Dante's Inferno
Ratings5
Average rating3.4
The "Divine Comedy" was entitled by Dante himself merely "Commedia," meaning a poetic composition in a style intermediate between the sustained nobility of tragedy, and the popular tone of elegy. The word had no dramatic implication at that time, though it did involve a happy ending. The poem is the narrative of a journey down through Hell, up the mountain of Purgatory, and through the revolving heavens into the presence of God. In this aspect it belongs to the two familiar medieval literary types of the Journey and the Vision. It is also an allegory, representing under the symbolism of the stages and experiences of the journey, the history of a human soul, painfully struggling from sin through purification to the Beatific Vision. Contained in this volume is the first part of the "Divine Comedy," the "Inferno" or "Hell," from the translation of Charles Eliot Norton.
Series
Series
3 primary booksLa Divina Commedia
La Divina Commedia is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 10 with contributions by Dante Alighieri.
Series
1 primary bookLe opere di Dante Alighieri
Le opere di Dante Alighieri is a 1-book series first released in 1320 with contributions by Sandow Birk.
Reviews
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I bought this book, because I was enticed by the artwork, and it turns out that is the only real reason to read it. Birk's Dante's Inferno is a modern refashioning of the Inferno with detailed illustrations translating the Dante's Hell into a decaying, commercially saturated, urban wasteland reminiscent of a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. The cover painting and the engravings inside are beautiful (in that way that Hell and abandoned freeway underpasses can be) and a fun re-interpretation of Gustave Dore's 19th century illustrations. The text, on the other hand, is just lame. With awkward insertions of contemporary figures, such as Bill Clinton, Thabo Mbeki, and Dionne Warwick, and such glowing sentences from Dante's mouth as “I was bummed for him,” Birk's modern translation is an insult to the original. I think this book would have been better if he had just left the text as is. I would not have minded the incongruency between illustration and text as much as I did the mediocre word-smithery. Skim the book for the pictures, but read a more traditional tradition for the Dante.