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A review by kessler21
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
5.0
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.