their position in Florence, but none of these succeeded and Dante contented himself with hoping for the appearance of a new powerful Holy Roman Emperor who would unite the country and banish strife. Henry VII was elected Emperor in 1308, and indeed laid seige to Florence in 1312, but was defeated, and he died a year later, destroying Dante's hopes. Dante passed from court to court, writing passionate political and moral epistles and finishing his Divine Comedy, which contains the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. He finally died in Ravenna in 1321. ...more