Description: Good. Light shelving wear with minimal damage to cover and bindings. Pages show minor use. Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read. Recycle and Reuse! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: NAL Trade
Date Published: 2003-05-27
ISBN-13:9780451208637ISBN:0451208633
Description: Acceptable in NA jacket. 2003 PBK Edition. Previous owner's name on the first pg, highlighting, underlining and margin marks throughout the book, scuffed with slight tear to the edge of the spine and bumped at the fore corners. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: New American Library
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780451208637ISBN:0451208633
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Pages are neat and clean. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 928 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: New American Library, New York, New York
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780451208637ISBN:0451208633
Description: Very Good. No Jacket. 8vo-Between 7 3/4" and 9 3/4" Tall. 897 page book is in very good condition with slight edgewear/slight scuffing of cover. The author's poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise--the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation. Now, for the first time, John Ciardi's brilliant and authoritative ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Group Usa
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780451208637ISBN:0451208633
Description: New. For the first time, John Ciardi's translations of Dante's three soaring canticles have been gathered together in a single volume. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: New Amer Library
Date Published: 2003-06-01
ISBN-13:9780451208637ISBN:0451208633
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780451208637. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: NAL Trade
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780451208637ISBN:0451208633
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
"Dante's Divine Comedy is the story of the soul's journey from the depths of despair to pure enlightenment, and you don't have to be a Catholic or even religious to be awed and inspired by it. If you ignore all the academic dust that has settled on this astounding creation over the seven hundred years since it was written, and imagine it more as an adventure movie with better special effects than The Matrix and with a deeper message than The Seventh Seal, you'll set off on a journey across space and time that you'll never forget.
The great love of Dante's life was Beatrice, whom he first glimpsed in Florence in 1274, when she was eight years old and he was nine, and he spent the rest of his life idolising her, long after her marriage and early death. He wrote his La Vita Nuova in praise of her beauty and purity, and it is one of the world's greatest romantic poems, but he felt that it didn't do her justice, and he went on to compose the Divine Comedy as his unprecedented and unsurpassed monument to her. He started it when he was 29 years old and finished it just before his death 27 years later, in 1321, and it hasn't been out of print since.
Dante, approaching middle-age, descends into Hell and is guided through the terrible circles of damned souls by the poet Virgil, and past Satan himself, who stands in ice to his waist, before attaining Purgatory. It is in Purgatory that souls who escaped Hell are cleansed and made ready for promotion to Paradise. At the peak of Mount Purgatory, Virgil - who lived before the Incarnation and can go no farther - hands Dante over to Beatrice, and together they make their way to the Godhead. Dante spends eternity with the girl he first saw and fell in love with 47 years earlier.
As well as reading it as homage to Love and the soul's struggle towards perfection, it is jam-packed with gossip and details about the people and the politics of Florence at the time. Dante is often criticised for peopling Hell with his enemies and Paradise with his friends, but whatever the case he left us with a huge range of vividly drawn characters that really bring those times to life. And naturally the sinners tend to be a lot more fun than the saints. As in the Canterbury Tales, we can recognise these people easily today: the devious politicians, the star-crossed lovers, the dictators and gang bosses, the holier-than-thou brigade and the ones who just couldn't make up their minds. If human nature has changed at all since Dante, it's only been for the worse.
This is a book that has exerted an incredible influence down the centuries, especially on artists. If your imagination is a bit jaded, just type 'Dante Durer' into Google to come up with fantastic engravings from the Renaissance master, or 'Dante Blake' to view William Blake's more restrained and impressionistic but no less powerful impressions. There is no shortage of English translations, either, the best to date being the new one by Robert Pinsky."
"Oh Dante! Tuscan master of belle langue Who crafted these three heavenly pearls Of stunning verse, that unleash in song Of tortuous treks, our pilgrim led by Virgil's Wise spirit, mastering fierce devils and Hell To reach the base of Purgatory's mount Bewitched by souls who stumble in a veil Attempting Heaven's Gate too long to count Menagerie of repenting souls, now wise To past life's sins, Latins whom before Our pilgrim Dante, in asking, brooks no lies And gains much wisdom wending through the door That leads unto the vast celestial sea Wherein Beatrice, so fair, his heart's true love, Guides him through the star's holy tapestry E'en as our traveler seeks Grace from above, Oh Dante! Shakespeare's sole rival and confrere Whose stanzas, like diamonds, glisten and shine Whose beauty and genius seem beyond compare Not for every taste, true, but ah! for mine!
(Yeah, OK, it's not exactly Terza Rima...I'm no Dante!)"
"T. S. Eliot: "Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them, there is no third."
Dante's magnus opus exceeds my weak grasp to illuminate. If you are part of the Western world, you have been colored by this book, whether you have read it or not. So many authors have drawn upon the imagery from Dante's work, and used so many ideas from him. Not to mention how Dante took poetry to new heights and new places, using common tongue from his part of Italy instead Latin, he weaves in the poetry and songs of the ancients, science and theology of his time, innovative storytelling techniques, history, the Old and New Testaments, cosmology, and an unabashed sense of poetical prowess. Dante's persona in the poem goes through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Each stage is worth books of commentary and discussion, but suffice it to say that going through with Dante isn't like anything else I have read.
There is so much in there, I don't know where to start or what else I can add that hasn't been said before.
"I would give the Divine Comedy five stars, but this translation doesn't bring the reader to that level of experience. I much prefer Pinsky's Inferno to Ciardi's, but I did find myself returning to Ciardi for notes and maps. This is the only version of the Purgatorio and the Paradiso that I've ever read, so I don't have much to compare to there.
Reading Dante is like enrolling in a guided tour of the literary, philosophical, and ethical stratas of the medieval imaginary. You have to do a lot of work, but it's all worth it."
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