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Inferno

Dante Alighieri

Start date: October 1, 2020

Finish date: October 31, 2020

Discussion: Group Reads

Why we're reading this: October 2020 Completist Selection
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What Members Thought

Nov 10, 2020 Matthew rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, own, completist-book-club, audible, 2020, spiritual, classic

I did not expect Dante’s Inferno to be easy, but it was not as hard as I expected it to be.

In order to make sure that I gave it my all, over the course of about 40 days I listened to it twice, had a physical copy that I skimmed and referenced, looked at online study guides, and discussed with some of my Goodreads friends. While I still feel there is more here to be learned and grasped due to all the symbolism and word craft used by Dante, I feel like I at least got a good feel for it in my Divin ...more

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Dec 19, 2020 Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: series, poetry, read-in-en-and-fr, favorites, italian-classic

One of the great classics that everyone should attempt reading once. For Walking Dead fans, had there been no Dante, there could never have been a Kirkman. There is incredible violence and suffering (it is Hell after all), but the relationship between Virgil and Dante is a beautiful one that evolves as their descend lower and lower.
I read both the John Ciardi translation in verse (rhyming for the first and third lines in each stanza trying to keep to Dante's 11-syllable structure) and John M Sin One of the great classics that everyone should attempt reading once. For Walking Dead fans, had there been no Dante, there could never have been a Kirkman. There is incredible violence and suffering (it is Hell after all), but the relationship between Virgil and Dante is a beautiful one that evolves as their descend lower and lower.
I read both the John Ciardi translation in verse (rhyming for the first and third lines in each stanza trying to keep to Dante's 11-syllable structure) and John M Sinclair's prose translation (which also includes the original on the left pages). Both are highly commendable and have great notes and footnotes.

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

Here Dante shows that the book is autobiographical ("I went astray") and at the same time universal ("our life's journey"). It also moves between dreaming and reality ("I went astray...and work") which characterizes his depictions of hell, purgatory, and paradise that follow. The forboding of the "dark wood" is a perfect introduction to the description of hell that awaits us. Even the fact that he strayed from the "straight road" seems to presage the curvy, circular path he will take through hell's many circles. This is one of my favorite openings and chills me a bit whenever I reread it.

If I were to see this book at a painting, the first one that comes to mind is Guernica by Picasso where the suffering is so painfully evident - albeit in black and white perhaps echoing the black text on the white page. The implicit condemnation of the perpetrators and the overall feeling of suffering in Inferno as in Guernica is overwhelming. I suppose I could also choose from one of Otto Dix's paintings or Bosch's but the very first that I thought of was Picasso.

It is also well-worth looking at Botticelli’s drawings of Inferno that he did for a book. All of Renaissance Italy was in awe of Dante and as they prepared a new edition of his book, Sandro was asked to illustrate it. ...more

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Nov 06, 2022 Balloonhands rated it liked it

This is not my analysis of this book this is just how I feel after a general read with no research. Starting my reread right now to understand this more

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Sep 04, 2022 Tom rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

CONTENTS
Dante Alighieri (brief biographical sketch) ✔
The World of Dante and the Inferno ✔
The Story of the Inferno in Brief by Henry Frances Carey ✔

Introduction by Peter Bondanella
Dante's Life and Times ✔
An Overview of The Divine Comedy ✔
Dante's Hell: Conception, Geography, and Its System of Punishments ✔
Reading the Inferno: A Few Caveats ✔

Map of Hell ✔

NOTE
To better understand the meaning behind each of Dante's Cantos, I listened to various professors explain each one on the site 100 Days of ...more

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