The Divine Comedy (1321) | Hacker News Reader

The Divine Comedy (1321)

italianstudies.org

46 pointsgizzlon29 comments

One of the parts of The Divine Comedy I find interesting is that it is an extremely effective demonstration to point people who still believe the hard-to-kill myth that the idea of a round Earth was unknown to Europeans before Columbus to, because of the sheer level of detail Dante goes into about it.

Purgatorio, canto II [1] in particular explicitly "place" purgatory at the opposite side of the globe from Jerusalem, and describe in detail how different stars are visible, and how the time is different in Jerusalem, over Ganges and in Purgatory, as well as how the seasons are different in the southern hemisphere. The differences between the hemispheres etc. are revisited several times to make explicit how Purgatory differs, for example in Purgatorio, canto IV, verse 55 onwards [2].

[1] http://www.italianstudies.org/comedy/Purgatorio2.htm

[2] http://www.italianstudies.org/comedy/Purgatorio4.htm

The Divine Comedy also underlines that in the pre-Galilean European cosmology, the centre of the universe was not in fact considered the best place to be ...

Nice effort - although it would have been better if it had both the original and translated version side to side. Poetry of this caliber is way beyond meaning and words, and can somehow be enjoyed even with a limited understanding of the original language. I remember when, many years ago and with a very limited knowledge of English, I tried to read the original works of TS Eliot. I was blown away. The original/translated versions helped me to get started and I never looked back.

The Comedy is an unbelievable work. I read it in full in my twenties and always keep a copy with me. It would probably be my 'desert island' book if only one were allowed (plus The Four Quartets of TS Eliot, if I could take two).

+1 on having both versions side by side, otherwise you'll lose all the beauty of Dante's version :)

Do you know a good print edition with English + original?

It's easy to find trilinear bibles. I didn't find any editions of Divine Comedy under that name (or bilinear, which seems more likely to exist)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Divine-Comedy-Dante-Alighieri/dp...

Seems to fit the bill, new translation, issued in separate volumes for each of the Cantos. I have not seen this book myself. Amazon provide access to sample pages where you can compare the Italian with the translated verses for the first Canto.

I had a translation with the original Italian on facing pages some time ago but it appears to have grown legs and walked away... I do lend books out fairly frequently.

If you're going to embark on a major translated work like this, do yourself a favor and read the first hundred lines or so in a few different translations. Makes a huge difference. Old or new - just give a few a shot. You can always read it again, but you can only read it for the first time once.

Epic poetry seems to have died out, at least for a time, as a literary art form. Will it make a comeback? Would or could the Internet play a role in such a comeback?

One of the last great epic poems written in the English language is G.K. Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_White_Horse

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_the_White_Horse

Readers here who have their interest stirred by Dante's poetry might enjoy Chesterton's work.

This is excellent. I also recommend the Dante Project, hosted by Princeton University: http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/index.html

Yeah, these two are the easiest to read of those I've found..

My first exposure to Dante was John Ciardi's version in college for a philosophy class I took.

I loved it since it gave an outline to each Canto and described what you were about to read. You then have his notes at the end of each Canto, which helps if you missed some of the references he makes.

Here is that version - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-inferno-dante-alighieri/...

So, my favorite part of the divine comedy is not even the divine comedy. Is how, in Canto XXVI[0], Dante takes Homer's tale of Ulysses (odysseus) and extends it. And then 500 years later, Lord Tennyson takes Dante's idea and extends it further[1].

I find this two thousand years long compounded work incredibly fascinating.

[0] http://www.italianstudies.org/comedy/Inferno26.htm [1] http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174659

As an Italian, I can't understand what foreigners see in the Comedy. Really. There are some vivid descriptions -- sure -- but likewise there are in other books. There are some interesting characters -- sure -- but they are just sketched.

Among Italian poets, I prefer Giacomo Leopardi.

Italian here - your feelings toward this book are most likely the result of our mandatory 3-year Divine Comedy classes we all had in high school. It's sad to note that most of us developed indifference - if not mild aversion - to Dante's work after that. If you have time and will, I really recommend to read this book skipping all comments, interpretations and stuff. Then most likely you'll see why people from all over the world admire his work. Dante was a poetic genius that created an entire language from scratch and pushed it in incredible directions. And yes, he truly was an uber-nerd of his time.

Thanks for chiming in. Actually, the mandatory 3-year Divine Comedy classes didn't bother me. I liked literature, albeit I lacked the maturity to truly appreciate it. Later, I have tried to read the Comedy again and again, but besides the vivid imagery and Dante's mastery of poetry, I have failed to see what value I could extract from it. On the other hand, Giacomo Leopardi -- a literary geek, so to speak -- had some insights to share about human condition.

> Dante was a poetic genius that created an entire language from scratch and pushed it in incredible directions.

I agree with this, but this is something of interest mostly to Italians alone, isn't it?

Dante nerd? Leopardi geek? You are talking about giants, don't use those inappropriate terms to describe them please. Both are Great artists, we all need to study more before judge or even comment about Dante and Leopardi.

A recent translation by Clive James has been much praised. As someone who has not read Dante's classic yet, the James version might be the one I read.

http://www.clivejames.com/poetry/divine

Is any metric respected (or attempted to)? From what I can quickly see the verses don't seem to be hendecasyllables, but I don't really know how to count that in English :) Anyway, not a complain, it looks like a great effort!

doesn't seem so, and AFAICT rhyming isn't respected either, but I think trying to fit metric, rhyme, and meaning would be nearly impossible.

Rhyme is not respected, but I guess that's really impossibile. Metric should be "easier" than rhyme, but I totally agree - meaning first.

Comments and images from the University of Texas at Austin: http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/index.html

My first introduction to this was via Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Inferno, about an SF writer who dies and then finds himself in Dante's version of Hell . . .

(Spoilers ahead for those who haven't read both Infernos.)

While Niven & Pournelle's Inferno was definitely inspired by Dante's, it's a key plot point that Niven & Pournelle's Hell was fundamentally different. In Dante's Hell, there is no possibility of redemption. No matter how sorry one feels or how much one strives to make amends, Hell is forever. In Niven and Pournelle's version, Hell is a form of purgatory. This is first hinted at by the missing "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here" sign. It's made obvious when the protagonist escapes Hell at the end of the story, having suffered less than many prisoners do today.

That distinction is probably why I enjoyed Niven & Pournelle's Inferno much more than Dante's. That and the fact that Dante had the subtly of a Soviet propagandist. He wrote his political adversaries into his depiction of Hell. Even bad fanfic can't get away with that today.

The reason there is no hope for those in Dante's hell is because they are in death as they were in life. They are not so much being punished as they are simply extending the less than ideal life they lived before. In this sense, there suffering is not so much inflicted upon them as it is self-inflicted. This is the reason that there is no hope for them; they are their by their own will. (I guess it is assumed that their character becomes fixed in death.)

As to Dante not having subtly, I have to disagree. For example, the contrapasso associated with each circle of hell at first seems to have nothing to do with that circle's particular sin. It takes, at least for me, quite a bit of thought to be able to begin to see the subtle connection. These connections, though, often reveal something quite profound about human nature.

I am likely quite biased in my opinion, since I believe the Comedy is perhaps the greatest work of literature ever written. I think it is a pity that the Inferno tends to get the bulk of the attention. Even though it's great, the Purgatorio and Paradiso are even more fascinating.

Edit: There is no denying that Dante had strong political opinions though: about Florence, about the role of the Church in politics (that it shouldn't have any), about the Holy Roman Empire, etc.

"Even bad fanfic can't get away with that today."

http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2006/12/michael_crichto.ht...

It's important to be aware that the original has a very intricate rhyming structure that is never preserved in the translations.

as an italian ... it's strange to read Dante in english :)

...and it's also strange that people read it voluntarily, and not forced by the school. I hated it so much back then, although Inferno was kinda fun.

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