Begun about 1307 and completed in 1321, Dante's sublime poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is one of the world's great works of literature. It comprises an extraordinarily vivid and imaginative account of the poet's allegorical journey through the afterlife. Complementing its depiction of the world beyond, the poem's abundant allusions to earthly history and politics, vivid portrayals of Dante's friends and enemies, and many references to contemporary Italian affairs make it an intensely human, realistic portrait of life on earth. Led in his travels by the classical poet Virgil, Dante descends through the nine circles of Hell, where punishment is determined by the gravity of the sinner's transgressions. He then ascends the mountain of Purgatory, encountering souls atoning for their misdeeds, and, at the summit, is met at the entrance to Paradise by Beatrice, his beloved. Throughout his pilgrimage, he meets characters drawn from ancient Roman and medieval times (philosophers, heroes, emperors, popes, and politicians, among others) as well as numerous personalities from the Italy of his day. This dual-language edition includes the complete texts of 33 of the original 100 cantos or "songs"; each omitted canto is summarized in its proper place to provide continuity. The selection of cantos and the excellent line-for-line translations from Italian into English are by Stanley Appelbaum, who also has provided an informative Introduction and useful notes.

Dante Alighieri was early in recognizing that our age has a problem. His hometown, Florence, was at the epicenter of the move from the medieval world to the modern. He realized that awareness of divine reality was shifting, and that if it were lost, dire consequences would follow. The Divine Comedy was born in a time of troubling transition, which is why it still speaks today. Dante's masterpiece presents a cosmic vision of reality, which he invites his readers to traverse with him. In this narrative retelling and guide, from the gates of hell, up the mountain of purgatory, to the empyrean of paradise, Mark Vernon offers a vivid introduction and interpretation of a book that, 700 years on, continues to open minds and change lives.

divdivA towering figure in world literature, Dante wrote his great epic poem Commedia in the early fourteenth century. The work gained universal acclaim and came to be known as La Divina Commedia, or The Divine Comedy. Giuseppe Mazzotta brings Dante and his masterpiece to life in this exploration of the man, his cultural milieu, and his endlessly fascinating works.div /DIVdivBased on Mazzotta’s highly popular Yale course, this book offers a critical reading of The Divine Comedy and selected other works by Dante. Through an analysis of Dante’s autobiographical Vita nuova, Mazzotta establishes the poetic and political circumstances of The Divine Comedy. He situates the three sections of the poem—Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise—within the intellectual and social context of the late Middle Ages, and he explores the political, philosophical, and theological topics with which Dante was particularly concerned./DIV/DIV/DIV

At last, a definitive, paperback edition of Ezra Pound's finest work.

The best and most eloquent introduction to Dante for our time. Prue Shaw is one of the world's foremost authorities on Dante. Written with the general reader in mind, Reading Dante brings her knowledge to bear in an accessible yet expert introduction to his great poem. This is far more than an exegesis of Dante’s three-part Commedia. Shaw communicates the imaginative power, the linguistic skill and the emotional intensity of Dante’s poetry—the qualities that make the Commedia perhaps the greatest literary work of all time and not simply a medieval treatise on morality and religion. The book provides a graphic account of the complicated geography of Dante's version of the afterlife and a sure guide to thirteenth-century Florence and the people and places that influenced him. At the same time it offers a literary experience that lifts the reader into the universal realms of poetry and mythology, creating links not only to the classical world of Virgil and Ovid but also to modern art and poetry, the world of T. S. Eliot, Seamus Heaney and many others. Dante's questions are our questions: What is it to be a human being? How should we judge human behavior? What matters in life and in death? Reading Dante helps the reader to understand Dante’s answers to these timeless questions and to see how surprisingly close they sometimes are to modern answers. Reading Dante is an astonishingly lyrical work that will appeal to both those who’ve never read the Commedia and those who have. It underscores Dante's belief that poetry can change human lives.