The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso in Read a book from each country

Apr 02, 2013 J rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: italian-literature

What's really amazing to me about this is that it's basically the first major attempt at a broad literary synthesis. Dante wants to describe his world completely, and to do that he sucks in entire civilzations of images, myths, and legends. He doesn't just throw down references to Greco-Roman antiquity, paganism, church history and the bloody Italian politics of his time and leave them there, but instead he modifies and shifts all of these to develop his own project of mapping out what the unive What's really amazing to me about this is that it's basically the first major attempt at a broad literary synthesis. Dante wants to describe his world completely, and to do that he sucks in entire civilzations of images, myths, and legends. He doesn't just throw down references to Greco-Roman antiquity, paganism, church history and the bloody Italian politics of his time and leave them there, but instead he modifies and shifts all of these to develop his own project of mapping out what the universe looked like to someone in the late 13th century. That sort of broad appropriation is hugely important for the subsequent development of imaginative literature, writers like Milton, Joyce, Borges, etc. get a lot of their traction out of Dante's ideas and style.

Literary history aside, what makes Dante so incredible is how personal and intimate he is. His reactions to the pits of hell and the reveries of heaven are those of a fallible, often confused person trying to come to grips with his world, not some pompous scholastic who turns everything into a dogmatic, Aristotelian argument (though he does do that from time to time, it was the middle ages, after all). He's able to move swiftly between scenes of intense personal conflict and emotional overwhelment (he faints a lot), and huge set pieces (SATAN! HEAVEN!) without loosing any of his momentum or his ability to report on the minute nooks and crannies of the afterlife. And at the same time he has this incredibly worldly, polemic sensibility. Being in the after life allows him to let loose on the brutal violence of European politics and the venality and hypocrisy of the church, and to populate hell with everyone he doesn't like (a literary exercise that almost anyone would enjoy). It's a crazy, comprehensive vision that has a refreshingly human core, rendered brilliantly by John Ciardi, who is not only a wonderful translator but also a refreshingly opinionated and funny commentator and critic. His diagrams and endnotes provide an invaluable and elegant context. ...more

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Apr 15, 2008 Derrick rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, poetry, essential-man-s-library, 2013

I didn't care for this book at all. I listened to it while riding back and forth to work. It was difficult to pay attention to, to care about, to enjoy. There were very interesting thought-provoking statements in the book which I documented. I can appreciate the book for its historical significance. I'm glad I experienced it, I won't say read it. Won't do that again. ...more

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Aug 23, 2008 Anna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Tą książkę trzeba czytać wolno i dokładnie oraz znać chociaż część postaci, które tam występują, ewentualnie mieć pod ręką encyklopedię lub dostę p do internetu. Poza tym jest całkiem niezła.

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