From Our Editors
This story begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year of our Lord 1300. It proceeds on a journey that, in its intense re-creation of the depths and the heights of human experience, has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity.
From the Publisher
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)
The Divine Comedy, translated by Allen Mandelbaum,
begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. It
proceeds on a journey that, in its intense recreation of the depths
and the heights of human experience, has become the key with which
Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own
identity.
Mandelbaum's astonishingly Dantean translation, which captures
so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us the
masterpiece of that genius whom our greatest poets have recognized
as a central model for all poets.
This Everyman's edition-containing in one volume all three
cantos, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso-includes an introduction
by Nobel Prize-winning poet Eugenio Montale, a chronology, notes,
and a bibliography. Also included are forty-two drawings selected
from Botticelli''s marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of
illustrations.
From the Jacket
Introduction by Eugenio Montale; Translation by Allen Mandelbaum
About the Author
Born Dante Alighieri in the spring of 1265 in Florence, Italy, he was known familiarly as Dante. His family was noble, but not wealthy, and Dante received the education accorded to gentlemen, studying poetry, philosophy, and theology. His first major work was Il Vita Nuova, The New Life. This brief collection of 31 poems, held together by a narrative sequence, celebrates the virtue and honor of Beatrice, Dante's ideal of beauty and purity. Beatrice was modeled after Bice di Folco Portinari, a beautiful woman Dante had met when he was nine years old and had worshipped from afar in spite of his own arranged marriage to Gemma Donati. Il Vita Nuova has a secure place in literary history: its vernacular language and mix of poetry with prose were new; and it serves as an introduction to Dante's masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, in which Beatrice figures prominently. The Divine Comedy is Dante's vision of the afterlife, broken into a trilogy of the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. Dante is given a guided tour of hell and purgatory by Virgil, the pagan Roman poet whom Dante greatly admired and imitated, and of heaven by Beatrice. The Inferno shows the souls who have been condemned to eternal torment, and included here are not only mythical and historical evil-doers, but Dante's enemies. The Purgatory reveals how souls who are not irreversibly sinful learn to be good through a spiritual purification. And The Paradise depicts further development of the just as they approach God. The Divine Comedy has been influential from Dante's day into modern times. The poem has endured not just because of its beauty and significance, but also because of its richness and piety as well as its occasionally humorous and vulgar treatment of the afterlife. In addition to his writing, Dante was active in politics. In 1302, after two years as a priore, or governor of Florence, he was exiled because of his support for the white guelfi, a moderate political party of which he was a member. After extensive travels, he stayed in Ravenna in 1319, completing The Divine Comedy there, until his death in 1321.
About the Book
"The Divine Comedy begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in
the year 1300. It proceeds on a journey that, in its intense
recreation of the depths and the heights of human experience, has
become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock
the mystery of its own identity.
Allen Mandelbaum's astonishingly Dantean translation, which
captures so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us
the masterpiece of that genius whom our greatest poets have
recognized as a central model for all poets.
This Everyman's edition-containing in one volume all three cantos,
Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso-includes an introduction by Nobel
Prize--winning poet Eugenio Montale, a chronology, notes, and a
bibliography. Also included are forty-two drawings selected from
Botticelli's marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of
illustrations.
