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- Seeing, hearing, believing Dante
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The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatory - Paradise (Naxos AudioBooks)
Dante Alighieri
Manufacturer: Naxos Audiobooks
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ASIN: 962634315X
Release Date: 2004-11-30 |
Customer Reviews:
Seeing, hearing, believing Dante.......2007-01-09
This audiobook is a remarkably good addition for the individual who enjoys good literature well read. Superb production values, an excellent reader/actor who imbues the material with accurate intonation and enunciation, cadence, and modulation, makes this one a gem. If you are spending your money wisely, you cannot go wrong with this NAXOS production. This one will be listened to many times. I even purchased the translation in hardcopy to pay closer attention to the reading.
Wonderful Performance.......2006-05-14
This is a wonderful performance of the entire Divine Comedy which one can listen to many times. The reader, Heathecoate Williams, must be some sort of an actor -- full throated furious at times, pale and poignant at others as he wends his way through it all, mimicking all the saints and sinners like a mockingbird. Each of the 100 cantos is prefaced by a short suggestion of period music for a breather and for atmosphere, which does not intrude or ham up the performance, as often happens with similar efforts.
Shameless drama of Williams' variety may be embarrassing to some, out of style to others. But it supplies an important element lacking to the rather dry academic fashion by which most are these days exposed to Dante. Nor is any accuracy of meaning sacrificed thereby. The three parts of the Comedy are all read from a prose translation by a man named Benedict Flynn. I am not aware that this translation is available anywhere in print, but having read several English translations of Dante, the word choice is familiar and sounds properly middle of the road. Truth be told, a dramatic flair does no disservice to this very personal poem at all, which was radical in its day for being written in common vernacular. For the hearer of our language, it places Dante in the ring where he belongs: with the fully engaged Shakespeare of the history plays, not with the closet dramas of a T.S. Eliot or a Robert Lowell.
The set is well worth the price, and the bonus disc lecture on Dante's life not only adds the academic dimension, but makes the price for the whole a steal.
Book Description
The Divine Comedy begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. It proceeds on a journey that, in its intense recreation of the depths and the heights of human experience, has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity.
Allen Mandelbaum’s astonishingly Dantean translation, which captures so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us the masterpiece of that genius whom our greatest poets have recognized as a central model for all poets.
This Everyman’s edition–containing in one volume all three cantos, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso–includes an introduction by Nobel Prize—winning poet Eugenio Montale, a chronology, notes, and a bibliography. Also included are forty-two drawings selected from Botticelli's marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
The Divine Comedy: Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso.......2007-07-27
It's a good book, it's new and i received it in a timely manner for a really low price.
Unbelievable!.......2007-05-15
I was really pleasantly surprised by the condition of this book. I just needed a copy for a college class, so anything would have done the job, but this copy was something I will keep on my shelves forever! Good job !
BTW it got here fast, too!
A Many-Splendored Thing.......2007-05-05
The book arrived today and I am overjoyed to have it in my hands. Aside from the grandeur of Dante's masterpiece, it is quite beautiful to look at! It's an 800-page hardcover from Everyman's Library, respectfully produced, the dust-cover embellished by Botticelli's painting of the noble poet. Allen Mandelbaum's translation is a famously fine one, endorsed by such as the late, great Hugh Kenner, and I am the lucky one now able to read the entire poem.
Amazing Dante!.......2007-05-03
This is incredible! I am in love with this translation! I can read the original Italian (I am fluent), and this version is very faithful to what Dante actually wrote. Nonetheless, it is still extremely enjoyable, and I have taken much pleasure from reading this English version.
Pretty Good.......2007-04-30
This book is amazing. The way its made is perfect. I love the feel of it my hands, i just want to snuggle with it all night......the text in the book is good. It is a great copy to read, can get a little crazy with some of the archaic words, but that will make you more smart, hahaha, it also has a ribbon book mark in it, its cute......
Book Description
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.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book.......2007-07-03
I found Dante's Inferno to be in excellent shape, a great book, and plan on purchasing volumes II and III.
Medieval vision of the afterlife.......2007-05-01
This was required reading for a graduate course in medieval history.
Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321) "Devine Comedy" weaved together aspects of biblical and classical Greek literary traditions to produce one of the most important works of not only medieval literature, but also one of the great literary works of Western civilization. The full impact of this 14,000-line poem divided into 100 cantos and three books is not just literary. Dante's autobiographical poem Commedia, as he titled it, was his look into the individual psyche and human soul. He explored and reflected on such fundamental questions as political institutions and their problems, the nature of humankind's moral actions, and the possibility of spiritual transformation; these were all fundamental social and cultural concerns for people during the fourteenth-century. Dante wrote the Commedia not in Latin but in the Tuscan dialect of Italian so that it would reach a broader readership. The Commedia was a three-part journey undertaken by the pilgrim Dante to the realms of the Christian afterlife: Hell, (Inferno), Purgatory, (Purgatorio), and Paradise, (Paradisio).
The poem narrated in first person, began with Dante lost midlife. He was 35 years old in the year 1300 and in a dark wood. Being lost in the dark wood was certainly an allegorical device that Dante used to express the condition of his own life at the time he started writing the poem. Dante had been active in Florentine politics and a member of the White Guelph party who opposed the secular rule of Pope Boniface VIII over Florence. In 1302, The Black Guelphs who were allied with the Pope, were militarily victorious in gaining control of the city and Dante found himself an exile from his beloved city for the rest of his life. Thus, Dante started writing the Commedia in 1308 and used it to comment on his own tribulations of life, and to state his views on politics and religion, and heap scorn on his political enemies.
Dante's first leg of his journey out of the dark wood was through the nine concentric circles of Hell (Inferno), escorted by his favorite classical Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid. Dante borrowed heavily from Virgil's Aeneid. Much of Dante's description of hell had similarities to Virgil's description in his sixth book of the Aeneid. Dante's three major divisions of sin in hell where unrepentant sinners dwelled, had their sources in Aristotle and Augustinian philosophy. They were self-indulgence, violence, and fraud. Fraud was considered the worst of moral failures because it undermined family, trust, and religion; in essence, it tore at the moral fabric of civilized society. These divisions were inversions of the classical virtues of moderation, courage, and wisdom. The fourth classical virtue, justice, is what Dante came to believe after his journey through hell that all its inhabitants received for their unrepentant sins. There were nine concentric circles of hell inside the earth; each smaller than the previous one. For Dante the geography of hell was a moral geography as well as a physical one, reflecting the nature of the sin. Canto IV describes the first circle of hell, Limbo, which is where Dante met the shades, as souls where called, of the virtuous un-baptized such as Homer, Ovid, Caesar, Aristotle, and Plato.
In the four circles for the sin of self-indulgence Dante met shades who where lustful, gluttons, hoarders and wrathful. In the second circle of Hell, lustful souls were blown around in a violent storm. In Canto V, one of the great dramatic moments of the poem, Dante had his first lengthy encounter with an unrepentant sinner Francesca da Rimini, who committed adultery with her brother-in-law. Like all the sinners in hell, Francesca laid the blame for her sin elsewhere. She claimed to be seduced into committing adultery after reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. At the end of the scene, Dante fainted out of pity for Francesca.
In Canto X, the sixth circle of hell reserved for heretics who are punished by being trapped in flaming tombs, Dante took the opportunity to use the circle to chastise political leaders for participating in political partisanship. A Florentine who was a leader in the rival Ghibbelline political party, Farinata degli Uberti, accosted Dante. Both men aggressively argued with each other, recreating in hell the bitterness of partisan politics in Florence. Farinata predicted Dante's exile. Dante used this Canto to show the dangerous tendencies of petty political partisanship that he harbored.
The seventh circle of hell was subdivided into three areas where sinners were punished for doing violence against themselves, their neighbors, or God. In Canto XIII Dante encountered Pier della Vigne in the wood of the suicides. The shades there were shrubs who had to speak through a broken branch. Pier spoke to Dante about how he had been an important advisor to Emperor Frederick II, and how he blamed his fall, and his suicide, on the envy of other court members. This Canto was especially important because Dante came to grips with his own "future" fall from political power and exile. Pier's behavior served as a strong example to Dante how not to act in exile. Whether he had been tempted to commit suicide is not clear; however, he certainly had been prone to the selfish and despairing attitude that Pier represented.
The last two circles of hell contained the sinners of fraud. In the eighth circle, there were ten ditches for the various types of fraud such as Simony, thievery, hypocrisy, etc. Canto XIX described the third ditch, which contained those guilty of Simony, the sin of church leaders perverting their spiritual office by buying and selling church offices. Simonists were buried upside down in a rock with their feet on fire. Pope Nicholas III mistakenly addressed Dante as Pope Boniface VIII who was the current Pope in 1300, and whose place in hell was thereby predicted. This is not surprising since Boniface was the person most responsible for Dante's exile. In an interesting literary twist, Nicholas "confessed" to Dante, as if he was a priest, his sin of greed and nepotism. He admitted that even after becoming Pope he cared more for his family's interests than the good of the whole Church. Dante responded to Nicholas' "confession" with a stinging condemnation of Simony drawn from the Book of Revelation. After this encounter, Dante came to understand that hell was a place of justice.
Canto XXXIV, the last one in the Inferno, depicted Satan with three heads. Each head was chewing the three worst sinners of humankind. The middle head was chewing on the head of Judas Iscariot, who was a disciple to Jesus and his betrayer. The other two heads were chewing Brutus and Cassius; the murderers of Julius Caesar, and the two men Dante faulted for the destruction of a unified Italy. Dante considered the two ultimate betrayals against God and against the empire as the worst betrayals perpetrated in the history of humankind.
Thus, Dante's intent in his Commedia was to teach fourteenth-century readers that if one wanted to ascend spiritually towards God then one needed to learn the nature of sin from the unrepentant. By doing this, one could learn to overcome the same tendencies found in themselves. He wanted people to realize what he had come to learn that political partisanship would only stand in the way of unifying Italy and keep it from regaining any of its former glory that it enjoyed during the time of the Roman Empire.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in literature and medieval history.
Abandon hope..........2006-11-18
"Midway life's journey I was made aware/that I had strayed into a dark forest..." Those eerie words open the first cantica of Dante Alighieri's "Inferno," the most famous part of the legendary Divina Comedia. But the stuff going on here is anything but divine, as Dante explores the metaphorical and supernatural horrors of the inferno.
The date is Good Friday of the year 1300, and Dante is lost in a creepy dark forest, being assaulted by a trio of beasts who symbolize his own sins. But suddenly he is rescued ("Not man; man I once was") by the legendary poet Virgil, who takes the despondent Dante under his wing -- and down into Hell.
But this isn't a straightforward hell of flames and dancing devils. Instead, it's a multi-tiered carnival of horrors, where different sins are punished with different means. Opportunists are forever stung by insects, the lustful are trapped in a storm, the greedy are forced to battle against each other, and the violent lie in a river of boiling blood, are transformed into thorn bushes, and are trapped on a volcanic desert.
If nothing else makes you feel like being good, then "The Inferno" might change your mind. The author loads up his "Inferno" with every kind of disgusting, grotesque punishment that you can imagine -- and it's all wrapped up in an allegorical journey of humankind's redemption, not to mention dissing the politics of Italy and Florence.
Along with Virgil -- author of the "Aeneid" -- Dante peppered his Inferno with Greek myth and symbolism. Like the Greek underworld, different punishments await different sins; what's more, there are also appearances by harpies, centaurs, Cerberus and the god Pluto. But the sinners are mostly Dante's contemporaries, from corrupt popes to soldiers.
And Dante's skill as a writer can't be denied -- the grotesque punishments are enough to make your skin crawl ("Fixed in the slime, groan they, 'We were sullen and wroth...'"), and the grand finale is Satan himself, with legendary traitors Brutus, Cassius and Judas sitting in his mouths. (Yes, I said MOUTHS, not "mouth")
More impressive still is his ability to weave the poetry out of symbolism and allegory, without it ever seeming preachy or annoying. Even pre-hell, we have a lion, a leopard and a wolf, which symbolize different sins, and a dark forest that indicates suicidal thoughts. And the punishments themselves usually reflect the person's flaws, such as false prophets having their heads twisted around so they can only see what's behind them. Wicked sense of humor.
Dante's vivid writing and wildly imaginative "inferno" makes this the most fascinating, compelling volume of the Divine Comedy. Never fun, but always spellbinding and complicated.
Book Description
This vigorous translation of the poet's journey through the circles of hell re-creates for the modern reader the rich meanings that Dante's poem had for his contemporaries. Musa's introduction and commentaries on each of the cantos brilliantly illuminate the text.
Translated with Notes and an Introduction by Mark Musa
Download Description
This timeless Christian allegory has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery fo its own identity. In the Inferno, the first of the Comedy's three parts, Dante is conducted by the spirit of the classical poet Virgil through the nine circles of Hell on the initial stage of his arduous journey toward God.
Customer Reviews:
Abandon hope..........2007-10-04
"Midway life's journey I was made aware/that I had strayed into a dark forest..." Those eerie words open the first cantica of Dante Alighieri's "Inferno," the most famous part of the legendary Divina Comedia. But the stuff going on here is anything but divine, as Dante explores the metaphorical and supernatural horrors of the inferno.
The date is Good Friday of the year 1300, and Dante is lost in a creepy dark forest, being assaulted by a trio of beasts who symbolize his own sins. But suddenly he is rescued ("Not man; man I once was") by the legendary poet Virgil, who takes the despondent Dante under his wing -- and down into Hell.
But this isn't a straightforward hell of flames and dancing devils. Instead, it's a multi-tiered carnival of horrors, where different sins are punished with different means. Opportunists are forever stung by insects, the lustful are trapped in a storm, the greedy are forced to battle against each other, and the violent lie in a river of boiling blood, are transformed into thorn bushes, and are trapped on a volcanic desert.
If nothing else makes you feel like being good, then "The Inferno" might change your mind. The author loads up his "Inferno" with every kind of disgusting, grotesque punishment that you can imagine -- and it's all wrapped up in an allegorical journey of humankind's redemption, not to mention dissing the politics of Italy and Florence.
Along with Virgil -- author of the "Aeneid" -- Dante peppered his Inferno with Greek myth and symbolism. Like the Greek underworld, different punishments await different sins; what's more, there are also appearances by harpies, centaurs, Cerberus and the god Pluto. But the sinners are mostly Dante's contemporaries, from corrupt popes to soldiers.
And Dante's skill as a writer can't be denied -- the grotesque punishments are enough to make your skin crawl ("Fixed in the slime, groan they, 'We were sullen and wroth...'"), and the grand finale is Satan himself, with legendary traitors Brutus, Cassius and Judas sitting in his mouths. (Yes, I said MOUTHS, not "mouth")
More impressive still is his ability to weave the poetry out of symbolism and allegory, without it ever seeming preachy or annoying. Even pre-hell, we have a lion, a leopard and a wolf, which symbolize different sins, and a dark forest that indicates suicidal thoughts. And the punishments themselves usually reflect the person's flaws, such as false prophets having their heads twisted around so they can only see what's behind them. Wicked sense of humor.
Dante's vivid writing and wildly imaginative "inferno" makes this the most fascinating, compelling volume of the Divine Comedy. Never fun, but always spellbinding and complicated.
Readable translation.......2007-08-23
A lovely, readable, blank verse translation. The notes are helpful, but not so overwhelming as to detract from the poetry of the text. I'd highly recommend to any reader.
Medieval vision of the afterlife.......2007-05-01
This was required reading for a graduate course in medieval history.
Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321) "Devine Comedy" weaved together aspects of biblical and classical Greek literary traditions to produce one of the most important works of not only medieval literature, but also one of the great literary works of Western civilization. The full impact of this 14,000-line poem divided into 100 cantos and three books is not just literary. Dante's autobiographical poem Commedia, as he titled it, was his look into the individual psyche and human soul. He explored and reflected on such fundamental questions as political institutions and their problems, the nature of humankind's moral actions, and the possibility of spiritual transformation; these were all fundamental social and cultural concerns for people during the fourteenth-century. Dante wrote the Commedia not in Latin but in the Tuscan dialect of Italian so that it would reach a broader readership. The Commedia was a three-part journey undertaken by the pilgrim Dante to the realms of the Christian afterlife: Hell, (Inferno), Purgatory, (Purgatorio), and Paradise, (Paradisio).
The poem narrated in first person, began with Dante lost midlife. He was 35 years old in the year 1300 and in a dark wood. Being lost in the dark wood was certainly an allegorical device that Dante used to express the condition of his own life at the time he started writing the poem. Dante had been active in Florentine politics and a member of the White Guelph party who opposed the secular rule of Pope Boniface VIII over Florence. In 1302, The Black Guelphs who were allied with the Pope, were militarily victorious in gaining control of the city and Dante found himself an exile from his beloved city for the rest of his life. Thus, Dante started writing the Commedia in 1308 and used it to comment on his own tribulations of life, and to state his views on politics and religion, and heap scorn on his political enemies.
Dante's first leg of his journey out of the dark wood was through the nine concentric circles of Hell (Inferno), escorted by his favorite classical Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid. Dante borrowed heavily from Virgil's Aeneid. Much of Dante's description of hell had similarities to Virgil's description in his sixth book of the Aeneid. Dante's three major divisions of sin in hell where unrepentant sinners dwelled, had their sources in Aristotle and Augustinian philosophy. They were self-indulgence, violence, and fraud. Fraud was considered the worst of moral failures because it undermined family, trust, and religion; in essence, it tore at the moral fabric of civilized society. These divisions were inversions of the classical virtues of moderation, courage, and wisdom. The fourth classical virtue, justice, is what Dante came to believe after his journey through hell that all its inhabitants received for their unrepentant sins. There were nine concentric circles of hell inside the earth; each smaller than the previous one. For Dante the geography of hell was a moral geography as well as a physical one, reflecting the nature of the sin. Canto IV describes the first circle of hell, Limbo, which is where Dante met the shades, as souls where called, of the virtuous un-baptized such as Homer, Ovid, Caesar, Aristotle, and Plato.
In the four circles for the sin of self-indulgence Dante met shades who where lustful, gluttons, hoarders and wrathful. In the second circle of Hell, lustful souls were blown around in a violent storm. In Canto V, one of the great dramatic moments of the poem, Dante had his first lengthy encounter with an unrepentant sinner Francesca da Rimini, who committed adultery with her brother-in-law. Like all the sinners in hell, Francesca laid the blame for her sin elsewhere. She claimed to be seduced into committing adultery after reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. At the end of the scene, Dante fainted out of pity for Francesca.
In Canto X, the sixth circle of hell reserved for heretics who are punished by being trapped in flaming tombs, Dante took the opportunity to use the circle to chastise political leaders for participating in political partisanship. A Florentine who was a leader in the rival Ghibbelline political party, Farinata degli Uberti, accosted Dante. Both men aggressively argued with each other, recreating in hell the bitterness of partisan politics in Florence. Farinata predicted Dante's exile. Dante used this Canto to show the dangerous tendencies of petty political partisanship that he harbored.
The seventh circle of hell was subdivided into three areas where sinners were punished for doing violence against themselves, their neighbors, or God. In Canto XIII Dante encountered Pier della Vigne in the wood of the suicides. The shades there were shrubs who had to speak through a broken branch. Pier spoke to Dante about how he had been an important advisor to Emperor Frederick II, and how he blamed his fall, and his suicide, on the envy of other court members. This Canto was especially important because Dante came to grips with his own "future" fall from political power and exile. Pier's behavior served as a strong example to Dante how not to act in exile. Whether he had been tempted to commit suicide is not clear; however, he certainly had been prone to the selfish and despairing attitude that Pier represented.
The last two circles of hell contained the sinners of fraud. In the eighth circle, there were ten ditches for the various types of fraud such as Simony, thievery, hypocrisy, etc. Canto XIX described the third ditch, which contained those guilty of Simony, the sin of church leaders perverting their spiritual office by buying and selling church offices. Simonists were buried upside down in a rock with their feet on fire. Pope Nicholas III mistakenly addressed Dante as Pope Boniface VIII who was the current Pope in 1300, and whose place in hell was thereby predicted. This is not surprising since Boniface was the person most responsible for Dante's exile. In an interesting literary twist, Nicholas "confessed" to Dante, as if he was a priest, his sin of greed and nepotism. He admitted that even after becoming Pope he cared more for his family's interests than the good of the whole Church. Dante responded to Nicholas' "confession" with a stinging condemnation of Simony drawn from the Book of Revelation. After this encounter, Dante came to understand that hell was a place of justice.
Canto XXXIV, the last one in the Inferno, depicted Satan with three heads. Each head was chewing the three worst sinners of humankind. The middle head was chewing on the head of Judas Iscariot, who was a disciple to Jesus and his betrayer. The other two heads were chewing Brutus and Cassius; the murderers of Julius Caesar, and the two men Dante faulted for the destruction of a unified Italy. Dante considered the two ultimate betrayals against God and against the empire as the worst betrayals perpetrated in the history of humankind.
Thus, Dante's intent in his Commedia was to teach fourteenth-century readers that if one wanted to ascend spiritually towards God then one needed to learn the nature of sin from the unrepentant. By doing this, one could learn to overcome the same tendencies found in themselves. He wanted people to realize what he had come to learn that political partisanship would only stand in the way of unifying Italy and keep it from regaining any of its former glory that it enjoyed during the time of the Roman Empire.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in literature and medieval history.
Wow.......2007-02-12
Mr. Musa writes a nice translation of a tough work, and even more challenging topic. I recommend.
One of the most thought provoking I've read yet..........2006-11-12
While browsing through the local bookstore, one cannot help but to be bombarded with at least 5 different published versions of this wonderous story.
'The Divine Comedy' by Dante Aligheri sets in motion the journey of a pilgrim through the nine layers of hell. Accompanying him is his guide, none other then the famous poet Virgil. While he accends down into the depths, each layer has a character with a story to be told. To be honest, I had flipped through this book before and found in daunting. Set up in 'Canto' form, the book is split in 34 chapers. I was pleasently surprised to see that I had been very wrong. This book has opened up new ideas to me, and made me think of religion and the philosophy of life in a way I never thought of before. The Inferno is a very descriptive story that will not leave you unsatisfied.
Average customer rating:
- latin? please.
- Great to a point
- A Cliff Note review?!?!
- Great peice of literature, very well written poetry
|
Divine Comedy: Inferno (Cliffs Notes)
James L. Roberts , and
Nikki Moustaki
Manufacturer: Cliffs Notes
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ASIN: 0764586548 |
Book Description
The original CliffsNotes study guides offer a look into critical elements and ideas within classic works of literature. The latest generation of titles in this series also feature glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format.
CliffsNotes on Divine Comedy: Inferno takes you deep inside Dante's vision of Hell, the first installment in his three-poem epic.
Following the spiritual journey of Dante and his guide Virgil, this expert study companion provides summaries, commentaries, and glossaries related to each canto within the poem. Other features that help you figure out this important work include
- Life and background of the poet and the poem
- Introduction to the poem's structure, allegory, symbols, and more
- Critical essays that explore deeper meanings within this challenging work
- A review section that tests your knowledge and suggests essay topics and practice projects
- A Resource Center full of books, translations, and Internet resources
Classic literature or modern-day treasure — you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.
Customer Reviews:
latin? please........2002-11-05
Readers, please note: The two people who gave this negative reviews thought that The Inferno was written in Latin. It wasn't. Clearly, they read neither the Cliff's Note nor the book. Silly to write a review of a book that you know nothing about!
Great to a point.......2002-06-22
Great help but to much opinion. (lol) Let's just say I read this more than I read the book due to time restraints. This cliff's notes does help and I would recommend to anyone that is having problems understanding Dante's Inferno (a great book also!)
A Cliff Note review?!?!.......2000-12-30
Well, it's odd to write a review for a set of Cliff Notes, but I'll make an exception in this case. People often equate buying Cliff Notes with kids who have to read a book and want to actually get OUT of reading the book. However, I bought Dante's Divine Comedy: The Inferno for leisure reading (actually I like the theological implications that Dante ponders in the writing of his poem) and the Cliff Notes have become quite useful. The Notes start out with a general background of Dante, giving a mini biography of the author. Throughout this sketch they allude to a number of instances in his life which will come into play in his work The Divine Comedy. They then go on with an overall synposis of The Inferno. After that they go into a full-out commentary on the work itself.
I picked up the Cliff Notes at the same time I bought my copy of The Divine Comedy. Why? Well, I didn't want to miss a thing. I read for fun, but I also try with the books I truly enjoy, to read critically. Knowing that the copy of The Inferno was actually a translation from the latin meant that since I cannot read latin, that there would be certain nuances of the language that I may miss out on when reading it in english. Hence, I am relying on the Cliff Notes (which I read AFTER I finish a particular section) to point out these instances to me. I can then go back and re-read the section and gain the deeper insight into the poem itself. Used as a supplement (not as the source itself, which unfortunately happens with many users of Cliff Notes) this has proven to be a nice tool. It is by no means absolutely necessary (my copy of The Inferno comes with its own commentary... I have the Bantam issue of Dante's Divine Comedy) but it is nice to have on hand when there are sections that are a bit 'heavy'. I will not go into the book itself here in this review, since this is the Cliff Notes, but instead I'll tackle that in a review of the book itself. Overall, I think the Cliff Notes are a nice addition, something to have next to the armchair when reading the actual book. The only downside... the Cliff Notes cost almost as much ($4.95) as the book itself ($5.95).
Great peice of literature, very well written poetry.......1999-10-19
An awesome book that tells about Dante's trip through Hell, with a very famous guide named Virgil. Not exactly docternal, but good imagination. He incorperates many of the people he knew, or who were famous then into the story. It makes you want to learn Latin so you can read it without translation.
Book Description
This new translation presents the Italian text of the Inferno, and, on facing pages, Robert Durling's new prose translation, which brings a new power and accuracy to the rendering of Dantes extraordinary vision of Hell, with all its terror, pathos, and sardonic humor, and its penetrating analyses of the psychology of sin and the ills that plague society. Readers will prize the directness and clarity, the rich expressiveness, and the rigorous accuracy of this contemporary prose translation, which preserves to an unparalleled degree the order and emphases of Dante's syntax, unhampered by any constraints of meter or rhyme. The Italian text has been newly edited with a view to the needs of American and English readers. Martinez' and Durling's Introduction and Notes are designed with the first-time reader of the poem in mind, but will be useful to others as well. The concise Introduction presents essential biographical and historical background and a discussion of the form of the poem. The Notes are more extensive than those in most translations currently available, and they contain much new material. In addition, sixteen short essays explore the autobiographical dimension of the poem, the problematic body analogy, the question of Christ's presence in Hell, and individual cantos that have been the subject of controversy, including those on homosexuality. There is an extensive bibliography, and the indexes (to foreign words, passages cited, proper names in the Notes, and proper names in the text) will make the volume particularly useful. Robert Turner's illustrations include detailed maps of Italy, clearly labeled diagrams of the cosmos and of the structure of Hell, and line drawings of objects and places mentioned in the poem.
Customer Reviews:
Dante's Inferno.......2007-03-09
I absolutely love this book! The English translations and the notes at the end of each Canto are incredibly helpful.
Best of the Series.......2007-01-10
Volume 1: Inferno is the best title of Dante's Divine Comedy. He presents a great look into the history of renaissance Italy around the 14th century. Robert M. Durling translates the old Italian in a simplistic yet powerful manner which allows anyone familiar with the language to understand. There are excellent notes at the end of every chapter to help reiterate the points and what they meant in that era. Also, keep a bible handy because several references come directly from the old text.
NOT WHAT IT CLAIMS TO BE !.......2006-10-01
This translation was a major disappointment. It claims to be highly literal and accurate, regardless of any awkwardness resulting in the English translation. Well it does manage to be awkward but not accurate. Word choice is often capricious and occasionally downright wrong. The notes, however, are excellent. They reflect the latest in Dante scholarship.
But the notes to the Hollander translation are even better and the translation is faithful and a much smoother read.
Stunning clarity of meaning..........2001-08-10
This edition of the Inferno is by far the best English translation available for the serious student of Dante. No absurd attempt to emulate the poetic style is made here, it's strictly prose. Moreover, it's clear, easy to read prose. Remember, it was written in the vernacular, and therefore should be read in the simplest vernacular available to the English speaking reader.
the inferno reigns.......2000-04-21
This book was my constant companion through humanities studies. The notes are clear and concise without being abstract, and having the Italian to English page by page gave the flavor of the original verses while rendering the translation nearly as graceful. For anyone wanting to take a trip to hell and back with Dante, this version provides plenty of contemporary signposts along the way.
Average customer rating:
- Chthonic Boom...
- Intro to Inferno
- Dante for bigots?
- Dante's Inferno by Mandelbaum
- Great Poetry
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The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Volume 1: Inferno (Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri Vol. 1)
Dante Alighieri , and
Robert M. Durling
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0195087402 |
Book Description
This first volume of Robert Durling's new translation of The Divine Comedy brings a new power and accuracy to the rendering of Dante's extraordinary vision of Hell, with all its terror, pathos, and humor. Remarkably true to both the letter and spirit of this central work of Western literature, Durling's is a prose translation (the first to appear in twenty-five years), and is thus free of the exigencies of meter and rhyme that hamper recent verse translations. As Durling notes, "the closely literal style is a conscious effort to convey in part the nature of Dante's Italian, notoriously craggy and difficult even for Italians." Rigorously accurate as to meaning, it is both clear and supple, while preserving to an unparalleled degree the order and emphases of Dante's complex syntax. The Durling-Martinez Inferno is also user-friendly. The Italian text, newly edited, is printed on each verso page; the English mirrors it in such a way that readers can easily find themselves in relation to the original terza rima. Designed with the first-time reader of Dante in mind, the volume includes comprehensive notes and textual commentary by Martinez and Durling: both are life-long students of Dante and other medieval writers (their Purgatorio and Paradiso will appear next year). Their introduction is a small masterpiece of its kind in presenting lucidly and concisely the historical and conceptual background of the poem. Sixteen short essays are provided that offer new inquiry into such topics as the autobiographical nature of the poem, Dante's views on homosexuality, and the recurrent, problematic body analogy (Hell has a structure parallel to that of the human body). The extensive notes, containing much new material, explain the historical, literary, and doctrinal references, present what is known about the damned souls Dante meets --from the lovers who spend eternity in the whirlwind of their passion, to Count Ugolino, who perpetually gnaws at his enemy's skull--disentangle the vexed party politics of Guelfs and Ghibellines, illuminate difficult and disputed passages, and shed light on some of Dante's unresolved conflicts. Robert Turner's illustrations include detailed maps of Italy and several of its regions, clearly labeled diagrams of the cosmos and the structure of Hell, and eight line drawings illustrating objects and places mentioned in the poem. With its exceptionally high standard of typography and design, the Durling-Martinez Inferno offers readers a solid cornerstone for any home library. It will set the standard for years to come.
Customer Reviews:
Chthonic Boom..........2007-08-30
You know how some so-called "classics" suck? This isn't one of them.
Ciardi's translation is readable and fluid, and he sets up the action in each canto with a modern English preface. He also provides end-notes to each canto that explain obscure people, places, events, and choices of translation. (Various illustrations and diagrams also give a clear picture of the infernal topography and spatial structure.)
The Inferno itself is a masterpiece...one of those numinous works of literature where you catch yourself at intervals marveling at its brilliance. I wish I'd read it ten years ago.
Intro to Inferno.......2007-08-22
Translators, according to the Italian proverb are traitors.
There is no way around it, something is always lost in the
leap from one language to another. You can consult a modern
'adaptation' of Shakespeare to get the feel of what has to
be surrendered. In the end, a preference for one translation
over another is a matter of what you're most willing to lose.
John Ciardi decided to keep the original rhyme scheme: 'aba'
in which the poem is divided into groups of three lines of
which the first and third rhyme. In Italian, this is fairly
easy, in English a great deal more difficult.
So in order to keep the feel of the tercets (as they're called)
Ciardi sometimes had to stray a bit from the literal
meaning. Nothing vital is lost, but the specialist will
surely find some points to dispute.
For the rest of us, this is a first-rate view into a world
we can barely otherwise imagine. Ciardi's notes and glosses
on the cantos are breezy, illuminating and approachable.
There are other, more correct translations- Mandelbaum's
is first among them -that might be better for the specialist
or the student of the Italian Language. I notice, however,
that when I want to spend a pleasant few moments in the
Poet's company-and especially for the Inferno- that this
is the translation I usually reach for.
--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the novel bang BANG. ISBN 9781601640005
Dante for bigots?.......2007-04-06
Esolen is neither a Dante scholar nor an Italian language/literature specialist. He is an English Teacher at Providence College, a Catholic institution. His retelling of the Divine Comedy is reasonably accurate and quite readable. The problem comes with his notes. They range from the scandalously inadequate to the downright offensive. Esolen has written a number of anti-gay articles for religious publications . This is reflected in his notes where he refers to homosexuality as something like "that most heinous of sins". This is not only offensive in a contemporary publication, but is totally out of tune with Dante himself, who took a much more sympathetic and nuanced approach c.1300 AD. The skimpy notes manage to include other personal and inappropriate remarks.
There are many superior translations out there. Mandelbaum's is excellent and has very good notes. Robert and Jean Hollander's is also very fine and the notation is the most extensive and scholarly of all.
Dante's Inferno by Mandelbaum.......2007-01-10
This english rendition of Dante's Inferno is puts thoughtful use of the english language into the translation of this classic work. The fact that Mandelbaum translates using more literal meanings may be hard to follow at times but overall it enhances the effect of the book's moral dilemma.
Great Poetry.......2006-12-27
Dante has become one of my favorite poets. He's up there with Homer and that's kind of funny since in Limbo he is excepted in the circle of some of the greatest poets which included Homer.
This is a nice translation and the commentary is excellent. John points out certain things in the verses which you would have to have some familiarity or go and look up elsewhere to understand its significance to the poem.
In this volume Dante speaks about the nature of sin (the specific punishments helps to amplify it meaning). It also shows how the straight path (to God) is not an easy one to simply step back onto if you happen to slip because these sins (shown in hell) will be a stumbling block and hold you back (represented by the 3 creatures he meets before he has to take the hard journey through hell).
There are some memorable moments in the bowels of hell which I will not forget and Virgil (reason) is a great guide.
Customer Reviews:
Medieval vision of the afterlife.......2007-05-01
This was required reading for a graduate course in medieval history.
Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321) "Devine Comedy" weaved together aspects of biblical and classical Greek literary traditions to produce one of the most important works of not only medieval literature, but also one of the great literary works of Western civilization. The full impact of this 14,000-line poem divided into 100 cantos and three books is not just literary. Dante's autobiographical poem Commedia, as he titled it, was his look into the individual psyche and human soul. He explored and reflected on such fundamental questions as political institutions and their problems, the nature of humankind's moral actions, and the possibility of spiritual transformation; these were all fundamental social and cultural concerns for people during the fourteenth-century. Dante wrote the Commedia not in Latin but in the Tuscan dialect of Italian so that it would reach a broader readership. The Commedia was a three-part journey undertaken by the pilgrim Dante to the realms of the Christian afterlife: Hell, (Inferno), Purgatory, (Purgatorio), and Paradise, (Paradisio).
The poem narrated in first person, began with Dante lost midlife. He was 35 years old in the year 1300 and in a dark wood. Being lost in the dark wood was certainly an allegorical device that Dante used to express the condition of his own life at the time he started writing the poem. Dante had been active in Florentine politics and a member of the White Guelph party who opposed the secular rule of Pope Boniface VIII over Florence. In 1302, The Black Guelphs who were allied with the Pope, were militarily victorious in gaining control of the city and Dante found himself an exile from his beloved city for the rest of his life. Thus, Dante started writing the Commedia in 1308 and used it to comment on his own tribulations of life, and to state his views on politics and religion, and heap scorn on his political enemies.
Dante's first leg of his journey out of the dark wood was through the nine concentric circles of Hell (Inferno), escorted by his favorite classical Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid. Dante borrowed heavily from Virgil's Aeneid. Much of Dante's description of hell had similarities to Virgil's description in his sixth book of the Aeneid. Dante's three major divisions of sin in hell where unrepentant sinners dwelled, had their sources in Aristotle and Augustinian philosophy. They were self-indulgence, violence, and fraud. Fraud was considered the worst of moral failures because it undermined family, trust, and religion; in essence, it tore at the moral fabric of civilized society. These divisions were inversions of the classical virtues of moderation, courage, and wisdom. The fourth classical virtue, justice, is what Dante came to believe after his journey through hell that all its inhabitants received for their unrepentant sins. There were nine concentric circles of hell inside the earth; each smaller than the previous one. For Dante the geography of hell was a moral geography as well as a physical one, reflecting the nature of the sin. Canto IV describes the first circle of hell, Limbo, which is where Dante met the shades, as souls where called, of the virtuous un-baptized such as Homer, Ovid, Caesar, Aristotle, and Plato.
In the four circles for the sin of self-indulgence Dante met shades who where lustful, gluttons, hoarders and wrathful. In the second circle of Hell, lustful souls were blown around in a violent storm. In Canto V, one of the great dramatic moments of the poem, Dante had his first lengthy encounter with an unrepentant sinner Francesca da Rimini, who committed adultery with her brother-in-law. Like all the sinners in hell, Francesca laid the blame for her sin elsewhere. She claimed to be seduced into committing adultery after reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. At the end of the scene, Dante fainted out of pity for Francesca.
In Canto X, the sixth circle of hell reserved for heretics who are punished by being trapped in flaming tombs, Dante took the opportunity to use the circle to chastise political leaders for participating in political partisanship. A Florentine who was a leader in the rival Ghibbelline political party, Farinata degli Uberti, accosted Dante. Both men aggressively argued with each other, recreating in hell the bitterness of partisan politics in Florence. Farinata predicted Dante's exile. Dante used this Canto to show the dangerous tendencies of petty political partisanship that he harbored.
The seventh circle of hell was subdivided into three areas where sinners were punished for doing violence against themselves, their neighbors, or God. In Canto XIII Dante encountered Pier della Vigne in the wood of the suicides. The shades there were shrubs who had to speak through a broken branch. Pier spoke to Dante about how he had been an important advisor to Emperor Frederick II, and how he blamed his fall, and his suicide, on the envy of other court members. This Canto was especially important because Dante came to grips with his own "future" fall from political power and exile. Pier's behavior served as a strong example to Dante how not to act in exile. Whether he had been tempted to commit suicide is not clear; however, he certainly had been prone to the selfish and despairing attitude that Pier represented.
The last two circles of hell contained the sinners of fraud. In the eighth circle, there were ten ditches for the various types of fraud such as Simony, thievery, hypocrisy, etc. Canto XIX described the third ditch, which contained those guilty of Simony, the sin of church leaders perverting their spiritual office by buying and selling church offices. Simonists were buried upside down in a rock with their feet on fire. Pope Nicholas III mistakenly addressed Dante as Pope Boniface VIII who was the current Pope in 1300, and whose place in hell was thereby predicted. This is not surprising since Boniface was the person most responsible for Dante's exile. In an interesting literary twist, Nicholas "confessed" to Dante, as if he was a priest, his sin of greed and nepotism. He admitted that even after becoming Pope he cared more for his family's interests than the good of the whole Church. Dante responded to Nicholas' "confession" with a stinging condemnation of Simony drawn from the Book of Revelation. After this encounter, Dante came to understand that hell was a place of justice.
Canto XXXIV, the last one in the Inferno, depicted Satan with three heads. Each head was chewing the three worst sinners of humankind. The middle head was chewing on the head of Judas Iscariot, who was a disciple to Jesus and his betrayer. The other two heads were chewing Brutus and Cassius; the murderers of Julius Caesar, and the two men Dante faulted for the destruction of a unified Italy. Dante considered the two ultimate betrayals against God and against the empire as the worst betrayals perpetrated in the history of humankind.
Thus, Dante's intent in his Commedia was to teach fourteenth-century readers that if one wanted to ascend spiritually towards God then one needed to learn the nature of sin from the unrepentant. By doing this, one could learn to overcome the same tendencies found in themselves. He wanted people to realize what he had come to learn that political partisanship would only stand in the way of unifying Italy and keep it from regaining any of its former glory that it enjoyed during the time of the Roman Empire.
Recommended reading for anyone interested in literature and medieval history.
Key to the commedia.......2005-10-29
Reading the Commedia in translation is always second-best to working through it in Italian; but unless you are a native speaker who also knows some Spanish and Latin, it can be tough going. That is where the three Singleton companion volumes are worth their weight in gold. They contain a canto-by-canto analysis of the multiplicity of allusions and references to all things political, philosophical and theological that make the depth of the work virtually unparalled in Western Lit.
While the Commedia isn't for everyone, the Singleton glosses are for anyone who wants to read and understand Dante on his terms. Combine these three volumes with the Grandgent Italian text, e non c'e bisogna d'altre cose per incontrar la via diritta ed esso che move il sole e l'altre stelle.
Average customer rating:
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Inferno: From The Divine Comedy
Dante Alighieri
Manufacturer: Naxos Audiobooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD
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ASIN: 9626343176 |
Customer Reviews:
Divine Comedy.......2003-11-07
This is a fantastic edition of the Inferno. It is the 1st time I've ever read the Divine Comedy besides excerpts attempting to ape the terza rima. While such exerpts are gratifying the way a 3rd generation video tape of a movie may be, it is far more fullfilling to read a 'literal' representation of the Italian text in English and then frame that within the borders of the original Italian. Singleton's notes are also exceptional and lead to a very complex reading of the text. In short, for someone who cannot speak a word of Italian but wants to have the richest reading of the text, from language to content to the culture the poem draws upon, this is the text to purchase. When I complete the Inferno I plan to complete the rest of the Dante's masterpiece with Singleton holding my hand.
CHARLES SINGLETON's translation of Divine Comedy.......1999-04-05
I capitalize CHARLES SINGLETON because amazon.com pile their customer reviews into one long list, admitting no differences between translations. SINGLETON's very literal prose best serves the reader who would read the original Italian, and clarify his reading by referring to the facing English translation. You needn't have studied Italian for this, though some skill in another Romance language is very helpful. But if you insist on getting your terza rima secondhand, read Pinsky's Inferno(Pinsky has yet to bring over the Purgatorio and Paradiso).
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