Dante's Divine Comedy

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Has anyone read this? I bought this last night. I did not realize it was 700 years old. Once I started reading it I thought what did I get myself into. It’s a tough read. Once I put the book down last night I realized that I was getting it. It’s very interesting. I wish I had cleft notes or something to explain some of the verses. It’s also a tough book to read with four children in the house.
 
I had to go through it as mandatory reading when I was a high school student in Italy. A lot of things are not trivial to understand, and I think that for most Americans it is even more difficult because of the many local historical references. A lot of of those references are now lost even in the present Italian high school culture. I think that the University of Texas has a good introductory web site danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/. You can also look at this web site worldofdante.org/ from the University of Virginia.
 
The translation you choose can matter. IMO one of the best is Anthony Esolen, for he also includes notes to the poem that include a deep understanding of Catholicism. Many translation notes that I’ve read tend to focus on political issues over the Catholic ones, or the translator approaches the theology from a Protestant/Secular approach.

Dorothy Sayers is another good one, too.
 
Michael_C said:
Has anyone read this? I bought this last night. I did not realize it was 700 years old. Once I started reading it I thought what did I get myself into. It’s a tough read. Once I put the book down last night I realized that I was getting it. It’s very interesting. I wish I had cleft notes or something to explain some of the verses. It’s also a tough book to read with four children in the house.
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I have read it; the Inferno I’ve read several times. I would definitely get a heavily annotaed version; it has a wealth of references that nobody today could possibly know. I liked a translation by John Ciardi, but do realize that he comes from a very secular viewpoint. His notes are not very sympathetic to the Church, which is a huge drawback from a work that comes from such an intensely Catholic perspecitve. For the Paradise especially, notes from a more Catholic perspective would make it a very good spiritual read.

A great work of literature.

God Bless,
Joan
 
The version I bought is not annotated at all. It was a special from barnes and Noble…ouch!! I’m on my own for now.
 
Who is the translator? My guess is that you have the Longfellow one? It’s great, and iirc it was the first American translation. But some folks will have problems reading it – but that’s only because the typical 21st century reader doesn’t get a chance to read something that is translated for a 19th century audience.
 
I loved the Divine Comedy. All three books are just awesome! The Inferno has the oooh ahhh appeal. Pugatory is real thought provoking, and Paradise is just awe inspiring.
 
I loved it as well. cliffs notes are available for it. Or you can just research it on the internet, there are some different ways to have a little help working through it. I remember when I read it I found some papers on the internet about it written by high school or college kids, the papers kind of helped.
 
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