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dnae 's review for:
The Inferno: The Longfellow Translation
by Dante Alighieri
I read this because of the need to delve as deep as I could into Hozier’s newly released album, Unreal Unearth. I started reading this during my ARC shifts. After that, I started reading a couple of cantos every night while listening to Unreal Unearth in the lamplit dark. Every time De Selby Pt. 1 transitioned into De Selby Pt. 2, I felt like Dante descending myself. Truly a sublime and perfect reading experience I will always treasure.
In Inferno, we follow Dante the Pilgrim’s journey through hell and hopefully to heaven, as he is called to do so by his lost love Beatrice in order to avoid temptation. He is guided by Virgil, a shade that resides in Limbo, on a favor from her. I expected this to be somewhat an Old English thy-thou bore, but I am so glad to be wrong. I doubted the introduction’s claims that Dante is still so innovative and creative even by today’s standards but by God! He is. He’s funny and so deeply profound too. Im giving this five stars for the joy of the ride but I would like to reread a more accessible translation someday, though I actually like Longfellow’s antiquated language as it lends the verse its deserved gravitas. His capable hands lend a touching lyricality to the translation which I could not find in the others I skimmed. I appreciate the Barnes and Nobles version I had as it provided a thorough summary, introduction, and hundreds of footnotes; which made for dense but rewarding reading.
Dante the Poet has an Aristotelian (extremes of virtue) sense of morality and Dante’s exploration of this through his contrapasso system of punishment was pretty clever but also invited nuanced interpretations. What creative images, too, like how the lovers in Canto V are forever whipped by stormy winds. Along with Dante the Pilgrim, we experience pity for prisoners due to the slivers of humanity that come through their conversations. We also experience the disdain Virgil has for this pity and are forced to reflect on our standards of good and evil. Mostly, my mind kept asking if the punishment was worth the crime. According to Dante, to love is not enough, to be noble and kind is not enough, as one evil action can corrupt you throughout and that there is no justification for what he considers evil (nowadays, a more considerate view of crime is used, such as understanding socioeconomic contexts and such).
I loved his imagery of the cosmos. In the depths of hell, somehow Virgil can still see the sun. Stars signal the beginning and end of his journey and sandwich the darkness of hell between them. I particularly like the employment of the Ptolemaic conception of the earth and how the earth’s core, normally considered to be unimaginably hot, is Satan trapped in ice while the beating of his wings whips a storm around him. More than the thematic and religious discussions, it is these imaginative scenes that I enjoy. Some more scenes from the top of my head are: how the demon leader farted in lieu of a warhorn, the fallen angels guarding the gates of the City of Dis (I think), Ugolino’s cannibalism in the frozen lake, Geryon, and Dante and Virgil using Satan as a ladder. Dante builds an ominous, foreboding world, the sinking depths of which you can almost feel. Coupled with the mirroring of the reader into Dante the Pilgrim's experiences and Virgil's guidance, we explore and question the systems of punishment and go through the darkly wondrous situations they encounter. With the profundity of Dante and Longfellow's exposition, the themes are not proselytized but conveyed in tricky, magnanimous tragedy. My only regret is not being able to read it in its terza rima glory.
All my quotes, much beloved, are highlighted in my physical copy.
In Inferno, we follow Dante the Pilgrim’s journey through hell and hopefully to heaven, as he is called to do so by his lost love Beatrice in order to avoid temptation. He is guided by Virgil, a shade that resides in Limbo, on a favor from her. I expected this to be somewhat an Old English thy-thou bore, but I am so glad to be wrong. I doubted the introduction’s claims that Dante is still so innovative and creative even by today’s standards but by God! He is. He’s funny and so deeply profound too. Im giving this five stars for the joy of the ride but I would like to reread a more accessible translation someday, though I actually like Longfellow’s antiquated language as it lends the verse its deserved gravitas. His capable hands lend a touching lyricality to the translation which I could not find in the others I skimmed. I appreciate the Barnes and Nobles version I had as it provided a thorough summary, introduction, and hundreds of footnotes; which made for dense but rewarding reading.
Dante the Poet has an Aristotelian (extremes of virtue) sense of morality and Dante’s exploration of this through his contrapasso system of punishment was pretty clever but also invited nuanced interpretations. What creative images, too, like how the lovers in Canto V are forever whipped by stormy winds. Along with Dante the Pilgrim, we experience pity for prisoners due to the slivers of humanity that come through their conversations. We also experience the disdain Virgil has for this pity and are forced to reflect on our standards of good and evil. Mostly, my mind kept asking if the punishment was worth the crime. According to Dante, to love is not enough, to be noble and kind is not enough, as one evil action can corrupt you throughout and that there is no justification for what he considers evil (nowadays, a more considerate view of crime is used, such as understanding socioeconomic contexts and such).
I loved his imagery of the cosmos. In the depths of hell, somehow Virgil can still see the sun. Stars signal the beginning and end of his journey and sandwich the darkness of hell between them. I particularly like the employment of the Ptolemaic conception of the earth and how the earth’s core, normally considered to be unimaginably hot, is Satan trapped in ice while the beating of his wings whips a storm around him. More than the thematic and religious discussions, it is these imaginative scenes that I enjoy. Some more scenes from the top of my head are: how the demon leader farted in lieu of a warhorn, the fallen angels guarding the gates of the City of Dis (I think), Ugolino’s cannibalism in the frozen lake, Geryon, and Dante and Virgil using Satan as a ladder. Dante builds an ominous, foreboding world, the sinking depths of which you can almost feel. Coupled with the mirroring of the reader into Dante the Pilgrim's experiences and Virgil's guidance, we explore and question the systems of punishment and go through the darkly wondrous situations they encounter. With the profundity of Dante and Longfellow's exposition, the themes are not proselytized but conveyed in tricky, magnanimous tragedy. My only regret is not being able to read it in its terza rima glory.
All my quotes, much beloved, are highlighted in my physical copy.