Divine Comedy [Hardcover]

Dante Alighieri (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 23, 2008

Long narrative poem originally titled Commedia (about 1555 printed as La divina commedia) written about 1310-14 by Dante. The work is divided into three major sections--Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso--which trace the journey of a man from darkness and error to the revelation of the divine light, culminating in the beatific vision of God. It is usually held to be one of the world's greatest works of literature. The plot of The Divine Comedy is simple: a man is miraculously enabled to visit the souls in Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. He has two guides: Virgil, who leads him through the Inferno and Purgatorio, and Beatrice, who introduces him to Paradiso. Through these fictional encounters taking place from Good Friday evening in 1300 through Easter Sunday and slightly beyond, Dante the character learns of the exile that is awaiting him (an actual exile that had already occurred at the time of writing). This device allowed Dante not only to create a story out of his exile but also to explain how he came to cope with personal calamity and to offer suggestions for the resolution of Italy's troubles as well.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Chartwell Books, Inc. (July 23, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785821201
• ISBN-13: 978-0785821205
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 9.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #50,813 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 in Florence. His family, of minor nobility, was not wealthy nor especially distinguished; his mother died when he was a child, his father before 1283. At about the age of 20 he married Gemma Donati, by whom he had three children. Little is known of Dante's formal education-it is likely to have included study with the Dominicans, the Augustinians, and the Franciscans in Florence, and at the university in Bologna. In 1295 he entered Florentine politics and in the summer of 1300 he became one of the six governing Priors of Florence. In 1301, the political situation forced Dante and his party into exile. For the rest of his life he wandered through Italy, perhaps studied at Paris, while depending for refuge on the generosity of various nobles. He continued to write and at some point late in life he took asylum in Ravenna where he completed the Divine Commedia and died, much honoured, in 1321.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning - a must have, January 12, 2008

By 

Eric J. Kristoff (Chicago, US) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Divine Comedy (Hardcover)

I must confess that the large format makes reading the formal translations a bit easier on the eyes. The volume also includes a preface and section introductions/interpretations in contemporary english which make the text much more approachable. And the woodcut illustrations are simply gorgeous - it's worth getting the book just for these. They really bring to life the imaginations from when they were created in the 19th century all the way back several hundred years more to when Dante wrote the text. They also help to explain the perceptions that our predecessors had of religion, sin, and piety. This is a terrific volume - highly recommended.

One tangential note - if you like the illustrations in this you should also check out "Barlow's Inferno", published a few years ago. Wayne Douglas Barlow synthesizes interpretations of hell from many cultures and periods into illustrations of terror and frightful beauty. Barlow is the spiritual inheritor of Dore's vision.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Divine, December 17, 2008

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Divine Comedy (Hardcover)

"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 "Divine Comedy," the legendary poem that takes its author through the eerie depths of hell, heaven and purgatory. It's a haunting, almost hallucinatory experience, full of the the metaphorical and supernatural horrors of the inferno, and joys of paradise.

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.

Well, that was fun. But after passing through hell, Dante gets the guided tour of Purgatory, where the souls of the not-that-bad-but-not-pure-either get cleansed. He and Virgil emerge at the base of a vast mountain, and an angel orders him to "wash you those wounds within," then lets them in.

As Virgil and Dante climb the mountain, they observe the seven terraces that sinners stay on, representing the seven deadly sins -- the angry, the proud, the envious, the lazy, the greedy, the lustful and the gluttons. It's a one-way trip, and you don't even get to look back.

The road up the mountain leads to the gates of Heaven, and soon Dante has been purified to the point where he's allowed to go inside. Virgil doesn't get to enter Heaven, so he passes Dante on to the beautiful Beatrice, the woman he loved in his younger years.

She whisks him up to the spheres of those who are now pure of soul -- the wise, the loving, the people who fought for their religion, the just, the contemplative, the saints, and finally even the angels. And after passing through heaven's nine spheres, he passes out of the physical realm and human understanding -- and sees God, the incomprehensible, represented by three circles inside each other, but all the same size.

Needless to say, it's a pretty wild trip.And admittedly "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso" aren't quite on the writing level of "Inferno," which has the most visceral, skin-crawling imagery and lines ("Fixed in the slime, groan they, 'We were sullen and wroth...'"), and a wicked sense of irony. It makes the angels and saints seem a bit tame.

But there's plenty of power in the second two books, particularly when Dante tries to comprehend God, and almost blows out his brain in the process -- "my desire and my will were turned like a wheel, all at one speed by the Love that turns the sun and all the other stars." It's haunting, and sticks with you long after the story has ended.

More impressive still is his ability to weave the poetry out of symbolism and allegory, without it ever seeming preachy or annoying. Even at the start, Dante sees lion, a leopard and a wolf, which symbolize different sins, and a dark forest that indicates suicidal thoughts. Not to mention Purgatory as a mountain that must be climbed, or Hell as a Hadesian underworld.

Dante's vivid writing and wildly imaginative journey makes the "Divine Comedy" a timeless, spellbinding read, and hauntingly powerful from inferno to paradiso.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just okay, January 22, 2010

By 

Lang M. Ho "Just Another Guy" (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Divine Comedy (Hardcover)

I will try to keep this short since long reviews are often given little consideration.

PROS:
Chapter Summaries at the start of each chapter assist in the understanding of the text as it is read.
Illustrations are very interesting and engaging, helping to bring the story to life.
The ratio of the actual text to the page space is very low making it a nice version to take notes if you feel so inclined.

CONS:
The Longfellow translation is not very fluent which makes it very difficult to read and comprehend.
Binding is of poor quality.
The book itself is very large, I prefer to read from smaller books (smaller being something I can hold with one hand).

Recommendation:
If you have to read the Longfellow translation, I would recommend this print. Lots of room for notes, pictures, and the full Divine Comedy is in one book.
However, I would not recommend the Longfellow translation in general to anyone who is not reading the Divine Comedy with a class or group. The text is very difficult to read and understand if no one is explaining some of the finer points (and some of the key points for that matter) to you.