A new edition of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s classic verse translation of the first book of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, Inferno, which focuses on the narrator’s journey into Hell. The Divine Comedy (or Divina Commedia) is an epic-length narrative poem, written between 1308 and 1320 in the vernacular Tuscan of the era, that is widely considered to be the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and a foundational work of the literary canon. The poem traces the narrator’s journey through the afterlife — visiting first hell, then purgatory, and then paradise — and presents an imaginative vision of the afterlife that provides great insight into the medieval Catholic worldview. Longfellow’s verse translation was originally published in 1867 and is considered to be a literary masterpiece in its own right. Dante Alighieri (c.1265 – 1321), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher, most famous for his Divine Comedy, which is widely considered one of the most important poems of the Middle Ages and the greatest literary work in the Italian language. Dante’s literary output is largely responsible for establishing the use of the vernacular in literature at a time when most poetry was written in Latin, making it more accessible to the larger public and helping establishing the modern-day standardized Italian language. His depictions of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven in the Divine Comedy were also enduringly influential on the Western literary and artistic imagination, heavily influencing future English-language writers like Geoffrey Chaucer and John Milton, and Italians like Petrarch and Boccaccio. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882) was an American poet whose works include “Paul Revere’s Ride”, The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline. He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. His work remains among some of the most beloved and enduringly influential works of poetry produced by 19th century America.

An innovative and fascinating new version of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno as it has never been rendered Stopped mid-motion in the middle Of what we call a life, I looked up and saw no sky- Only a dense cage of leaf, tree, and twig. I was lost. –from Canto I Award-winning poet Mary Jo Bang has translated the Inferno into English at a moment when popular culture is so prevalent that it has even taken Dante, author of the fourteenth century epic poem, The Divine Comedy, and turned him into an action-adventure video game hero. Dante, a master of innovation, wrote his poem in the vernacular, rather than in literary Latin. Bang has similarly created an idiomatically rich contemporary version that is accessible, musical, and audacious. She’s matched Dante’s own liberal use of allusion and literary borrowing by incorporating literary and cultural references familiar to contemporary readers: Shakespeare and Dickinson, Freud and South Park, Kierkegaard and Stephen Colbert. The Inferno–the allegorical story of a spiritual quest that begins in a dark forest, traverses Hell’s nine circles, and ends at the hopeful edge of purgatory–was also an indictment of religious hypocrisy and political corruption. In its time, the poem was stunningly new. Bang’s version is true to the original: lyrical, politically astute, occasionally self-mocking, and deeply moving. With haunting illustrations by Henrik Drescher, this is the most readable Inferno available in English, a truly remarkable achievement.

Features

• Used Book in Good Condition