Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One
    Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One
    Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One
    Ebook54 pages2 hours

    Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One

    By Dante Alighieri

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    In his introduction, the translator says: "I suppose that a very great majority of English-speaking people, if they were asked to name the greatest epic poet of the Christian era in Western Europe, would answer Dante." THE DIVINE COMEDY continues to be widely read today, whether for its religious inspiration or for the sheer power of its verse. The first part of the epic, THE INFERNO, tells how the narrator "loses his way," and finds himself in a strange landscape he's never seen before. There he encounters the shade of the ancient Roman poet, Virgil, who offers to lead him through the nine circles of Hell. The damned of Dante's imagination, it's quite clear, have condemned themselves through their actions or inactions to become permanent prisoners of the nether regions. Down, down, down, go Dante and his guide, meeting friend and foe alike, with horror piled upon horror. Finally, they must climb Satan's body to find the only possible exit from this terrible place--where once more the poet will "see again the stars." A first-rate modern rendering of a literary classic!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWildside Press
    Release dateMay 21, 2013
    ISBN9781434446268
    Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One
    Author

    Dante Alighieri

    Dante was a major Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy is widely considered the greatest work of Italian literature.

    Read more from Dante Alighieri

    Related to Dante's Inferno

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Editor’s Letter

      Jun 14, 2022

      Editor’s Letter
      2 min read

    • Article

      No Presence Like The Time

      Oct 12, 2023

      No Presence Like The Time
      4 min read

    • Article

      Going Places

      Apr 5, 2018

      Going Places
      7 min read

    • Article

      Invest

      Apr 8, 2021

      Invest
      6 min read

    • Article

      The 25-Year Celebration

      Oct 29, 2021

      While pounding my head on the desk today, hoping something brilliant might shake loose (for once) to fill this prime location in Hemmings Motor News, something occurred to me: I should design a line of padded coverings to protect wood surfaces from t

      2 min read

    • Article

      Editor’s Letter

      Sep 1, 2020

      Editor’s Letter
      3 min read

    • Article

      Ahead Of The Curve

      Mar 2, 2021

      Ahead Of The Curve
      3 min read

    • Article

      Invest

      Oct 12, 2018

      Invest
      6 min read

    • Article

      Invest

      Jun 9, 2022

      They’ve held a royal warrant since 1862. They’ve helped bring Art Deco design values north of La Manche. They’re the official jewellery sponsors of the Baftas, their wares have appeared in endless box-office smashes, and they even made the Henri Dela

      6 min read

    • Article

      Lambretta D/LD 125/150

      Feb 22, 2022

      Lambretta D/LD 125/150
      3 min read

    • Article

      Invest

      Oct 23, 2017

      Invest
      6 min read

    • Article

      Going Places

      Oct 12, 2018

      Going Places
      5 min read

    • Article

      YOUR BLADE SHOW GUIDE TO BOOTH & TABLE EXHIBITORS*

      May 16, 2023

      Exhibitor Name. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Space Id 3LEAF Customs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 2414 A.G. Russell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1610 Abrams & Co. ...............

      58 min read

    • Article

      Transatlantic Translation

      Feb 9, 2023

      Transatlantic Translation
      3 min read

    • Article

      “Sailing In Good Waters”

      Mar 22, 2022

      “Sailing In Good Waters”
      5 min read

    • Article

      Founder’s note

      Jul 17, 2020

      The issue of Revolution you are holding in your hands is an important one for me. First, it demonstrates our determination to continue to publish the print edition of our magazine even as we’ve significantly grown our content creation online, on soci

      3 min read

    • Article

      Think Tank

      Sep 15, 2017

      How delicious this must be for Cartier, as it celebrates a century of the Tank: only one other serial production wristwatch predates it, and it’s a Cartier, too. The earlier Santos, however, was a product of expediency, answering the need of its name

      5 min read

    • Article

      Invest

      Dec 9, 2021

      Invest
      6 min read

    • Article

      It Must Have Been Love

      Dec 28, 2021

      If there’s one thing the French know their way around, it’s l’amour. Okay, maybe it’s a cultural stereotype, but it’s a good one. And the French Maison of Cartier certainly knows how to make us fall in love with its new releases year after year. Our

      4 min read

    • Article

      Invest

      Oct 13, 2022

      Invest
      6 min read

    • Article

      Invest

      Feb 11, 2021

      Invest
      6 min read

    • Article

      Invest

      Aug 10, 2023

      Invest
      6 min read

    • Article

      The Great Debate

      Dec 7, 2021

      The Great Debate
      2 min read

    • Article

      Unsung Icons: kitchen Gadgets

      Feb 3, 2020

      Unsung Icons: kitchen Gadgets
      3 min read

    • Article

      Frank Westworth

      Jan 28, 2019

      A lifelong and largely inexplicable passion for elderly motorcycles has resulted in my having a large shed loaded with an alarming amount of stuff. To the initiated this looks largely like jumble … to the uninitiated it looks entirely like junk. You

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Dante's Inferno

    4/5

    2,875 ratings86 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      A handsome book, but a clunky and awkward translation.
    • 5/5
      Dante's journey through Hell ranks in my top 5 favorite books. I especially like this translation, as it keeps the language modern enough to be readable, but is still beautiful. Also, there are plenty of foot and end notes to explain middle age-phrases and historical references many people may not be familiar with.
    • 4/5
      Amazing and bizarre. To have lived in a time awhen the fires and ice of hell were as real as the sun rising each day. The horrors of The Inferno were certainly cautionary, but not exactly in keeping with what modernity would deem the correct weight of sins. On to Purgatorio.
    • 3/5
      Gave me nightmares.
    • 4/5
      I read the Longfellow translation and despite a huge lack of historical knowledge about Dante's contemporary Florence I really enjoyed Inferno.

      The imaginative punishments are gruesome enough to capture your attention and the whole poem is successful in painting quite a visual image of Dante's incarnation of hell.

    • 5/5
      For years I had wanted to read Dante's Divine Comedy, but every time I thought of reading this epic poem it just seemed to be too daunting of a task. It wasn't until I visited Florence, Italy and saw the same mosaic on the ceiling of the baptistery of San Giovanni that Dante saw (which inspired him to eventually write the Divine Comedy) that I felt it the time had come to read Dante's epic work.

      I started with the traditional English translation by Longfellow. At the encouragement of of a colleague, I quickly changed to Dorothy Sayers's translation from 1949. Sayers provides great commentary plus follows "Dante's terza rima stanzas."

      There are numerous translations available but I'm glad I stuck with the Sayers translation. Having said that, I think it would be wise to read the traditional Longfellow translation at some point in time. Next up I'm looking forward to trying Robert and Jean Hollander's dual-language and more modern translations of the Divine Comedy.
    • 4/5
      I listened to this book on CD instead of actually reading it. The version that I had had an explination at the beginning of each verse to help you understand and then read the verse.

      In this book, you travel with Dante through the 9 circles of hell.

      I really liked this book. I forgot how much I liked Greek Mythology (which I did not expect in this book at all). It has pushed me to look into more mythology again.
    • 5/5
      This is an amazing translation of the Inferno. It is by far the best translation of the text that I have encountered, and it is far superior to the version included in the World Literature textbook that I use. I always share some of this translation with my students particularly when we are discussing Dante's terza rima. Translations are never ideal, but this translation is the best available.
    • 3/5
      Only three stars for Dante's classic? It was a difficult read/listen and required concentration as the translation from old italian poetry into english. I also wondered about the parallel between Inferno and A Christmas Carol...both contain scarey beasties.
    • 2/5
      This translation replaced names- so many names! Added modern phrases.

      I appreciate that I may not have been able to real the original(or earlier translation) so easily (well, I'm not sure, but this is the only translation I've read) but I could not accept the replacement of the names. South Park's Cartman? Please. I prefer purer translations. The the addition of modern phrases and names stuck out like a sore thumb. I would be reading easily, then get so thrown off that I had to stop.

      Now, I've read this, and I don't know how much of it was from the original, and how much the translator replaced. Now I feel like I have to re-read it, with a different translation.

      It wasn't written in 2013, so don't translate it like it was. Please.

      What was intact, the messages and the stories, all that makes this a classic, earns my four stars. Since I'm rating this particular translation, however, I'm giving it two. If I find out later that earlier translations are written in a way that I can easily read, then I'll come back and only give it one star.

    • 3/5
      I kinda didn't love this as much as I wanted to. The fault might be Pinsky's; he uses a lot of enjambment, which makes the poem a more graceful, flowing thing than Dante's apparently was. It might also be Dante's fault; there are a ton of allusions to contemporary politics, none of which I got at all, so I did a lot of flipping to the end notes. And, y'know, it's a little...religious. I know, who woulda thought?

      I liked it okay, I guess, but I've been reading a ton of epic poetry over the last year, and this hasn't been one of my favorites.
    • 4/5
      Peter Thornton's verse translation of the first book of the Divine Commedy, The Inferno, is certainly readable. To the extent that that was an (the?) intention it succeeds. I think for a general reader who just wants to know why The Inferno has remained influential this will serve them well. There are plenty of contextualizing notes, a must for just about any translation, which will make understanding why certain people are where they are comprehensible to a contemporary reader.For study purposes I have my doubts but I have my own favorite translations so am doing more of a comparison than simply an isolated assessment. First, my preferred verse translation is still Ciardi's version (plus, if for study purposes, he translated all of the Comedy not just one book so you don't have to change translations when you leave the Inferno). Part of my favoritism here is likely because it was the third version I had read and the first with a professor who made it come alive for me, so I do want to acknowledge that. Part of it for me is how the translators try to solve the issue of form. Some compromise is necessary to make an English translation and I am not sure there is a right vs a wrong way, they will all fall well short of Dante in Italian. I just think that wrestling with a form closer to Dante's helps students to slow down and do a better close reading while making it too easy to read turns Dante's work into simply a story that can be read quickly and easily. Again, this is personal opinion and preference. The necessary notes will keep the work from being read like a contemporary novel and could, with the right effort from an instructor, keep the reading close. I just have a hard time imagining The Inferno as an easy read and hope not to see this type of translation of Purgatorio or Paradiso since those should be more difficult to grasp in keeping with Dante's apparent intentions.I would certainly recommend this to general readers who just want to read it and maybe for high school classes that want to get through it with just a few areas of closer reading. I would also recommend instructors look at it and decide if this translation would serve their purposes for what they hope to achieve in their courses. It is a good translation even though I would personally choose not to use it.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.
    • 5/5
      I never would have understood this book if my professor hadn't guided the class through it. Regardless, it became one of the most interesting piece's of literature I have ever read. I frequently think about. 'Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here," says the sign above the entrance to hell. Now, that's cool . . . I mean hot. Whatever.
    • 5/5
      Not entirely sure what translation this was, as it was a free ebook. In any case, it was a little difficult to read at times, but it seemed okay as a translation. The text itself is beautiful: I wish I could read it in the original.
    • 3/5
      Mildly amusing, though this ostensibly pure Christian author clearly has a perverse streak running through him. (As does the Christian God, so not surprising.)
    • 5/5
      Fantastic, even though the Sayers translation may give up too much in the battle to stick to the terza rima scheme. It's not a fatal flaw by any means, but the tendency is particularly noticeable in some of the classic lines: "I could never have believed death had undone so many" becomes "It never would have entered my head / There were so many men whom death had slain" in order to cram the square English into the round Italian.
    • 2/5
      Almost totally pointless to read without an extensive grounding in 13th century Italian political history. I'm not surprised that Dante took the narrative of exploring hell as an opportunity to portray the supposedly deserved suffering of various recent historical figures he hated but I was not prepared for the extent to which he single-mindedly devoted the Inferno to this purpose and nothing else, just one long catalog of medieval Italians I'd never heard of and what a just God would posthumously wreak on them. Also Simon told me there's a cute fan-fictioney current to the relationship with Virgil, and I thought he was exaggerating but no, it's definitely there - there's one point where Dante talks about how one of his slams on these dead Italian assholes was so on target that Virgil decided to show how happy he was with it by carrying Dante around in his big strong poet arms for a while. Anyway this is cute and gay but it's not enough to carry my interest through the book.
    • 5/5
      This is an amazing achievement. I spent so much time and energy researching this book during undergrad. So many hidden meanings, so many codes and metaphors. This translation is superior to anything else I've seen and is well bound. Its nice to have Italian right next to the English. The notes are excellent, not the penguin edition is bad, its you can tell that the Hollanders have done their homework with a passion. I can't wait to read again, but first I think some more thorough reading on the popes first.
    • 5/5
      I had a collected copy of The Divine Comedy which I gave up for these three volumes. Inferno was excellent. I felt that it lived up to the translation that I read, and surpassed it in some ways. With the addition of contemporary pop-culture references throughout, we have a Hell in a very faithful to the original work. I definitely recommend these books to anyone who’s interested in The Divine Comedy.
    • 4/5
      This was my favourite thing I've read for school this semester. Vivid and fascinating.
    • 4/5
      The first time I read this was in high school. At the time, it was a 2½ star book...nothing special, the teacher didn't do as much with it as she might have done, I got through it and moved on.The second time I read this was in college in a course I was auditing (therefore, no grade pressure) from a professor who not only was a well-known authority but...more important...lived, breathed, ate and slept Dante. It made a world of difference. The book becomes much more alive if you understand the political situation of the day, the personal relationships in Dante's life, the references to other things going on in the world at that time.I recommend reading this to anyone with any interest. However, if you can't do it under the tutelage of someone who knows this stuff, I would recommend a well-annotated edition.
    • 5/5
      Excellent prose translation. The essays at the end of each canto are worth the price of the book,
    • 5/5
      This past spring I took a class on Dante in which we read the entirety of The Commedia. After taking some time to think through and digest this massive poem, I think I am finally ready to write my review.At the opening of the poem, Dante awakes to find himself lost in a dark wood. Unable to leave the valley, he is greeted by the shade of Virgil, who tells him that he has been sent by Mary and Dante's dearly departed Beatrice to guide Dante through Hell, Purgatory, and eventually to the highest parts of Heaven. Although Dante is initially reluctant to go, he eventually follows Virgil down into the mouth of Hell. While the idea of reading such a long old poem seems daunting, the language and imagery that Dante uses makes it as compelling and fresh as if it were written yesterday. It is, first and foremost, a journey, and the sights the pilgrim sees on his journey to the bottom of Hell are described in vivid and sometimes gross detail. Hell is a very physical place, full of bodies and bodily functions, and Dante doe snot skimp on the imagery. But as often as his language is crude, it is at times stunningly beautiful. There were similes that absolutely stopped me in my tracks with their perfection and beauty. If you want to read the Inferno for the first time, read it like a novel. Jump in, enjoy the story, gawk at the imagery, and stop to relish the beautiful passages.Just as Dante the pilgrim takes Virgil as his guide through Hell, Dante the poet uses Virgil as a poetic guide in his attempt to write an epic that encompasses religion, politics, history, and the human experience. In each circle, Dante meets a new group of sinners who are in Hell for different reasons. The first thing to note about the damned is that they seem to be mostly from Florence. Seriously, sometimes I think Dante wrote this just so he could shove everyone he didn't like into the fiery pit. But in all seriousness, Dante's goal wasn't just to describe the afterlife, he was also trying to describe life on earth. By putting people from Florence in Hell or Heaven, Dante was commenting on what was happening in Italy at the time. Most important for Dante was the corruption he saw in the church, so there are entire cantos of the Inferno devoted to religious leaders, especially Popes, and especially Boniface, who was Pope at the time Dante was writing.The other thing to note about the damned is how relatable they are, at least in the beginning. When you meet Paolo and Francesca in Canto V and listen to Francesca's story, you can't help but be drawn in and pity her. Dante the pilgrim pitied her too, and swoons (again, seriously, he spends like the first 10 cantos swooning left and right) due to his empathy for them. Again and again the pilgrim pities the damned, but as the canticle goes on this happens less and less. By the end of the canticle he has stopped pitying the shades at all, and instead feels that their damnation is deserved. Why did Dante the poet make the pilgrim transforming such a way? Just as the description of Hell also serves as a description of Earth and of the nature of the human soul, the pilgrim's journey through the afterlife mirrors the soul's journey from the dark wood of sin and error to enlightenment and salvation. Dante is at first taken in by the sinners because he is not wise enough to see through their excuses. He is too much like them to do anything other than pity them. As he goes through Hell, he learns more and shakes off the darkness of the wood, so that by the time he gets to the bottom he no longer pities the damned. Still, even in the lowest circles, the shades are all deeply human, and their stories of how they ended up in Hell are incredibly compelling.Dante the poet shows again and again how similar the pilgrim and the damned really are. He constantly explores sins that he could have committed or paths that he could have taken, exposing his own weaknesses and confronting what would have been his fate if Beatrice and Mary had not sent Virgil to save him. I think it speaks to his bravery as a poet that he insisted on exposing not just the weaknesses in society, but also the weaknesses in his own character.Dante the poet is also brave, I think, for tackling some very serious theological, political, and psychological issues. When Dante the pilgrim walks through the gate of Hell, the inscription on the gate says that the gate and Hell itself were made by "the primal love" of God. Here, Dante tackles one of the greatest theological questions; how can a just and loving God permit something as awful as Hell? While the real answer doesn't come until the Paradiso, Dante was brave to put that question in such stark and paradoxical terms. Dante's constant indictments of the political and religious leaders of his day show bravery, intelligence, and a good degree of anger on his part. Before writing the Inferno, Dante had been exiled from his home city of Florence for being on the wrong side of a political scuffle. He was never able to return home, and his anger at the partisanship that caused his exile mixed with his longing for his home make the political themes of the poem emotionally charged and interesting to the reader, even now.Lastly, Dante shows both bravery and a great deal of literary skill in his treatment of Virgil. Virgil is Dante's guide through Hell and, later, Purgatory. He leads Dante every step of the way, teaching him like a father would, protecting him from daemons and even carrying him on his back at one point. It is clear that Dante admires Virgil, and in some ways the poem is like a love song to him. Virgil, living before Christ, was obviously not Christian, so Dante's choice of Virgil as a guide through the Christian afterlife is really quite extraordinary. It shows that wisdom can be attained from the ancient world, and that the light of human reason, which Virgil represents, is necessary for the attainment of enlightenment and salvation. Dante believed strongly that reason and faith were not opposites, but partners, and his choice of Virgil as a guide is a perfect illustration of that principle.But, despite Dante's love of Virgil, Virgil is, to me, one of the most tragic characters in literature. Virgil, as a pagan, cannot go to Heaven. He resides in Limbo, the first circle of Hell, home of the virtuous pagans. There, he and the other shades (including Homer, Plato, and others) receive no punishment except for their constant yearning for Heaven and the knowledge that they will never see the light of God. Virgil, at the request of Mary and Beatrice, leads Dante toward a salvation that he can never have. Human reason can only lead a soul so far; to understand the mysteries of Heaven one has to rely on faith and theology. Virgil's fate is the great tragedy of this otherwise comic poem, and the knowledge of that fate haunts the first two canticles. And while it makes sense thematically and in terms of the plot, Dante makes you love Virgil so much that his departure in the Purgatorio never really feels fair. I still miss him.The Inferno is a long and complex poem, filled with vivid imagery, vast psychological depth, scathing social commentary, and deep theological questions. It is also a journey, a real adventure in a way, and a pleasure to read. Though the real fulfillment of Dante's themes does not come until the Paradiso, the Inferno is well worth reading on its own. Even if you don't go on to read the other two canticles, reading The Inferno is time well spent.
    • 4/5
      Obviously an amazing work. I just got bogged down in the middle, and it took me forever to finish. I think I would have gotten far more out of it in the context of a class that dealt with the many layers of references, or if I had simply taken more time to read the notes...but as it was, I just didn't really commit to it on a level that could remotely do it justice. I still look forward to reading Purgatorio and Paradiso, though.
    • 5/5
      Dante's Divine Comedy is a strange puzzle to sort out. I feel it was written for highly personal reasons. One that is evident is his love of Virgil and the Homeric Greek epics. He also crafted this poem as a cathartic release, as a means to slander his enemies. And man, if the measure of a man is his enemies (choose them carefully) then Dante is quite the fellow. Don’t read Divine Comedy as poetry, get the whole picture as it is more fascinating than fiction.That's what makes this edition so handy, you're tempted to read it as epic poem but this edition offers all the contextual clues you need from reliable experts.I need to read this one again, damn...
    • 4/5
      i had trouble with this one. i did not know who many of people Dante wrote about seeing on his journey, and if it were not for the notes in the back i would not have understood much at all. if you really want to experience this book as it was meant be, be prepared to do some research.
    • 5/5
      An excellent (rhyming) translation of Dante's epic by Dorothy L. Sayers. Very easy to read. The commentaries between cantos (by Sayers and heavily influenced by Charles Williams) are of great value for understanding both the social setting of the work and the deep philosophical and mythological imagery.
    • 4/5
      This particular translation is interesting because it attempts to retain Dante's original three line rhyming scheme.
    • 5/5
      gotta love dante...he made a synthetic world in what 1200 or so? there are maps of the inferno, even, but not in this edition. the inferno is the midlife crisis to end all midlife crises, although no red sportscars were involved.
    • 5/5
      The Inferno is a classic among classics. Dante's vision, along with Milton's "Paradise Lost", form the very basis for society's concept of HELL. A must read for any literary buff.

    Book preview

    Dante's Inferno - Dante Alighieri

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1