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A review by ehays84
Inferno by Dante Alighieri
5.0
Since the whole Divine Comedy is so long, I thought I would post a review now that I have finished just the Inferno. I also want to note that the translation I read was by John Ciardi, not this one, but Goodreads didn't seem to have the Ciardi one available to add or review. A lot of my praise for the work has to do with Ciardi's impeccable and compelling translation, so I wish I could have added that version.
Where to begin? This is truly an epic, and it is one that I am glad I waited to read until now. I am very glad that I read Lewi's biography of Dante first, and that I had background knowledge from reading the Bible, studying medieval history, and reading some classics of Greek literature. Even still, I have not ever read the Iliad, and I have only started reading the Aeneid because of reading Dante. Reading the Aeneid now as well is very much helping me understand more of the Divine Comedy. Also, Ciardi's introductions to each Canto and footnotes make some many points of Dante's genius more readily available to a reader like myself.
The story itself, as everyone knows, is an allegory of the Christian life. The Inferno is all about Dante experiencing but also rejecting sin. He pulls no punches in his often gory detail, and is not at all abashed to put his least favorite acquaintances and contemporaries in various pits of hell. But everything that he describes is told with masterful effect, and Ciardi's translation does an excellent job of preserving this.
On that note, a word about the translation. He keep the rhyme scheme from the original Italian as close as he can in English. I believe it is known as terza rima. So each stanza is ABA. Ciardi's command of English to maintain the story as well as the rhyme is unbelievable. Ciardi also works hard to preserve idioms, and if he cannot, he tells us how he tried and failed but still gives us an explanation of what Dante's original idiom had been.
It is hard to describe why The Inferno is so good, other than to say that Dante thought about EVERYTHING he wrote. Nothing is out of place or done arbitrarily.
I would certainly support the notion, although I am not a master reader of world literature, that we could all be fine in life if we read Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and little else for our literary consumption. We certainly haven't had enough time separating us from anyone since Shakespeare to put anyone else into that group.
Where to begin? This is truly an epic, and it is one that I am glad I waited to read until now. I am very glad that I read Lewi's biography of Dante first, and that I had background knowledge from reading the Bible, studying medieval history, and reading some classics of Greek literature. Even still, I have not ever read the Iliad, and I have only started reading the Aeneid because of reading Dante. Reading the Aeneid now as well is very much helping me understand more of the Divine Comedy. Also, Ciardi's introductions to each Canto and footnotes make some many points of Dante's genius more readily available to a reader like myself.
The story itself, as everyone knows, is an allegory of the Christian life. The Inferno is all about Dante experiencing but also rejecting sin. He pulls no punches in his often gory detail, and is not at all abashed to put his least favorite acquaintances and contemporaries in various pits of hell. But everything that he describes is told with masterful effect, and Ciardi's translation does an excellent job of preserving this.
On that note, a word about the translation. He keep the rhyme scheme from the original Italian as close as he can in English. I believe it is known as terza rima. So each stanza is ABA. Ciardi's command of English to maintain the story as well as the rhyme is unbelievable. Ciardi also works hard to preserve idioms, and if he cannot, he tells us how he tried and failed but still gives us an explanation of what Dante's original idiom had been.
It is hard to describe why The Inferno is so good, other than to say that Dante thought about EVERYTHING he wrote. Nothing is out of place or done arbitrarily.
I would certainly support the notion, although I am not a master reader of world literature, that we could all be fine in life if we read Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and little else for our literary consumption. We certainly haven't had enough time separating us from anyone since Shakespeare to put anyone else into that group.