[.ca] Inferno (ISBN 0553213393)

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here...:
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here" reads an inscription above Hell's Gate. May be true for xians, but horror-loving Satanists will find this literature most stimulating, with the graphic descriptions of mutilated souls, perverse debaucheries, morbid environments, & imaginative demonic monsters. Many great great suggestions for the torture chambre as well! Throughout the Gothic & Renaissance perionds, daemons of the Imagination creeped forth from the shadows of The Darkside of the mind like never before, thus producing some of the most compelling & attractive monsterpieces the world had ever had the misfortune or fortune to see, hear, & read. It was this written work that really ingrained the standards for the popular depictions of Hades, as well as paintings by artists like Jon Von Eyck, Heironymous Bosch, Peter Breughel, & Albrecht Durer. In the musickal genre, Bach, Wagner, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, & Chopin, to name but a few, were realeasing tempestuous, monolithic, & eerie symphonies into the ether, which are now universally employed to set an eerie embiance. In THE INFERNO, Dante Alighieri, an Italian poet, meets with a mysterious & etheric host named Virgil, who takes him down to witness the terrors of The Great Abyss, so it may be recorded, & that mankind may wish not to go there. Heavy-duty guilt-trip. Throughout the sick, gnarled, blood-soaked, & freezing crevasses of Dante's brain, there are brief, but memorable encounters with the damned souls. There are seven {sic} circles in the first section of Hell, each populated by a different class of "sinners". On the way, we take a ride upon the back of a winged beast named Geryon, around a waterfall {nice to know there's water in Hell!}. The Ninth {of course} Circle is where Satan Himself is entrenched in the frozen lake Cocytus. The only escape from this abode of lost souls is by climbing down the devil's leg hairs {that's got to hurt}, which then leads to Purgatory. Obviously, this work was written at the height of the catholic church's oppression. There have been rumours, that Dante was secretly commissioned by church papacy to write the book, to better gain control of the peasants, who were taken to revolting quite often. Dante, being a starving poet at the time, could not refuse the offer. Cleverly, Dante was at first reviled by the church, & threatened with ex-communication, but was vindicated when he demonstrated his loyalty to the church by writing 'El Paradiso', which deals with Dante's journeys in the wonderful mystical world of Heavenland. This clever technique has been used over & over again to enslave minds, turning the unwary catholic & xian zombies, who blindly give their rations away to church & state {which at the time, were one in the same}. By first guilt manipulating someone into fear, you render them vulnerable, & they seek salvation wherever they can get it. Conveniently, 'El Purgatorio' & 'El Paradiso' were published not too far apart from The Inferno, attaining an essential balance, that their distribution may keep the populace in line. Needless to say, these three opuses caused the simpletons to flock back to church in record numbers. The pope became very fat, very fast. What I found most interesting about this abysmal field-trip, is that Dante's Hell is icey cold, instead of the typical scorching. That in itself makes it all less threatening. Dante's Inferno is one of the most colorful books I have ever read. It is filled with such wonderfully elaborate words that manifest magnificently morbid spectacles of diabolic delight. Use your own filtration wisdom as far as any foolosophy is concerned.

Two thumbs up:
"The Inferno" as translated by John Ciardi was wonderful for a first time reader of the work. The introduction did a good job of setting up the background information of Dante's life, which played a big role in his writing of "The Inferno." The summaries before each canto also did an excellent job of preparing the reader for what each canto was about. What I especially liked were the notes at the end of each canto which were very helpful in clarifying some confusing terms or other historical references Dante made. "The Inferno" is already so well written, the notes by Ciardi just allow the reader to have a more informed reading of the book, which leads to a much fuller experience overall.

One of the required. Ciardi's highly accessible transtlation:
A joy to read. Entertaining, funny, meaningful, introspective; couldnýft put it down. A seminal work. Much in philosophy, psychology, and literature has been a response or effort to bolster or discuss the implications of this book. Oscar Wilde, in De Profundis, sited his reading of this book with comfort and reflection of the difficulty of being without sin, as well as the Bible. T.S. Eliot called Dante one of the two greatest writers along with Shakespeare. Ruskin often refers to it as other writers do. It is called the Divine ýgComedyýh of course it would have to be, but it something profound about psychology and human nature, of course not in absolutes or totality and much in psychology might disprove Dante, but psychology is not an absolute either, or perhaps more so, in that some parade themselves as having an absolute truth. A formative work. Ciardiýfs translation was highly accessible, junior high school level, and Ciardi justified this by saying that this is the way Dante intended it, although Dante was master of his language and poetic style, it was meant to be an accessible reading, but stylistically Ciardi points out just what a master Dante was. It was a bit amusing how Dante placed so many ecclesiastics with malus animus in his hell, and also his observations about the post Constintine church.

I couldn't put it down!:
I can't say how many times I read Esolen's truly exceptional translation of "Inferno" as some parts I read over and over and over again. The cantos flow with such grace and ease that you do not feel as though you are reading a "translation". What better compliment can one give then that?

Excellent:
I have taken a class with Robert Hollander over this work; this book shows great skill with Italian and a overall care and concern with finding and keeping the original intent. The footnotes in this edition are amazing - very helpful. I certainly recommend this book in any of its forms to all readers.