Dante's Inferno: The Indiana Critical Edition

Front Cover
Indiana University Press, 1995 - 409 pages
"This new critical edition includes Mark Musa's classic verse translation and provides students with a clear, readable text. In addition, ten innovative interpretations of Dante's masterpiece offer diverse approaches to the first canticle of the Divine Comedy, including Virgil's importance to Dante as a source for mythological, historical, and political material as well as for structuring his poetic vision; the language, symbols, and extended meanings of Hell; Dante's revision of the concepts of Limbo and the Harrowing of Hell; the figure of Francesca, representative of Eve, and how the Pilgrim participates in her sin; how understanding political and church history of the period enhances a reading of the poem; and the history of Dante's interpretation and reception in Italian cinema." -- Back cover

From inside the book

Contents

translated by Mark Musa
3
Textual Irony in the Inferno
253
Dantes Beloved Yet Damned Virgil
266
Copyright

9 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (1995)

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.

Bibliographic information