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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
entiendo por qué es considerada un clásico y me gustan varias cosas pero, en general, menudo pastel
One star just because I appreciate this as a piece of western literature, but oh my was that rough to get through. Can't really say I understood anything: just skimmed through it and then turned to my friend Wikipedia. (But honestly, university schedules suck. Who has the time to actually read this brick of a book in a week??)
I have zero interest for religious stuff, so this just wasn't for me. Plus it was sooo hard to understand, the old timey, poetic prose is exhausting to read.
I have zero interest for religious stuff, so this just wasn't for me. Plus it was sooo hard to understand, the old timey, poetic prose is exhausting to read.
I'd say this is a very difficult book. But it is beautifully written and poetic. I liked Inferno most, then Purgatorium and Paradiso was the lamest thing I have ever read in my life. That's why this book only gets three stars from me. Sorry Dante
Es un libro maravilloso y lo he disfrutado muchísimo, para mí el infierno y el purgatorio tendrían un 4 y el paraíso un 3, porque esta última parte es bastante densa y aburrida (lo que ha hecho que me gustase un poco menos el libro).
RitToC 27 -
Backstory - so I read the Divine Comedy in high school and it blew my young mind. It changed me from a militant atheist to a flakey agnostic, it made me appreciate poetry, it got me interested in medieval philosophy. That said I’ve been hesitant to revisit it in the decades since - would it hold up?
Inferno -
The Inferno continues to be great, most of the ironic punishments are great, the demons saluting with farts still makes me laugh. I like that Dante the character evolves through the story, from empathizing with the damned to anger at them. It’s kind of like listening to funeral doom metal - I feel this kind of despair throughout the whole thing but it’s a good despair. Cathartic, maybe.
Definitely the best of the trilogy.
Purgatorio-
See, when I read this decades ago I really enjoyed this one as well since it’s central theme is hope. There are still ironic punishments but they’re temporary. We actually meet a soul who ascends into heaven.
This time around I wasn’t as into it, especially with the pageant in the Garden of Eden at the top of the mountain. The endless symbolism was frankly rather dull. In retrospect I should’ve taken this as a warning sign of what was to come in Paradiso.
Not as good as Inferno, but still good overall.
Paradiso -
Man oh man. So I thought the theme was joy, but for me the theme was boredom. This whole book was a joyless slog to get through, some cantos took some hardcore skimming to get past.
So in heaven everyone is in a stadium in the shape of a rose watching God, many souls leave to other planets to chat with Dante on Italian politics, theological minutia, and moral philosophizing that is just tedious. 33 cantos in a row of “Well actually Dante...” is kind of the worst.
I think I’ll just stick with Inferno and sometimes Purgatorio. Yikes. I’m wondering now what 17 year old me saw in Paradiso that filled him with wonder. Hmm.
Backstory - so I read the Divine Comedy in high school and it blew my young mind. It changed me from a militant atheist to a flakey agnostic, it made me appreciate poetry, it got me interested in medieval philosophy. That said I’ve been hesitant to revisit it in the decades since - would it hold up?
Inferno -
The Inferno continues to be great, most of the ironic punishments are great, the demons saluting with farts still makes me laugh. I like that Dante the character evolves through the story, from empathizing with the damned to anger at them. It’s kind of like listening to funeral doom metal - I feel this kind of despair throughout the whole thing but it’s a good despair. Cathartic, maybe.
Definitely the best of the trilogy.
Purgatorio-
See, when I read this decades ago I really enjoyed this one as well since it’s central theme is hope. There are still ironic punishments but they’re temporary. We actually meet a soul who ascends into heaven.
This time around I wasn’t as into it, especially with the pageant in the Garden of Eden at the top of the mountain. The endless symbolism was frankly rather dull. In retrospect I should’ve taken this as a warning sign of what was to come in Paradiso.
Not as good as Inferno, but still good overall.
Paradiso -
Man oh man. So I thought the theme was joy, but for me the theme was boredom. This whole book was a joyless slog to get through, some cantos took some hardcore skimming to get past.
So in heaven everyone is in a stadium in the shape of a rose watching God, many souls leave to other planets to chat with Dante on Italian politics, theological minutia, and moral philosophizing that is just tedious. 33 cantos in a row of “Well actually Dante...” is kind of the worst.
I think I’ll just stick with Inferno and sometimes Purgatorio. Yikes. I’m wondering now what 17 year old me saw in Paradiso that filled him with wonder. Hmm.
This is a narrative poem that Dante wrote from exile from Florence Italy. In the poem, he starts in a dark forest, lost and disoriented and he is trying to find the light. Virgil, author of Aeneid, comes and guides him through Inferno (hell) and Purgatorio (purgatory) then two different guides takes him though Paradiso (Heaven).
First, I could not and probably still cannot read this poem and fully understand it. So I listened to The Great Courses college lecture of Dante's Divine Comedy by William R Cook and Ronald B Herzman. Many what a journey.
My high school education of Inferno was horrible and at times just wrong. My perception was Dante was exiled and then wrote The Divine Comedy to fillet his enemies in hell. WRONG!
The two professors state that you cannot fully appreciate and understand Dante and what he is trying to say unless you travel the whole journey from hell to heaven, and neither can you grasp the Divine Comedy unless you travel in the correct order, staring in hell and ascending to heaven.
The Divine Comedy is fill with so many allusions and symbolism and references and people I knew nothing about. Just as Dante needed Virgil and others a guides, I need a guide of my own. I am so thankful for The Great Courses: Dante's Divine Comedy.
They start with wonderful background information of Florence, Dante, the political and economic scene at the time. They also explain most of the people met especially the local individuals of Florence that we are not familiar with. It is not a verse by verse lecture (though at times it is) but they provide so much information. As with how Dante organized his poem. First 33 cantos in each level of the afterlife comprised of 9 levels plus 1 different for a total of 10 levels. His rhyme scheme is A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D so 3 out of 6 lines have to rhyme for the whole poem.
It is an amazing piece of literature that is also so profound. Dante covers some serious issue from moral to political to social, salvation and so much more. Dante has to be on the level of the smartest people in history. The Divine Comedy should be studied much more thoroughly in our public education.
I was amazed by the Divine Comedy. So why the 3.5 stars. Its not a knock on content and philosophy. Instead, this is not a work that can just be picked up read for several reasons. Also, this is a piece that desires to be read multiple times to gain all it has to offer. And this is a work that requires study. Even with the lectures and the notes in my translation, the actual reading was difficult.
First, I could not and probably still cannot read this poem and fully understand it. So I listened to The Great Courses college lecture of Dante's Divine Comedy by William R Cook and Ronald B Herzman. Many what a journey.
My high school education of Inferno was horrible and at times just wrong. My perception was Dante was exiled and then wrote The Divine Comedy to fillet his enemies in hell. WRONG!
The two professors state that you cannot fully appreciate and understand Dante and what he is trying to say unless you travel the whole journey from hell to heaven, and neither can you grasp the Divine Comedy unless you travel in the correct order, staring in hell and ascending to heaven.
The Divine Comedy is fill with so many allusions and symbolism and references and people I knew nothing about. Just as Dante needed Virgil and others a guides, I need a guide of my own. I am so thankful for The Great Courses: Dante's Divine Comedy.
They start with wonderful background information of Florence, Dante, the political and economic scene at the time. They also explain most of the people met especially the local individuals of Florence that we are not familiar with. It is not a verse by verse lecture (though at times it is) but they provide so much information. As with how Dante organized his poem. First 33 cantos in each level of the afterlife comprised of 9 levels plus 1 different for a total of 10 levels. His rhyme scheme is A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D so 3 out of 6 lines have to rhyme for the whole poem.
It is an amazing piece of literature that is also so profound. Dante covers some serious issue from moral to political to social, salvation and so much more. Dante has to be on the level of the smartest people in history. The Divine Comedy should be studied much more thoroughly in our public education.
I was amazed by the Divine Comedy. So why the 3.5 stars. Its not a knock on content and philosophy. Instead, this is not a work that can just be picked up read for several reasons. Also, this is a piece that desires to be read multiple times to gain all it has to offer. And this is a work that requires study. Even with the lectures and the notes in my translation, the actual reading was difficult.
I'm too lazy to write a proper review, but The Divine Comedy is certainly deserving of its reputation.
As a whole it's great: moving, grand in scale and vision, and thought-provoking. It's rich in thought, reference, knowledge, and philosophy. And it's just such a labour of love, literally, that one can't help but admire the work that went into it.
But it's also frustrating at the pace with which it moves, and it can be overwhelming with the number of people met in the work. It has this weird tugging between slow and fast, where scenes can seem to drag on, even though it's only contained within one chapter, or canto, as they are called. And that, quite honestly, really can hamper the experience.
Kirkpatrick's translation is serviceable, at best. But it's rather stiff and not very poetic, so I'd suggest looking for another one.
6, maybe 6.5/10.
As a whole it's great: moving, grand in scale and vision, and thought-provoking. It's rich in thought, reference, knowledge, and philosophy. And it's just such a labour of love, literally, that one can't help but admire the work that went into it.
But it's also frustrating at the pace with which it moves, and it can be overwhelming with the number of people met in the work. It has this weird tugging between slow and fast, where scenes can seem to drag on, even though it's only contained within one chapter, or canto, as they are called. And that, quite honestly, really can hamper the experience.
Kirkpatrick's translation is serviceable, at best. But it's rather stiff and not very poetic, so I'd suggest looking for another one.
6, maybe 6.5/10.
Una libro de la literatura clásica, un libro majestuoso una magistral obra literaria, un libro que trasciende el tiempo: mas de 7 siglos de haber sido publicada por primera vez, fue la inspiración de pintores (como Sandro Botticelli), un vistazo al purgatorio y al infierno para la religión cristiana.
Su estilo muy apegado a la época, su forma de escribir, de describir pareciera ¡que no es imaginación! da la ilusión de que Dante fue al infierno literalmente, la forma que describe la corrupción humana, los pecados, lo inmoral, el sufrimiento, la agonía, y lo que haríamos por amor redactado de forma tan poética y a veces un poco sínica.
Es magnifico que una obra siga teniendo tanto éxito.
“No hay mayor dolor que recordar la felicidad en tiempos de miseria”
Su estilo muy apegado a la época, su forma de escribir, de describir pareciera ¡que no es imaginación! da la ilusión de que Dante fue al infierno literalmente, la forma que describe la corrupción humana, los pecados, lo inmoral, el sufrimiento, la agonía, y lo que haríamos por amor redactado de forma tan poética y a veces un poco sínica.
Es magnifico que una obra siga teniendo tanto éxito.
“No hay mayor dolor que recordar la felicidad en tiempos de miseria”
A lot went over my head but enjoyed it over all! I feel like I’d like it more if I was familiar with dead Italians
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated