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    The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Hell, Volume 04
    The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Hell, Volume 04
    The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Hell, Volume 04
    Ebook45 pages18 minutes

    The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Hell, Volume 04

    By Henry Francis Cary, Gustave Doré and Dante Alighieri

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateFeb 21, 1931
    The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Hell, Volume 04

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    Reviews for The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Hell, Volume 04

    4/5

    2,916 ratings104 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A handsome book, but a clunky and awkward translation.
    • 5/5
      Dante's journey through Hell ranks in my top 5 favorite books. I especially like this translation, as it keeps the language modern enough to be readable, but is still beautiful. Also, there are plenty of foot and end notes to explain middle age-phrases and historical references many people may not be familiar with.
    • 4/5
      I'm not a religious man in the least, but - like the great works of Classical composers, or the Sistine Chapel - that's hardly a consideration when reading a soaring work of near-ancient literature. Esolen's translation is marvellous, attempting to keep rhyme, meter and meaning in check, without ever sacrificing beauty. What results is a work of epic poetry which, while adhering to rules, is more than happy to flaunt them when necessary. Dante's vision is quite clever, and - although you will need copious notes at times to understand the medieval Italian history references - a sublimely beautiful piece.
    • 5/5
      Dante's journey through Hell ranks in my top 5 favorite books. I especially like this translation, as it keeps the language modern enough to be readable, but is still beautiful. Also, there are plenty of foot and end notes to explain middle age-phrases and historical references many people may not be familiar with.
    • 5/5
      I've read this book, the first of three, in French, when I was 25, and I immediately was swept away by its poetic force, its classical symmetrical construction and its sharp and benign view on the human condition. Brilliantly composed. Each canto tells the story of several prominent historical persons, set in breathtaking landscapes. Tragedy is all around, sometimes with a comical touch, but almost always compassionate. The filosofical and theological dimensions are less prominent than in book II and III. I've reread this book in Dutch (both prose and lyrical translation) and in the original Italian. An everlasting treasure.
    • 4/5
      This is my first exposure to Dante's writing. I was looking for poetry by a different author when I came across this translation. When I saw the narrator, I decided it was time to read/hear some Dante :)

      Dante sure thought a lot of himself! Good grief, even when he's singing the praises of some denizen of limbo, he's doing so in the context of being the vehicle of their remembrance among the living. You've probably heard the idiom, "damning with faint praise." Over and over, Dante praises himself with faint condemnation. No, Dante, it's not actually all that terrible that you trembled with fear while faced with the horrors of the pit.

      I want to read an annotated translation of The Inferno. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure he was mocking and calling out some of his contemporaries, as well as commenting on figures from the past.

      Most of the work came from describing and talking to the denizens of the various neighborhood of perdition, but he didn't stint on describing the environs. He readily sketched the horrific backdrops to his interactions, giving just enough detail to be clear, but leaving space for the imagination to fill in the unmentioned horrors. This is not at all bedtime listening.

      I seemed to sense some negative commentary on Church doctrine, but I'm not sure if that was in the text, or if that came from my 20th/21st century perspective. For instance, he lamented the number of people, even great and good people, condemned to Limbo simply because they lived before the establishment of Christianity. To my ear, that's a reason to question the church - but to Dante it may have been just another thing that was and didn't need to be questioned.
    • 2/5
      Stick with the original, this is "clever" yet not "readable."
    • 4/5
      I hate Shakespeare so I didn't think I'd like this, but I did. Really cool, every scene became real in my head, the black and white, cartoon version at least. The craziest part -- hell is real, to Dante and all the Catholics who read it when it was first published. How horrifying for them. Next time my grandmother wants me to go to mass with her, I'll go. He's a beautiful writer, and so modern but I don't know if thats just the English translation. Interesting perspectives on sin. It's like he knows to sin is a natural part of being human, which I keep forgetting. I hate to read those little summaries they give you because I want to read it the same way people have been for hundreds of years. He sort of invented hell, or he really saw it. The world was much more spiritual back then so to be honest I wouldn't rule it out. Maybe he saw all this in a dream. I don't know if I completely got this book but I'm just gonna keep reading it until I do. It's better if you don't read others' explanations of books like these, I think, because it is better to read it how people have always read it, and you can preserve your original reactions, based on your personal background in religion, nationality, language, faith, and sin. Maybe you think you belong in hell, maybe you think you belong in heaven, or maybe you don't believe in either or God or maybe you have your own definition of purgatory, and this will change the way we all feel about what Dante describes.
    • 4/5
      I liked this classic poem more than I expected. I may have lucked out with the translation, but I found the Inferno much easier to read than the excerpts I remember from my high school textbook. I also had the added context of having taken several classes on Florentine history in college, and I could spot a few of the cultural references Dante makes. Overall, this made for much richer reading than I expected and I'm tempted to picked up the next two books in the Divine Comedy.
    • 3/5
      Gave me nightmares.
    • 4/5
      Peter Thornton's verse translation of the first book of the Divine Commedy, The Inferno, is certainly readable. To the extent that that was an (the?) intention it succeeds. I think for a general reader who just wants to know why The Inferno has remained influential this will serve them well. There are plenty of contextualizing notes, a must for just about any translation, which will make understanding why certain people are where they are comprehensible to a contemporary reader.For study purposes I have my doubts but I have my own favorite translations so am doing more of a comparison than simply an isolated assessment. First, my preferred verse translation is still Ciardi's version (plus, if for study purposes, he translated all of the Comedy not just one book so you don't have to change translations when you leave the Inferno). Part of my favoritism here is likely because it was the third version I had read and the first with a professor who made it come alive for me, so I do want to acknowledge that. Part of it for me is how the translators try to solve the issue of form. Some compromise is necessary to make an English translation and I am not sure there is a right vs a wrong way, they will all fall well short of Dante in Italian. I just think that wrestling with a form closer to Dante's helps students to slow down and do a better close reading while making it too easy to read turns Dante's work into simply a story that can be read quickly and easily. Again, this is personal opinion and preference. The necessary notes will keep the work from being read like a contemporary novel and could, with the right effort from an instructor, keep the reading close. I just have a hard time imagining The Inferno as an easy read and hope not to see this type of translation of Purgatorio or Paradiso since those should be more difficult to grasp in keeping with Dante's apparent intentions.I would certainly recommend this to general readers who just want to read it and maybe for high school classes that want to get through it with just a few areas of closer reading. I would also recommend instructors look at it and decide if this translation would serve their purposes for what they hope to achieve in their courses. It is a good translation even though I would personally choose not to use it.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.
    • 4/5
      I read the Longfellow translation and despite a huge lack of historical knowledge about Dante's contemporary Florence I really enjoyed Inferno.

      The imaginative punishments are gruesome enough to capture your attention and the whole poem is successful in painting quite a visual image of Dante's incarnation of hell.

    • 5/5
      Gets 5 star for the translation as much as the masterpiece itself - Pinsky really puts the fun back in the Inferno! ; )
    • 5/5
      I've read this book, the first of three, in French, when I was 25, and I immediately was swept away by its poetic force, its classical symmetrical construction and its sharp and benign view on the human condition. Brilliantly composed. Each canto tells the story of several prominent historical persons, set in breathtaking landscapes. Tragedy is all around, sometimes with a comical touch, but almost always compassionate. The filosofical and theological dimensions are less prominent than in book II and III. I've reread this book in Dutch (both prose and lyrical translation) and in the original Italian. An everlasting treasure.
    • 4/5
      Amazing and bizarre. To have lived in a time awhen the fires and ice of hell were as real as the sun rising each day. The horrors of The Inferno were certainly cautionary, but not exactly in keeping with what modernity would deem the correct weight of sins. On to Purgatorio.
    • 2/5
      I have finally read the Inferno and if I am going to be honest, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. Not being a student of Italian literature and having read Clive James' English translation there was probably a lot I was missing, in the original, but I found that it was really just a horror story with the added s pice of the author being able to denigrate persons he didn't like. All this would have been extremely entertaining at the time when the names were topical, but I do not understand why it is considered such a classic. It was just a litany of various types of physical torture with no overarching point that I could see, except to list all that horror.
    • 4/5
      The primary virtue of the Oxford / Sinclair edition is the parallel text, which means that you can both appreciate the beauty of Dante's original, and make sure that you miss none of the finer points by following the English translation. Each canto has its own introduction and endnotes, which means that important contextual information is always at hand. Inferno is for me by far the most engaging cantica, as Dante creates ever more imaginative tortures for the souls condemned to each circle of Hell. An absolute classic.
    • 3/5
      I can only hope that in a few hundred years my own self-insert fanfic about the people I don’t like getting tortured becomes a cultural touchstone.
    • 4/5
      Classic poem of a journey through hell. I did not read the other two in the trilogy.
    • 5/5
      I read this once before (with a different translator) and it didn't have near the impact it did this time. I credit Dorothy L. Sayers for that. Her translation is lively, her interpretations and notes are helpful and inspiring. Possibly the fact that I have more knowledge of Greek myths and life in general than I did the first time is also helpful. I look forward to reading the rest of Dante's Comedy as translated by Sayers.
    • 3/5
      The narrator finds himself in the unlikely position of being on a guided tour through Hell lead by Virgil. You guys, it's pretty bad down there. Trenches full of shit, people buried in sand with their feet on fire, scabs being constantly scratched off. The author DOES NOT recommend this place - even to visit! It's hard to fully appreciate this book without taking a graduate course on it. I'm not a huge Italian history buff, so most of the people met in Hell are not names I'm familiar with. There are lots of famous mythological figures, but most are infamous "bad guys" of the time. Dark, grisly, and in that respect, pretty entertaining, this work had a lot to do with the modern imagination of Hell.
    • 2/5
      A poet takes a tour of hell.2/4 (Indifferent).With most books that I read in high school, my experience reading them as an adult is vastly different. Not this one. It offers no depth, no subtlety, it just is what it is.
    • 5/5
      Just a brief note about translations (is there any point in my 'reviewing' Dante? ;)): I first read the Laurence Binyon translation that used to be found in the "Portable Dante" -- this has since been replaced. I gave Allen Mandelbaum a shot and although I liked his version, Binyon's is the one I've stuck with, because it preserves the terza rima form and does so really well. I may give others a go eventually.
    • 2/5
      I never thought I'd say it, but I think I'd rather have read this for a literature class so as to get a better understanding of it. I felt as though I simply didn't have the context to appreciate it, and my world view is sufficiently remote from Dante's that I didn't have much personal insight. If fire, brimstone, and devils with pitchforks are your thing, you'll love this. Unfortunately, they're not mine.

      I was pleased to have the extensive notes in this edition, however, and Pinsky's clean, modern translation was also greatly appreciated.
    • 2/5
      I am not prepared to debate the canonicity of this work, though my initial suspicion is that its political agenda is far too historically particular to render the kind of transcendent satisfaction I expect from a canonical work. That aside, I simply prefer realism, and the Inferno has the distinct flavor of a fever dream.
    • 2/5
      As much as I enjoyed reading about the tortures he designed for his Florentine political opponents, I spent entirely too much time reading about all these characters in the footnotes. He designed an interesting underworld that was essentially Christian but integrated diverse figures from the Bible, contemporary Italy, classical Greece and Rome, and Classical mythology.
    • 4/5
      .The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: the Inferno. A verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum. 1982. I had big plans to spend the summer studying The Inferno. I didn’t and ended up skimming part of it to be ready for the book club. I will go back and read it more carefully and study the maps and the notes that are included as read Purgatorio before our next meeting. This masterpiece deserves much more than I have given it.
    • 3/5
      It was kind of hard to understand but once I got it, it turned out to be super interesting.
    • 4/5
      It's interesting but I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. The morality seems rather heavy-handed, maybe I'm not digging deep enough into it.
    • 5/5
      I never would have understood this book if my professor hadn't guided the class through it. Regardless, it became one of the most interesting piece's of literature I have ever read. I frequently think about. 'Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here," says the sign above the entrance to hell. Now, that's cool . . . I mean hot. Whatever.

    Book preview

    The Divine Comedy by Dante, Illustrated, Hell, Volume 04 - Henry Francis Cary

    THE VISION OF HELL, Part 4.

    By Dante Alighieri, Illustrated by Dore

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vision of Hell, Part 4, by Dante Alighieri

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

    almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

    re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

    with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

    Title: The Vision of Hell, Part 4

    The Inferno

    Author: Dante Alighieri

    Release Date: August 7, 2004 [EBook #8782]

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VISION OF HELL, PART 4 ***

    Produced by David Widger

    THE VISION

    OF

    HELL, PURGATORY, AND PARADISE

    BY

    DANTE ALIGHIERI

    TRANSLATED BY

    THE REV. H. F. CARY, M.A.

    HELL

    OR THE INFERNO

    Part 4.

    LIST OF CANTOS

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