The Divine Comedy: Volume 3: Paradiso (Divine Comedy (Penguin Paperback)) (v. 3) [Paperback]

Dante Alighieri (Author), Robin Kirkpatrick (Editor, Translator, Introduction, Commentary)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 26, 2008 | Series: Divine Comedy (Penguin Paperback) (Book 2)

The second part and the radiant climax to Dante's awe-inspiring epic, in a definitive new translation

Having plunged to the utmost depths of Hell and climbed Mount Purgatory in the first two parts of The Divine Comedy, Dante now ascends to Heaven, guided by his beloved Beatrice, to continue his search for God. As he progresses through the spheres of Paradise, he grows ever closer to experiencing divine love in the overwhelming presence of the deity. Examining eternal questions of faith, desire, and enlightenment, Dante exercised all of his learning and wit, wrath and tenderness in his creation of one of the greatest of all Christian allegories.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Kirkpatrick brings a more nuanced sense of the Italian and a more mediated appreciation of the poem's construction than nearly all of his competitors. . . . There is much to recommend here-certainly the intelligence, the energy, the linguistic range. . . . His introduction and canto-by-canto notes are remarkably level and lucid, as attentive to structure as to syntax, language and motif, and deftly cross-reference the whole poem. On their own, they would justify the price."
-The Times (London)

About the Author

Robin Kirkpatrick, a poet and widely published Dante scholar, is a fellow of Robinson College and a professor of Italian and English at Cambridge University.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (February 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140448977
• ISBN-13: 978-0140448979
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible Footnotes to this classic, July 23, 2009

By 

Remy "Miacomet Remy" (the Bay State, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Divine Comedy: Volume 3: Paradiso (Divine Comedy (Penguin Paperback)) (v. 3) (Paperback)

Kirkpatrick (referred to as K. here) is an incredible tour de force in this translation to the Paradiso. Amazon allows you to preview the translation, and if that passes your muster, you will be richly rewarded by a treasure of knowledge on Dante and the Paradiso. K. tends to be a literalist concerning the meter, thus this meter always sounds like the original. That of course sometimes makes you blink, but then the original Paradiso would do the same; the difference here is that K. is helping you along with notes and comments to explain it along. I personally found two readings of the book valuable; the first with K.'s notes and the second without.

If you'd like a looser translation, Hollander & Hollander's translation fills that bill, but I'd still get this version if just for K's insight.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alive in Dante's World, May 24, 2011

By 

William B. Jones - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Divine Comedy: Volume 3: Paradiso (Divine Comedy (Penguin Paperback)) (v. 3) (Paperback)

"The Paradiso," Kirkpatrick notes in his introduction to it, "represents our existence as it would be if we fully acknowledged the influence love exerts on us. Of course, free will and desire can make us go disastrously astray. The Inferno offers tragic evidence of this. In the Purgatorio, however, Dante begins to express his charcteristically confident understanding of human nature. Sin is not an ineradicable disease. It is simply a misconception or perversion of love." If that does not invite the yet-alive reader on, what will?

If Durling is read first for his translation and the Hollanders referred to especially for detailed notes and commentary, Kirkpatrick may be turned to for the brilliance of his orientation to each part of Dante's Comedy. Further enriching Kirkpatrick's approach is his commitment to study Dante not only as a past master of literature and critc of his world, but to do so in conversation with those for whom "the issues that for Dante were always alive continue to live and produce their own exhilirating results" today, as noted in his acknowledgements.