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311 reviews for:
La Divina Commedia: The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri
Melville Best Anderson, Dante Alighieri
3.86 AVERAGE
311 reviews for:
La Divina Commedia: The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri
Melville Best Anderson, Dante Alighieri
3.86 AVERAGE
Started two years ago, just after reading Inferno, in another translation... put it down. Came back to it in this translation a few months thereafter... never got more than a few cantos in. Checked it out from another library probably a year later, read half, had to put it down for school, came back and read the remaining half today. Lovely, lovely poem, and translation. I don't speak Italian (though when I checked out the book this last time, the checker at the library highly recommended learning to read Dante, because Dante's Italian is gorgeous, even if different from modern Italian as one would expect, 700 years later), but I feel like Merwin has done Dante justice here. Going to need to get my own copy now for re-reading purposes.
I don't like how this one is set up, with almost no commentary except at the very end. It seems to me the author expects the reader to already have a deep knowledge of the poem.
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
There is some lovely poetry in here, but I'm mostly stuck by the incredible narcissism of Dante's project.
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
Book Review
Title: The Divine Comedy (Part Two; Purgatorio)
Author: Dante Alighieri
Genre: Classic
Rating: ****
Review: Much like my review of Part One of the Divine Comedy; Inferno I will review the following two sections; Purgatorio and Paradiso in their various cantos.
Purgatorio
Canto 1
Purgatorio or purgatory picks up exactly where Inferno left off as Dante and Virgil leave Hell behind. These cantos contain a lot more information than the ones in Inferno and are more poetic as they contain metaphors. Dante opens Purgatorio with a metaphor as he compares his talent to that of a ship sailing across kinder waters than that of Hell, as they head to a place where people are cleansed of their sins. Dante is pleased to be out of Hell and being under the sky once more and he proceeds to invoke the muses and asks the head muse; Calliope for help so that his poem may rise again. At the entrance to Purgatory they meet an old man who commands respect and asks Dante who he is as he has escaped Hell along with who his guide is and whether or not he has broken any laws of Hell. Virgil isn’t distracted by the appearance of the man and forces Dante to bow and responds to his questions in the same manner he did in Inferno whenever their journey was questioned.
During their conversation we learn from Virgil that this man is Cato and his true love Marcia resides in Limbo with him and that she still prays for his love. However, Virgil almost blackmails Cato into letting them pass as he says he will carry Cato’s condolences back to his love if he does. Cato isn’t moved by this as Marcia doesn’t hold any power over him as she resides in Hell while he doesn’t. Cato does let them pass as their journey has been ordained by the Virgin Mary and they can pass for her sake if nothing else. Before he lets them go he tells Virgil to make Dante a belt from the rushes and wash his face so that he can be cleaned of Hell’s stains. After giving his instructions Cato vanishes and Virgil proceeds to make Dante a belt of rushes and wash his face with the dew. After this Dante notes that they are walking on scared ground that has never felt the footstep of living men.
Canto 2
Dante quickly spots something in the water as he takes in the dawn and once again is forced to kneel with his hands in prayer by Virgil after asking what it is. The glowing figure before them is an angel of God, Dante is blinded by the angel and can’t look directly at it but notes that the angel has been guided a boat to the shore. Dante is content with looking at the boat as he himself can’t look upon the angel and notes that a 100 souls lie within the boat. The souls are all singing a psalm. The Latin words, “In exitu Israel de Aegypto,” come from Psalm 114 and translate as “During the departure of Israel from Egypt.” The angel bestows the sign of the cross over the souls who fall to the ground and immediately after the boat leaves.
The new souls ask Virgil and Dante how they can climb the mountain before them, but they are just as lost but when they learn that Dante is still alive they all turn pale in astonishment as he must be very special to be allowed on this journey. The souls have their attention fixed on Dante who compares himself to a messenger of peace, one of the souls steps forward to hug Dante which he tries to return as he recognises the soul but can’t because they no longer have physical bodies. While he tries three times he can’t embrace the person before him and has to be comforted by the soul who asks what his purpose here is. We learnt the soul is Casella and Dante is confused by why it has taken him so long to arrive when he died before Dante’s journey through Hell. Casella doesn’t give a straightforward answer but does reply that the Angel guising the boat can pick who he wants to take first and it has been three months before he was picked. Casella insists that this was the will of God, so he waited in Rome’s port at the mouth of the river Tiber waiting for his turn. The place he waited was Ostia which is where all souls who aren’t damned to Hell wait to cross to Purgatory.
Dante asks his old friend to sing and Casella agrees as both were artists in life; Dante a poet and Casella a musician. Casella’s voice is so beautiful that he hypnotizes everyone including Virgil as they gather around him. However, this is broken up by Cato who tells them all to get on with their journeys and they all rush to the mountain, quickly followed by Dante and Virgil.
Canto 3
As the soul head to the mountain Dante draws close to Virgil who he sees as his conscience as they themselves turn towards the mountain. As the slow Dante focuses on the mountain before him. Dante is shocked when he sees that he and only he casts a shadow, but it isn’t that shocking when he is the only one who still has a body, Virgil comments that his own body is long buried in Naples. Virgil goes on to praise the Lord, explaining that a lowly man cannot understand His divine ways. He comments that those who try to understand like Aristotle and Plato always fail and all three reside in Limbo as he hangs his head. As they reach the foot of the mountain Dante notes it is very steep and Virgil remarks it will be hard to find a place where a creature without wings can climb it. However, Dante sees a group of souls approaching from the left and basically orders Virgil to ask for their advice to which Virgil agrees.
They aren’t able to get very close to the souls as they are quite shy and back away from the pair when they realise that Dante has a shadow. Virgil is tired of repeating himself all the time and tells them directly that Dante is alive and is virtuous enough to be here in Purgatory. This convinces the souls and they set forward to help Dante, one of them taps him on the should and asks if Dante recognises him (I am sensing a pattern here) but he doesn’t. He proceeds to introduce himself as Manfred, grandson of the Empress Constance. He requests that when Dante gets back to the living world, he visit Manfred’s daughter to give her news that her father is in Purgatory, not Hell.
Here we learn Manfred’s story, he was at the battle of Benevento where he received two fatal wounds and as he lay dying he repents all of his sins and gave himself completely to God. However, his enemy Pope Clement IV excommunicated him and moved his body outside papal territory. However, Manfred disregards the Pope’s authority claiming that God forgives everyone who repents so the Pope’s sentence doesn’t apply to him. There is a catch as penitent souls aren’t granted entrance into Purgatory straight away as those who died with hearts set against the Church must wait thirty times the length of their sin to actually start climbing the mountain of Purgatory. They can shorten their wait if they receive prayers from living souls on Earth. Knowing this Manfred asks Dante to take his message to his daughter so that she can pray for him.
Canto 4
As the move on Dante and Virgil reach the first spur of Ante-Purgatory which houses the indolent or lazy. Dante who was so intrigued by Manfred’s story has lost track of time and almost half of the day has passed him by without notice. During this time he muses on Plato’s plurality of souls; the theory that that humans have more than one souls as what he has witnessed has proven it false. Dante believes that is a person had more than one soul, he would still note the passage of time no matter how distracted he might be by something else as not all the souls would be concentrating on the same thing at the same time and as he hasn’t noticed the passage of time then to him it proves that man only has one soul. However, his musing is cut short as a band of souls have found a path that Dante can climb but it narrow and it is so steep that Dante has to move carefully in Virgil’s wake.
As they climb the path Dante asks Virgil which way they should go only to be told to shut up by Virgil and to keep climbing until they find someone who can give them directions. The reader here is under the impression Virgil knows where he is going but this is dispelled. They keep climbing on and on to the top which can’t be seen until Dante reaches the point where he is exhausted and begs Virgil to stop. Virgil agrees and tells Dante to climb to the ridge where he stands, and they rest. Looking back on how far they have climbed Dante is filled with satisfaction until he sees the sun is on his left like the world has been turned upside down. Virgil explains that Dante has spent his whole life seeing the world from the Northern Hemisphere and now he is in the Southern Hemisphere everything is backwards. Only noting this for the first time Dante is shocked by can’t bear being outsmarted by Virgil so he shows off his own intellect by calculating the exact distance between them and the equator which does seem a bit childish to me. Dante eager to continue his journey asks Virgil how much further they have to climb, and he replies with the hardest part of the climb is behind them and the rest will be easier but before they can continue they are interrupted by a voice.
The voice tells them to rest a little longer and comes from behind a huge boulder that they hadn’t noticed. Investigating they find a group of naked, exhausted men resting. One converses with Dante about being depressed and Dante makes fun of the man’s laziness to which the man replies that he should climb if he has so much energy. At the point Dante recognises the man’s voice and sits beside him worried and the man keeps speaking. The man is Belacqua and Dante asks him what he is doing sitting here, was he waiting for a guide or just being lazy. Belacqua is severely depressed and asks what is the point in continuing to climb when the angel won’t let him through until he has done his penance in languishing the length of his life out here in the Ante-Purgatory, all he can do is hope prayer shorten his wait, similar to Manfred’s situation. Before Dante can comfort his friend he is urged on by Virgil and he has to leave Belacqua behind.
Canto 5
As Dante and Virgil leaves the first spur behind, a soul gasps and points out to others that Dante is alive. Dante pauses and turns around to either bask in his aliveness or just to see who is speaking and Virgil tells him to ignore them and carry on climbing. Dante shamed follows Virgil’s order and continues climbing the seemingly endless stairs. This Virgil in Purgatorio seems to be a lot less thoughtful and more impatient than the Virgil from Inferno which is very interesting for me to see. They quickly come across another band of souls singing and that are intrigued by Dante being alive and asks him to tell them more of himself, however, they are answered by Virgil who basically tells them that Dante is alive, they are welcome here and to leave them be and the souls quickly disperse. Virgil seems sickened by Dante’s almost celebrity status and tells him to keep moving but keep his ears open as the souls call after them asking them to stop and talk.
The souls announce they all died by violence but repented their sins at the very last second before death sparing them the horrors of Hell. Dante stops announcing that even though he doesn’t recognise them he would be happy to help them. The souls ask for information about the living world but two stand out, one asks for Dante to bring news of him to Fano, his hometown, before proceeding to tell his story. It turns out he was betrayed and killed in Padua and regrets fleeing towards Oriaco instead of Mira, implying that the town of Oriaco was in on the scheme and if he had gone to Mira, he might still be alive. Instead, he ended up in a marsh where his blood soaked into the ground. After he ends his tale Dante identifies him as Jacopo del Cassero. Immediately another souls begins to speak asking for Dante’s help in bringing news to the Montefeltro and he names himself as Buonconte da Montefeltro and this is familiar as the reader will recognise his name from Dante’s encounter with Guido da Montefeltro. Dante immediately reacts asking him how he died since no one had seen him since the battle of Campaldino and his body was never found.
Buonconte gives his story: during the battle, he suffered a throat wound and was running for his life when he fell along the banks of the Archiano, repented, and died. He stops to beg Dante to retell this true story and dispel any rumors about him. After death, he was taken by an angel in Heaven, despite a Hell demon’s argument. Buonconte compares the demon’s ill will to the power of a storm, similar to the one that suddenly broke loose that night, flooded the Archiano, and buried Buonconte’s body in silt and debris. Then a third souls speaking, and this voice belongs to a woman who identifies herself as La Pia and begs Dante to take her story to the living world but only after he’s rested a bit. She implies that her treacherous husband caused her death, despite his wedding vows to her.
Canto 6
Dante loves all the attention while Virgil seems to sulk but soon he finds himself struggling to break free of all the souls asking to be remembered and for prayers. He realises something here and remarks that in one passage of Virgil’s Aeneid, he denies the power of prayer to “bend the rule of Heaven” but the souls here in Purgatory seem to do just what Virgil believes to do untrue. Virgil replies that only Christian prayers are effective and tells Dante to wait until he meets Beatrice and she will defend him. At the slight mention of Beatrice, Dante parks up and is eager to move on but Virgil tells him they will climb as far as they can during the day as it is impossible to climb after the sun sets. At that moment they see a soul seated alone and they rush towards him to get directions. This souls says nothing although he watches them as a lion would, instead of telling them where to go, the souls asks who they are and where they’re from. When Virgil says “Mantua,” the soul’s attitude completely changes. He stands up, identifies himself as Sordello of Mantua, and promptly hugs Virgil.
full review at forthenovellovers.wordpress.com
Title: The Divine Comedy (Part Two; Purgatorio)
Author: Dante Alighieri
Genre: Classic
Rating: ****
Review: Much like my review of Part One of the Divine Comedy; Inferno I will review the following two sections; Purgatorio and Paradiso in their various cantos.
Purgatorio
Canto 1
Purgatorio or purgatory picks up exactly where Inferno left off as Dante and Virgil leave Hell behind. These cantos contain a lot more information than the ones in Inferno and are more poetic as they contain metaphors. Dante opens Purgatorio with a metaphor as he compares his talent to that of a ship sailing across kinder waters than that of Hell, as they head to a place where people are cleansed of their sins. Dante is pleased to be out of Hell and being under the sky once more and he proceeds to invoke the muses and asks the head muse; Calliope for help so that his poem may rise again. At the entrance to Purgatory they meet an old man who commands respect and asks Dante who he is as he has escaped Hell along with who his guide is and whether or not he has broken any laws of Hell. Virgil isn’t distracted by the appearance of the man and forces Dante to bow and responds to his questions in the same manner he did in Inferno whenever their journey was questioned.
During their conversation we learn from Virgil that this man is Cato and his true love Marcia resides in Limbo with him and that she still prays for his love. However, Virgil almost blackmails Cato into letting them pass as he says he will carry Cato’s condolences back to his love if he does. Cato isn’t moved by this as Marcia doesn’t hold any power over him as she resides in Hell while he doesn’t. Cato does let them pass as their journey has been ordained by the Virgin Mary and they can pass for her sake if nothing else. Before he lets them go he tells Virgil to make Dante a belt from the rushes and wash his face so that he can be cleaned of Hell’s stains. After giving his instructions Cato vanishes and Virgil proceeds to make Dante a belt of rushes and wash his face with the dew. After this Dante notes that they are walking on scared ground that has never felt the footstep of living men.
Canto 2
Dante quickly spots something in the water as he takes in the dawn and once again is forced to kneel with his hands in prayer by Virgil after asking what it is. The glowing figure before them is an angel of God, Dante is blinded by the angel and can’t look directly at it but notes that the angel has been guided a boat to the shore. Dante is content with looking at the boat as he himself can’t look upon the angel and notes that a 100 souls lie within the boat. The souls are all singing a psalm. The Latin words, “In exitu Israel de Aegypto,” come from Psalm 114 and translate as “During the departure of Israel from Egypt.” The angel bestows the sign of the cross over the souls who fall to the ground and immediately after the boat leaves.
The new souls ask Virgil and Dante how they can climb the mountain before them, but they are just as lost but when they learn that Dante is still alive they all turn pale in astonishment as he must be very special to be allowed on this journey. The souls have their attention fixed on Dante who compares himself to a messenger of peace, one of the souls steps forward to hug Dante which he tries to return as he recognises the soul but can’t because they no longer have physical bodies. While he tries three times he can’t embrace the person before him and has to be comforted by the soul who asks what his purpose here is. We learnt the soul is Casella and Dante is confused by why it has taken him so long to arrive when he died before Dante’s journey through Hell. Casella doesn’t give a straightforward answer but does reply that the Angel guising the boat can pick who he wants to take first and it has been three months before he was picked. Casella insists that this was the will of God, so he waited in Rome’s port at the mouth of the river Tiber waiting for his turn. The place he waited was Ostia which is where all souls who aren’t damned to Hell wait to cross to Purgatory.
Dante asks his old friend to sing and Casella agrees as both were artists in life; Dante a poet and Casella a musician. Casella’s voice is so beautiful that he hypnotizes everyone including Virgil as they gather around him. However, this is broken up by Cato who tells them all to get on with their journeys and they all rush to the mountain, quickly followed by Dante and Virgil.
Canto 3
As the soul head to the mountain Dante draws close to Virgil who he sees as his conscience as they themselves turn towards the mountain. As the slow Dante focuses on the mountain before him. Dante is shocked when he sees that he and only he casts a shadow, but it isn’t that shocking when he is the only one who still has a body, Virgil comments that his own body is long buried in Naples. Virgil goes on to praise the Lord, explaining that a lowly man cannot understand His divine ways. He comments that those who try to understand like Aristotle and Plato always fail and all three reside in Limbo as he hangs his head. As they reach the foot of the mountain Dante notes it is very steep and Virgil remarks it will be hard to find a place where a creature without wings can climb it. However, Dante sees a group of souls approaching from the left and basically orders Virgil to ask for their advice to which Virgil agrees.
They aren’t able to get very close to the souls as they are quite shy and back away from the pair when they realise that Dante has a shadow. Virgil is tired of repeating himself all the time and tells them directly that Dante is alive and is virtuous enough to be here in Purgatory. This convinces the souls and they set forward to help Dante, one of them taps him on the should and asks if Dante recognises him (I am sensing a pattern here) but he doesn’t. He proceeds to introduce himself as Manfred, grandson of the Empress Constance. He requests that when Dante gets back to the living world, he visit Manfred’s daughter to give her news that her father is in Purgatory, not Hell.
Here we learn Manfred’s story, he was at the battle of Benevento where he received two fatal wounds and as he lay dying he repents all of his sins and gave himself completely to God. However, his enemy Pope Clement IV excommunicated him and moved his body outside papal territory. However, Manfred disregards the Pope’s authority claiming that God forgives everyone who repents so the Pope’s sentence doesn’t apply to him. There is a catch as penitent souls aren’t granted entrance into Purgatory straight away as those who died with hearts set against the Church must wait thirty times the length of their sin to actually start climbing the mountain of Purgatory. They can shorten their wait if they receive prayers from living souls on Earth. Knowing this Manfred asks Dante to take his message to his daughter so that she can pray for him.
Canto 4
As the move on Dante and Virgil reach the first spur of Ante-Purgatory which houses the indolent or lazy. Dante who was so intrigued by Manfred’s story has lost track of time and almost half of the day has passed him by without notice. During this time he muses on Plato’s plurality of souls; the theory that that humans have more than one souls as what he has witnessed has proven it false. Dante believes that is a person had more than one soul, he would still note the passage of time no matter how distracted he might be by something else as not all the souls would be concentrating on the same thing at the same time and as he hasn’t noticed the passage of time then to him it proves that man only has one soul. However, his musing is cut short as a band of souls have found a path that Dante can climb but it narrow and it is so steep that Dante has to move carefully in Virgil’s wake.
As they climb the path Dante asks Virgil which way they should go only to be told to shut up by Virgil and to keep climbing until they find someone who can give them directions. The reader here is under the impression Virgil knows where he is going but this is dispelled. They keep climbing on and on to the top which can’t be seen until Dante reaches the point where he is exhausted and begs Virgil to stop. Virgil agrees and tells Dante to climb to the ridge where he stands, and they rest. Looking back on how far they have climbed Dante is filled with satisfaction until he sees the sun is on his left like the world has been turned upside down. Virgil explains that Dante has spent his whole life seeing the world from the Northern Hemisphere and now he is in the Southern Hemisphere everything is backwards. Only noting this for the first time Dante is shocked by can’t bear being outsmarted by Virgil so he shows off his own intellect by calculating the exact distance between them and the equator which does seem a bit childish to me. Dante eager to continue his journey asks Virgil how much further they have to climb, and he replies with the hardest part of the climb is behind them and the rest will be easier but before they can continue they are interrupted by a voice.
The voice tells them to rest a little longer and comes from behind a huge boulder that they hadn’t noticed. Investigating they find a group of naked, exhausted men resting. One converses with Dante about being depressed and Dante makes fun of the man’s laziness to which the man replies that he should climb if he has so much energy. At the point Dante recognises the man’s voice and sits beside him worried and the man keeps speaking. The man is Belacqua and Dante asks him what he is doing sitting here, was he waiting for a guide or just being lazy. Belacqua is severely depressed and asks what is the point in continuing to climb when the angel won’t let him through until he has done his penance in languishing the length of his life out here in the Ante-Purgatory, all he can do is hope prayer shorten his wait, similar to Manfred’s situation. Before Dante can comfort his friend he is urged on by Virgil and he has to leave Belacqua behind.
Canto 5
As Dante and Virgil leaves the first spur behind, a soul gasps and points out to others that Dante is alive. Dante pauses and turns around to either bask in his aliveness or just to see who is speaking and Virgil tells him to ignore them and carry on climbing. Dante shamed follows Virgil’s order and continues climbing the seemingly endless stairs. This Virgil in Purgatorio seems to be a lot less thoughtful and more impatient than the Virgil from Inferno which is very interesting for me to see. They quickly come across another band of souls singing and that are intrigued by Dante being alive and asks him to tell them more of himself, however, they are answered by Virgil who basically tells them that Dante is alive, they are welcome here and to leave them be and the souls quickly disperse. Virgil seems sickened by Dante’s almost celebrity status and tells him to keep moving but keep his ears open as the souls call after them asking them to stop and talk.
The souls announce they all died by violence but repented their sins at the very last second before death sparing them the horrors of Hell. Dante stops announcing that even though he doesn’t recognise them he would be happy to help them. The souls ask for information about the living world but two stand out, one asks for Dante to bring news of him to Fano, his hometown, before proceeding to tell his story. It turns out he was betrayed and killed in Padua and regrets fleeing towards Oriaco instead of Mira, implying that the town of Oriaco was in on the scheme and if he had gone to Mira, he might still be alive. Instead, he ended up in a marsh where his blood soaked into the ground. After he ends his tale Dante identifies him as Jacopo del Cassero. Immediately another souls begins to speak asking for Dante’s help in bringing news to the Montefeltro and he names himself as Buonconte da Montefeltro and this is familiar as the reader will recognise his name from Dante’s encounter with Guido da Montefeltro. Dante immediately reacts asking him how he died since no one had seen him since the battle of Campaldino and his body was never found.
Buonconte gives his story: during the battle, he suffered a throat wound and was running for his life when he fell along the banks of the Archiano, repented, and died. He stops to beg Dante to retell this true story and dispel any rumors about him. After death, he was taken by an angel in Heaven, despite a Hell demon’s argument. Buonconte compares the demon’s ill will to the power of a storm, similar to the one that suddenly broke loose that night, flooded the Archiano, and buried Buonconte’s body in silt and debris. Then a third souls speaking, and this voice belongs to a woman who identifies herself as La Pia and begs Dante to take her story to the living world but only after he’s rested a bit. She implies that her treacherous husband caused her death, despite his wedding vows to her.
Canto 6
Dante loves all the attention while Virgil seems to sulk but soon he finds himself struggling to break free of all the souls asking to be remembered and for prayers. He realises something here and remarks that in one passage of Virgil’s Aeneid, he denies the power of prayer to “bend the rule of Heaven” but the souls here in Purgatory seem to do just what Virgil believes to do untrue. Virgil replies that only Christian prayers are effective and tells Dante to wait until he meets Beatrice and she will defend him. At the slight mention of Beatrice, Dante parks up and is eager to move on but Virgil tells him they will climb as far as they can during the day as it is impossible to climb after the sun sets. At that moment they see a soul seated alone and they rush towards him to get directions. This souls says nothing although he watches them as a lion would, instead of telling them where to go, the souls asks who they are and where they’re from. When Virgil says “Mantua,” the soul’s attitude completely changes. He stands up, identifies himself as Sordello of Mantua, and promptly hugs Virgil.
full review at forthenovellovers.wordpress.com
This was nowhere near as good as Inferno. In fact, I’m a little nervous about reading Paradiso. It’s like Dante had a sudden moment of “oh shit Inferno was kind of gay and super accepting I should probably remind everyone that I’m straight and a Good Man”. Basically, here’s my takeaway from Purgatorio:
1. Eve sucks, and everything is her fault, to the point where we shouldn’t even say her name, just refer to her as the woman like she sinned simply by being a woman? Okay, gfy Dante.
2. Dante is STRAIGHT. Men no longer exist after you leave hell on any level except that they’re just sinners, and we should not pay attention to them at all.
3. If you’ve ever done a single bad thing in your life, you’ll probably end up in hell. If you, like, thought about doing something bad, you’ll probably end up in purgatory. Basically, unless you’re a saint (and even then, watch out, there’s a lot of priests in hell), you don’t get to go to heaven. Or, unless you’ve got a woman in heaven who wants to bring you back to the light and send you on a quest with a poet to wash away your sins.
I was so over this pretty quickly, but as we got to the end and everyone was just harping on Eve, I read the last 100 pages as fast as I could. I’m not really looking forward to the heaven cantos, though I am hopeful we’ll get to see some archangels, and that’ll make up for it. I do have to say, though, that Dante did a great job making every single canto feel like we were in limbo by not really describing the sins or the environment in as much detail as he did in hell. It was all kind of wishy washy and uncertain, and I think that fits really well with purgatory.
1. Eve sucks, and everything is her fault, to the point where we shouldn’t even say her name, just refer to her as the woman like she sinned simply by being a woman? Okay, gfy Dante.
2. Dante is STRAIGHT. Men no longer exist after you leave hell on any level except that they’re just sinners, and we should not pay attention to them at all.
3. If you’ve ever done a single bad thing in your life, you’ll probably end up in hell. If you, like, thought about doing something bad, you’ll probably end up in purgatory. Basically, unless you’re a saint (and even then, watch out, there’s a lot of priests in hell), you don’t get to go to heaven. Or, unless you’ve got a woman in heaven who wants to bring you back to the light and send you on a quest with a poet to wash away your sins.
I was so over this pretty quickly, but as we got to the end and everyone was just harping on Eve, I read the last 100 pages as fast as I could. I’m not really looking forward to the heaven cantos, though I am hopeful we’ll get to see some archangels, and that’ll make up for it. I do have to say, though, that Dante did a great job making every single canto feel like we were in limbo by not really describing the sins or the environment in as much detail as he did in hell. It was all kind of wishy washy and uncertain, and I think that fits really well with purgatory.
My edition did not have Singleton's commentary, so I got pretty lost in the endless parade of Italian dignitaries of yore. Otherwise, delightful.
I gave it four stars based on the brilliance of Dante himself even though I read a translation, masterful in the hands of Esolen. I can not tell a lie: all the literary references - and there are so many- were not known to me, proving my lack of education in the classics. Thus the notes at the end of each canto were indispensable and I read two sets- mostly those of John Ciardi, another amazing poet translator. The tone of Purgatorio was so different than Inferno. It is far less crude and less shocking. There is hope and light and beauty amid the suffering. Another appropriate read during this crazy pandemic. Must admit that I am thankful that the belief in purgatory is not one held by the Orthodox Church. Rather, I took great comfort in the sure knowledge of the sufficiency of Christ’s work on the cross. Yet, I loved the descriptions of joy and beauty experienced by Dante on this journey.
Funnily enough, I did enjoy Inferno more than Purgatory 🤣
In Inferno, I was on the edge of my seat and the picture of Hell Dante created with his words was both mesmerizing and cringeworthy.
In Purgatory, the pace is a lot slower and things aren’t as dire.
In Inferno, I was on the edge of my seat and the picture of Hell Dante created with his words was both mesmerizing and cringeworthy.
In Purgatory, the pace is a lot slower and things aren’t as dire.