Dante's Inferno

This past spring I took a class on Dante in which we read the entirety of The Commedia. After taking some time to think about 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 today. 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. Rating: 5 stars Recommendations: Read it. Skip the boring parts if you want to, but just read it.

If you do not have the patience to wait and see what Hell will be like for yourself, then this is the book for you. Replete with grotesque images of perpetually itchy scab-covered corpses, brains being devoured, repeated stabbings, and all sorts of terrible torments, Dante’s classic transfixes with equal part horror and guilty pleasure. The reader will be mesmerized by the way Dante crafts punishments perfectly suited for the earthly crimes committed. For instance, people who have caused division have had their bodies divided, or — in Mandelbaum’s elegant translation — “ripped right from the chin to where we fart” (Canto 28.24). An additional bonus for the reader is that Dante not only incorporates famous historical figures in Hell (such as Brutus, Caesar’s murderer, who has been placed in the deepest part of Hell accompanied by the joyful presence of only Judas Iscariot, Satan, and Cassius, a greedy megalomaniac who also plotted against Caesar), but also contemporaries. One can only imagine the disbelief, the distress, the distemper felt by Fra Alberigo and Branca Doria upon discovering that they had already been sentenced to a place so cold that “their first tears freeze into a cluster and, like a crystal visor, fill up all the hollow that is underneath the eyebrow,” leaving them desirous of a little global warming in the nether regions of the Pit of Fire, and leaving you regretful of all the things you said would happen when Hell freezes over (Canto 33.97-99). Dante’s masterpiece is so engaging that it made me want to write my own modern inferno, featuring my current enemies on earth with a smattering of modern american and foreign politicians, corrupt business moguls, celebrities, famous criminals, etc. However, such a work would be a disgrace to Dante’s graceful, yet dark, first volume of the Divine Comedy which, although perhaps the least humorous “comedy” you’ll ever read, fully merits not only a first reading, but re-read upon re-read alongside extensive study. An added bonus for the scholarly types out there is that Mandelbaum’s lucid english translation faces Dante’s original Italian. The downside for the scholarly types is that this edition does not include extensive notes on the text. For a more copiously annotated edition, see the translation from Robert and Jean Hollander instead, which is also probably a good place to start for more in-depth study of Dante’s classic, although Mandelbaum’s edition does contain a couple attached essays which provide a little background on Dante and his most famous work.

I read the original Inferno, but had a difficult time following everything our characters were doing. This modern English version has completely put the puzzle together for me. The only tiny little things that I did not like were the spelling errors; simple words like are, the, too, etc. If this book was proofread it was by the worst editor on the Internet! The only reason it bothered me is because I'm just one of those people, the ones who should have been editors! Overall, the book is fantastic for explaining areas of the Old English original that confused me.

Excellent!

The title The Comedy is appropriate in two ways. First, the poem is written in the vernacular, which was considered appropriate only for a comedy. Second, the plot mirrors the flow of a classical comedy, progressing from the horrors of Hell to the joys of Heaven. Despite his seeming modesty, however, Dante was confident both that his poetry surpassed that of any other vernacular writer and that he could use the high, tragic style to perfection, as he had proved in Vita Nuova. The Comedy is not exclusively “high” or “low”; rather, it is a truly universal work. It deals with one of the great questions of humanity: the existence of an afterlife and the consequences of our lives on Earth. For Dante, this question was worthy of calling upon philosophers and poets alike, and of utilizing every available style, as he does throughout Inferno.

Good and nice book.

Ein tolles Produkt, das ganz meiner Erwartung entspricht. Die Lieferung verlief reibungslos und ich bin vollstens zufrieden.

Pinsky's translation really brought the Inferno to life for me. Having been disapponted with Sisson's translation (OUP), I was hooked with Pinsky's: I found the power, tangibility and (relative) clarity I was hoping for. When it comes to notes, however, Mark Musa's (Penguin) are preferrable. After having read Pinsky's Inferno, I obviously had to read the rest of the Comedy. I found two wonderful translations, in Merwin (Purgatorio) and Musa (Paradise). As Indicated I find the latter's notes to be unsurpassed troughout The Divine Comedy. Although the Comedy (naturally) contains scholastic elements, the poem's originality, coupled with its existential dimension, make sure The Divine Comedy still resonates.