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A review by jonfaith
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
4.0
George Steiner notes that likely it is only music and mathematics which can begin to reflect the expansive majesty of thought. Philosophy pursues such but an inclination to systems and other ordered orientation tempers the vigor. He then states that it is the aphoristic thinkers who come closest and it is from that vantage that one can revel in the grandeur of poetry. Valery and Heidegger understood this. It is a vision of the cosmos which likely extends back to the pre-socratics. I’m not sure if this exclusive project was the ambition of Dante, but who else could carry the torch from Virgil and Ovid, who else could synthesize the disparate of both Grace and what exists Beyond Good and Evil?
Predictably I loved the Inferno, liked Purgatory (especially Virgil and the poets) and pondered the implications of this Green Zone, I mean Paradise. Negotiating the strictures and commandments is tricky. I didn’t find any overt abatement of beer drinking. Unfortunately local politics mar this endeavor. History and Tom Eliot appear to have given the Florentine a pass.
This was an encouraging instance of literary fidelity, one where I read the Commedia from beginning to end, with no distraction, dalliance or pursuit of anything else.
Predictably I loved the Inferno, liked Purgatory (especially Virgil and the poets) and pondered the implications of this Green Zone, I mean Paradise. Negotiating the strictures and commandments is tricky. I didn’t find any overt abatement of beer drinking. Unfortunately local politics mar this endeavor. History and Tom Eliot appear to have given the Florentine a pass.
This was an encouraging instance of literary fidelity, one where I read the Commedia from beginning to end, with no distraction, dalliance or pursuit of anything else.