The Divine Comedy

I mean, it's not that bad for the poor guys who have to stay there, given the Christian standards for that period towards people like Democritus.

Still. Talk about huge values dissonance.

Then again, that's basically The Divine Comedy in one line.

Values Dissonance: The Book.

I'm definitely planning to check this one after I'm done with The Aeneid and The Metamorphoses. Can anyone recommend me a good English translation? So far Mark Musa's translation for Penguin Classics sound like the best bet.

EDIT: Wait a minute, this wasn't a thread in Literature sub forum? What the...?

edited 9th Jul '12 8:29:32 PM by dRoy

It's moved to Literature.

I'm on my third or fourth re-read right now, about a third of the way through Purgatory.

edited 9th Jul '12 8:37:35 PM by Willbyr

Thank you, Willbyr.

I guess that means that it is really fun, then? Did you read the Aeneid before? I heard that it is something of a prerequisite read.

I'd try the one translated by Robert Fagles,his work on The Odyssey and The Illiad is also top notch

I'm reading the Odyssey right now, translated by Fagles, and yes, his translation is just amazing. I read the Richimond Lattimore's translation for the Iliad and ugh, it was just horrible; so dull.

For the Aeneid, I'm thinking of reading Robert Fitzegerald's translation. I heard that it is the most popular one that is even used in Latin classes. I suppose that seeing how Virgil actually appears in The Divine Comedy, it would be pretty safe to assume that Virgil influenced Dante. Does it show, though? I haven't read it yet so I can't tell.

Also, which English translation did you guys read? I'm looking for recommendation: So far I'm thinking of the one Mark Musa did for Penguin Classics.

Thread-hop: I used Fagles for The Iliad, The Odyssey and The Aeneid. I went with the Robin Kirkpatrick translations (Penguin) for The Divine Comedy. Can't remember if I finished Paradiso.

I'm not sure if it's just The Aeneid you need to have read before going into The Divine Comedy, since you need to go into much more detail than just one work and you really need the political and cultural background of Dante's Italy back in the day in order to get all the references. Annotations are a must.

edited 10th Jul '12 2:03:48 AM by Pyrite

Yes, I'm sure that I would need to know more than the contents of the Aeneid. Wikipedia said that Aeneid was one of the prime inspirations for TDC so it got my interest.

I love how Cracked.com put it:

Again, can't comment on whether or not Virgil's style inspired Dante, but Virgil the figure was a great inspiration. Of course Dante would've picked one of the greatest Roman poets as his guide - you want to write an epic Italian poem, you get the one who wrote the epic-est and most Latin-y of them all.

Plot-wise, the concept of "guy takes tour through hell" goes all the way back to The Odyssey (Odysseus and Tiresias), and Virgil pretty much borrowed that bit wholesale from Homer when he did The Aeneid, though. No points for originality there.

edited 10th Jul '12 2:41:46 AM by Pyrite

Regardless of its relation to TDC, Aeneid is one of the most influential works in western literature so seeing how I want to major in literature, it is crucial for me to read it.

Hey, wasn't saying that you shouldn't read it. Iliad / Odyssey -> Aeneid -> Divine Comedy is a logical progression.

(Still, as someone who doesn't intend to study literature, I think that The Aeneid, in addition to being one of the cornerstones of Western Literature, is also a propaganda deadfic re-hashing of The Odyssey with Serial Numbers Filed Off. *gets lynched*)

edited 10th Jul '12 2:51:44 AM by Pyrite

Currently my reading list goes like this:

The Odyssey (currently reading) -> The Republic (hey, Plato) -> The Aeneid -> The Metamorphoses -> Selections from Petrarch's works (a short one) -> freaking The Divine Comedy

It's an expensive choice, but I recommend Singleton's six-volume bilingual edition of the Commedia. Once you get rolling, you can understand longer and longer passages of the original, and having a separate volume for commentary keeps from interrupting the flow of the poem with continual footnotes (it also allows for incredibly in-depth analysis).

Oh, and as for Homer: Fitzgerald > everything. (Accept no Fagles.)

edited 10th Jul '12 9:00:22 AM by Jhimmibhob

Bah. I couldn't get into the flow of the Fitzgerald translation at all. TO THE SEVENTH CIRCLE WITH YOU!

I'm wondering; was Petrarch an influence to Dante?

He was. It's probably more noticeable in Dante's youthful love poetry than in The Divine Comedy, though.

Oh right, just read the first Canto of the Inferno, John Ciardi translation.

So far I like what I am reading. I like it, it's pretty fascinating and surprisingly easy to read.

I just started reading Inferno, though kind of knowing what to expect since I've read the summaries before to better understand references in other works. It's the Longfellow translation, because that's what was free in the Apple Store. I'm on Canto VII.

It's pretty interesting so far. I like when I get the references to specific historical people, but wish I understood more of them.

This translation is wordy as hell, though (pun not intended), and feels distracting at times.

edited 7th Jul '13 11:38:53 PM by BobBensonIsHomunculus

I almost finished the Inferno. I am at the third last canto.

So far bloody damn good, and much easier go read than I thought. It's not one of those unputdownable (apparently that is an actual word) books, though.

I read Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and The Bible, so I recognized pretty much all the religious and mythological references. Alas, but most references were historical, rather not widely known, at that, so most times I had to rely on the explanatory notes.

What translations did you guys use? I am using one by John Ciardi.

Just finished Purgatorio. One more to go.

For some reason, when Matilda gave Dante a baptism (I guess you can call that one, maybe?) at Lethe, my inner shipper shipped them. Weird.

Now onto the heaven. Man, I wonder how many people even know that Dante described more than just Hell.

I read the Ciardi translation for all three books. I don't know how it compares to any of the others, since I haven't read them, but I found it both clear (what with all the footnoting he did), and beautifully poetic. To me, he hit that tricky balance between translating literally and translating for sense and meter.

Yeah, even though they are both Romantic languages, I find it really impressive that Ciardi managed to translate one language and its meter to another so flawlessly (well, as far as I can see, that is).

EDIT: Just finished Canto IV. Man, this is even more theological than other canticles. I fell asleep a few times, admittedly.

edited 22nd Aug '13 10:46:33 PM by dRoy

I used to really dislike the divine comedy because I thought people took it too seriously. Now I think it actually does have good historical and comedic value and do not really care about all the Word of Dante it may or may have helped perpetuate. I have TV Tropes to thank for that, even as it introduced me to the term word of Dante.