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stefhyena's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.75
At the risk of being seen as a Philistine I don't get what's supposed to be so great about this book. The theology sucks. If I had more faith I would have lost it reading this petty and biased account of how God supposedly favours some of the weapon waving narcissists over the others and creates and evil expansionistic empire in the sky complete with horrendous tortures for the masses.
The poetry...well to be fair I read it in translation. A good and careful translation which explained some of the scansion and other decisions that were kept in, as well as why the rhyme was not. The notes were invaluable for actually understanding some of this nonsense. But apart from the offensively bad theology (to be fair probably normal in his day) and his obvious self-aggrandisement throughout (there's been a good meme on this which turns out to have been exact) the pace is very slow and tedious. I forced myself to read 2 cantos a day over many months. I do want to learn what is great poetry and to be a better poet myself and this is meant to be one of the best.
From the perspective of old white men who like empires I guess...
The poetry...well to be fair I read it in translation. A good and careful translation which explained some of the scansion and other decisions that were kept in, as well as why the rhyme was not. The notes were invaluable for actually understanding some of this nonsense. But apart from the offensively bad theology (to be fair probably normal in his day) and his obvious self-aggrandisement throughout (there's been a good meme on this which turns out to have been exact) the pace is very slow and tedious. I forced myself to read 2 cantos a day over many months. I do want to learn what is great poetry and to be a better poet myself and this is meant to be one of the best.
From the perspective of old white men who like empires I guess...
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Classism, Colonisation, Death, Violence, War, Blood, Bullying, Suicide, Torture, Ableism, Genocide, Murder, Police brutality, Body horror, Cannibalism, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Religious bigotry, Sexism, and Slavery
tienno22's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Interesting and fun classical book on Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell structure. Don't believe all the moral suggestions that it makes. This book is pretty extreme and wild, but overall I think that made it fun to read. It does, however, make some subtly interesting claims
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Torture, and Violence
seanml's review against another edition
challenging
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
This is probably more of a review of the Carlyle-Wicksteed translation than it is of the Divine Comedy. The poem itself takes you through the classical ideas of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. There is a LOT of Italian history important to the context of this book and Dante's place in life while writing it; history that I neglected to learn about before beginning this. Because of that, a huge percentage of the book is lost to me, since being an Italian, the majority of souls that Dante meets through the poem are Italian figures of contemporary times or a few generations before. I probably would have enjoyed this MORE if it were assigned in a class. Either way, you can still encounter the famous ancient Greek heroes and philosophers, although all of them are found in Inferno only because they didn't know Yahweh existed and unfortunately had to go straight to hell for it. The Carlyle-Wicksteed translation was published in the 1950s, and it shows.I don't know if people were smarter back then or what but this translation reads like a parody of Shakespeare. Every verb ends in -eth and every sentence snakes around for a long time before you get to the end and then understand what the first part was trying to do. I like to read classics in the wintertime, and the Divine Comedy was this year's. Unfortunately, I'm just not Italian enough. 6.5/10.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Grief, Torture, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury
jo_lzr's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Torture, and Violence
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