Divine Comedy?

[Seaworth'sShipmate]

Who has read Dante's divine comedy? I finished inferno, am on purgatory. It is surprisingly quite good!

[benpeek]

Yeah, I liked it. Paradiso was definitely the part I liked the least, but I suspect if you're Christian, one way or another, it'll work for you more. But its an impressive work.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I'm one of those people who only ever bothered with Inferno. It's the famous one, with so many cultural offshoots. I really need to get around to Purgatory and Paradise at some point.

[Darth Richard II]

Meh I don't read video game tie ins.

[Jo498]

I think the modern reader (without a huge background in medieval culture, philosophy and theology) needs even better commentary for the purgatorio and paradiso to appreciate them. I read through inferno in my late teens and again in my twenties (and then I also got through purgatorio but left at the beginning of paradiso because it became too boring). Earlier this year I started again at the beginning and got through the whole thing. It probably helped that I was a little (but still not much) more familiar with some medieval thinking.

What's also interesting that the journalist, writer and blogger Rod Dreher recently wrote a (explicitly "spiritual") book about the Commedia. I have not read it but there were lots of excerpts and Dante-related stuff on Dreher's blog.

I am also told that the poetry is most beautiful in the Paradiso but in my impression a lot of this is lost in translation (and probably more in the elusive symbolism of the heavenly spheres than in gruesome scenes in hell).

[Drogon's Personal Trainer]

I am also told that the poetry is most beautiful in the Paradiso but in my impression a lot of this is lost in translation (and probably more in the elusive symbolism of the heavenly spheres than in gruesome scenes in hell).

This is very true. I read The Divine Comedy long ago in my early 20s and the book still sits on my shelves but I have not yet revisited it. But certainly the Inferno scenes stand out the most and I can still remember that imagery. I did once attempt to read it in the original Italian, but I didn't get that far, more's the pity.

[The Killer Snark]

I've read Mark Musa's pentameter translation of The Divine Comedy twice and Longfellow's version once, the edition with the Durer prints. Both are exceptional translations, though Longfellow often screws Dante's more out of the way allusions up in order to keep his metre. It's a poem you really have to read in its entirety. Purgatorio is actually the finest of the three parts from a poetic and humanist perspective. Paradiso however ends in some of the most ravishing and spiritually beautiful imagery that's ever been set in print. I don't read any Italian, but even though I'm of the view that English poetry in general has produced, head for head, more genuinely great poets than any other language, I do think Dante Alighieri, even experienced through translation, was the greatest poet who has ever lived. But he has to be experienced in a version that has decent metre to it and decent notes.

[Larry.]

Read all parts in both English and Italian. It's been a couple of years since my last re-read (might do one shortly, if I ever manage to free up time/energy for reading these days), but yes, while Inferno is more "accessible" for most due to its subsequent borrowings by other literary works, I do recall there being quite a bit of wonderful scenes in the other two, especially when Vergil/Virgil has to depart and Beatrice arrives. And yes, the terza rima has to be experienced for full effect.

[Darth Richard II]

Do you have any translation you reccomend in particular? Read the Longfellow way back and was left unimpressed.

[Jo498]

I hope someday to know enough Italian to be able to read a bilingual edition. I do understand quite a bit if I already know what it means ;) so I can do it with shorter bits (like the inscription on Hell's gate) even now.

And the terza rima is impossible to translate, at least into German (and probably English) or if tried, it tends to sound stilted and ridiculous; I think there is a 19th century German translation that does the rhymes. Maybe it could work in Spanish or Latin because they are much closer to Italian.

One beautiful thing about Purgatorio is that this is "on earth" and takes several days to ascend so in the beginning we get this incredibly "soothing" mood of a strange (because it is the only thing on the southern hemisphere) and beautiful but still earthly landscape, after the darkness of Hell. And throughout there are several beautiful descriptions of sunrise, stars etc, including bits of medieval astronomy (relating position and daytime of the Purgatory island to the habitated world on the northern hemisphere).

Whereas I think the whole of Hell is traversed in about 24 hours or less (they certainly do not take any breaks or sleep there) and in Paradiso the sense of time is lost anyway.

[Seli]

I've read all of them at least once, and inferno in several translations. It is one of the works where a proper annotated edition can add a lot.

[Weirdo]

Of note for WOIAF fans is Dante's involvement in politics, which make it into the poem, especially Inferno. There was a really important debate going on in his day about church participation in Government. Dante had strong opinions about it (which led to his banishment from Florence eventually). The annotations are key here, but it's a lot of fun; he sticks his enemies in hell, and even a few popes who Dante found objectionable are down there. Really audacious man.

I found Paradiso to be the hardest to get through, but it's worth the effort. Dante's conception of the structure of heaven is an intriguing paradox of geometry, and his final encounter with god has scholars scratching their heads to this day.

Here's a fun website which catalogs references to Dante in popular culture, maintained by a leading scholar in the field. It's fun when you start to see references to his work everywhere (and you can submit your own Dante sitings for inclusion!).

http://research.bowdoin.edu/dante-today/

Dante's conception of hell is really amazing because it's very original, so he didn't have any cover from scripture. And it's inspired by Vergil (who he casts as his guide in hell), which was a risky thing to do, Vergil being a pagan poet.

[Jo498]

Yes, for these things one really needs annotations. There are also many "prophecies" about Italian politics and Dante's own life. Because the vision takes place Easter 1300 but Dante wrote it several years later (in exile) so of course he knows about certain developments.

I forgot exactly what sin it was but further down in Hell he meets some people who actually were still alive in 1300 but commited some crime so hideous that Dante claims something they were walking as a kind of possessed zombies on earth while there soul was already punished in Hell...

[The Marquis de Leech]

Years ago, I had fun putting ASOIAF characters into Dante's Hell (I think the thread's disappeared, but I recall that I had Jaime Lannister as the most evil person in Westeros, as he had betrayed not one but two Kings).

[The Marquis de Leech]

I forgot exactly what sin it was but further down in Hell he meets some people who actually were still alive in 1300 but commited some crime so hideous that Dante claims something they were walking as a kind of possessed zombies on earth while there soul was already punished in Hell...

Bottom level (Frozen Lake/Cocytus), subsection of treason against guests.

[The Killer Snark]

What happens to the schismatics in Inferno is famously nightmare inducing and hideous. They get mutilated by demons carrying scimitars, who castrate them, disembowel them, chop their noses off etc, and then they have to walk the entire way round the circle of Hell they're on, before getting subjected to new mutilations. By this time, the parts missing from their bodies have grown back, so they are able to sustain the mutilations to infinity. What makes it worse is that after the Day of Judgement this will occur to them while in their original (resurrected) bodily forms.

[Jo498]

Thanks! Yes, that's towards the end of canto 33.

As for ASoIaF characters, many will join Jaime in the frozen lake.

Of course it depends on whether Dante would have been a Targaryen loyalist, a supporter or Robert's rebellion or a Starkian. But the Freys, the Boltons, Jamie, Tyrion (patricide) will all go to that lake, I assume. Stannis might as well for dark magic and fratricide, unless we grant that he did have the best claim of the 5 kings. Littlefinger has also betrayed one king and conspired to murder another but he is probably best as a false counsellor, Varys likewise (unless we are Targ loyalists).

Betrayal of king, liegelord or kin is just too common in Westeros.

Of the more virtuous, if the Rebellion was o.k.: Robert still goes to one of the upper infernal circles for adultery or luxury, or actually deeper because he was in many respects a bad ruler. Eddard might even go to paradise if we see him as a martyr for a just cause, but probably rather to purgatory, after all he was dutiful and just but also proud and violent.

[Jo498]

What happens to the schismatics in Inferno is famously nightmare inducing and hideous. They get mutilated by demons carrying scimitars, who castrate them, disembowel them, chop their noses off etc and then they have to walk the entire way round the circle of Hell they're on, before getting subjected to new mutilations. By this time, the parts missing from their bodies have grown back, so they are able to sustain the mutilations to infinity. What makes it worse is that after the Day of Judgement this will occur to them while in their original (resurrected) bodily forms.

this is something I do not quite understand. The souls usually recognize Dante as one still living in the flesh (e.g. in purgatory because he casts a shadow). But they are obviously, although mere shades, sentient enough that the hellish tortures and the purgatorial penitences affect them, of course without killing them. This is supposed to get worse with the ressurected bodies as the judgment will be made final. But they still cannot die, so is it supposed to hurt worse, because they now have fleshy bodies, or what exactly is the difference?

[William_Tell]

Jo498

IIRC Dante explains the whole thing somewhere in Inferno but probably it was just a narrative ploy to display the Christian doctrine of the Ressurection of Body & Soul

As someone who has read the Italian text (two times: mandatory school read and first reread a couple of years ago) I am somewhat curious about English translations, do they usually go for blank verse?

Also, Purgatorio is my favorite part. I love its elegiac athmosphere.

[The Killer Snark]

William_Tell - The best English translations go for blank verse. English has many examples of great rhymed poetry but is simply not rich in natural rhyme enough to easily support an extended narrative poem elegantly in terza rima without its content being heavily rhyme-driven, or for one to be translated into English easily from terza rima into the same form into the bargain. John Ciardi's terza rima version is still much highly regarded, but from what I've seen of it, the approach sometimes works well, and sometimes leads to forced language and metric bunglement, but even at its best, it has none of the transparent simplicity and subliminal quality of metre associated with Dante.