Reviews - The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri

1.45k reviews for:

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri

3.89 AVERAGE

danlisle's review against another edition

3.0

Hell was great. Heaven, not so much.

kim_reads87's review against another edition

4.0

I’m shocked with how quickly I managed to get through this one. I can see why so many people quote Dante. I did however become quite a bit bored towards the end. I probably should have broken it down into 3 sections and really taken my time over them. I liked the writing style and at times it didn’t feel like I was reading a 700 year old poem. The illustrations throughout my copy are absolutely stunning and really add to the atmosphere and journey.

monsterburgee's review against another edition

4.75

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: N/A

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

hedgewinnery's review against another edition

2.0

I ONLY read the inferno section, I only ever intended to read the inferno section but my library didn't have just that so I took out this monster.

I understand this is a landmark in literature and is highly influential but I just could not get into it. It's written nicely and flows, the descriptions of hell are vivid and certainly still 'fresh' with imagination rather than "HM, demons and pitchforks". But I just could not enjoy it.

I didn't have a problem with the words or structure, it just wasn't engaging for me. The references to figures in Dante's time went over my head (and I didn't want to read more to figure them out...maybe my fault) and the amount of fainting he does is almost humourus.

Maybe I'll read it again and be struck by its majesty, but not this time.

sams84's review against another edition

3.0

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this as I'm not a big poetry reader as I find the reading of such books a bit slow and arduous. I have to say on the whole Carson's translation was vivid and flowing and what I would image the original to have been like. It was a bit slower and clumsy-ish in parts but on the whole it was very enjoyable, descriptive and imaginative. I flicked through a few different versions in the library and this was the one that stood out as the most reader friendly of all the translations. The descriptions of each circle were brilliantly descriptive and brought to mind full colour, sound and life of each to the mind of the reader. I thoroughly enjoyed Dante's combination of mutliple faiths, religions and myths in the people present along his journey through the Inferno. I found this particularly refeshing and amusing.