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Inferno, The /Divine Comedy, the /1



As a literature minor, I know that I'm supposed to take great joy in dissecting and analyzing a great work of literature such as The Inferno, but I didn't really enjoy this book all that much.

I found way too much of the storyline to be repetitive and drawn out for two long. The first half or so of the story is basically traveling from one circle of Hell to another, finding out what the sin and the punishment for the sin in that area is, meeting and talking with one or two of the sinners and relating what they did in their lives to the reason that they are here. Dante reacts to their trials either sympathetically or feeling that they deserve what they got mainly based on who they are (if they happen to be somebody from his actual life who treated him badly or had a hand in his expulsion from his home, he feels pretty justified in thinking that they are getting what they deserve.)

I don't want to take away from the greatness of this piece of literature. The rhyming scheme and the contrapasso (matching up the punishments so that they fit the crime) that Dante has developed are pure genius and the poem itself is a great accomplishment. My rating is based entirely upon my personal enjoyment (or lack there of) of the work.

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Dante's sympathy or lack thereof is almost directly related to whether the person was Italian or not.

I loved the Divine Trilogy, but I should warn you that if you thought INFERNO was dull and repetitive, you have less chance of getting through the next two books. They get progressive duller and more repetitive with each passing Canto.

Brilliant work, but it took me something like eight months to read the whole thing all the way through.

--PolarisDiB

Thanks for the heads' up. I don't figure that I'll be reading Purgatorio or Paradiso unless I'm assigned them next semester (after which I hopefully graduate!) Like I said, it's not that I don't have respect for Dante's accomplishments, I just don't personally enjoy having to read something through 3 or 4 times before I actually get the author's intent.

Fans of The Inferno might find it amusing that this year's match of Writer's Volleyball took a brief multi-post jaunt down into Malbolge in the Inferno.

I read the inferno a long time ago, back in college, and never finished the rest of the series. I keep meaning to get back to the series, but it hasn't happend yet.

I'm assuming you approached this without having read much Medieval lit or Ancient lit.

First, the book was originally in the vulgate. That is, it was written in Italian, a commonly spoken language, in a time when all books were written in the Lingua Franca of vulgar Latin. Only the wealthy and well educated ever learned Latin. Hence, it was probably the most approachable book up to it's time. It could be read by any literate Italian.

Second, the exploration of the Circles is the raison d'etre of the Inferno. And the counterpoint punishments only make sense if you actually know the source material he's working from. The mythological characters residing in hell would have been household names even among the poor and uneducated of Medieval Italy. Dante is finally explaining their fate in a Christianized, rather than pagan, world view. Part religious speculation, part slash-fiction- it was a bawdy, revolutionary move in his day. People would have read it just for that.

If you think it's repetitive, avoid at all costs; The Works and Days, by Herotodus; The Iliad and Odyssey, by Homer; The Metamorpheses, by Ovid; The Aeneid, by Vrigil; The Song of Roland; Beowulf; The Neibelungenleid; The Canterbury Tales, by Chaucer; and Every Norse Saga.

One of the things I enjoyed was the sub-theme of slash and burn socio-political commentary by Dante ... literally roasting the household names of his day in the proverbial fires of damnation. Gulliver's Travels, and even Humpty Dumpty used some of the same sort of satire to spice up their tales, and provide a backstory for more high-brow readers ... sort of the opposite approach taken by Shakespeare, who frequently wrote down to the 'peanut gallery' while telling his larger tales.

The problem that a lot of modern readers encounter (paricularly younger students who frequently encounter it too early in life) is that a lot of the cultural and historical vocabulary that was inherently understood by and available to it's original target audience at the time it was written is, as Egoist astutely points out, missing and dated. This is a good example why many plays are often reinterpreted and remade for each new generation, with more modern cultural touchstones replacing those whose meaning is not as current or fresh.

I think new readers might find Inferno more approachable if they pictured people like Rev. Jerry Falwell and Jim Baker replacing Pope Alexander VI, etc.

Actually, I have read a bit of medieval and ancient lit. I have read and enjoyed the Aeneid. I have also read The Illiad, I liked it ok, but not as much as the Aeneid. I have also read the Canterbury Tales and Beowulf both of which I found to be enjoyable.

As I said in my review, I do appreciate what Dante has accomplished in his work and respect the work itself in general, I just did not find it enjoyable to my particular tastes.

And Brad, I did find it amusing that he chose to put many of his political rivals in Hell and also the fact that he chose to make light of the sin that his political enemies had accused him of committing.

I was agreeing with The Egoist and speaking in sweeping generalities about today's audiences, StefanY ... I think you knew I wasnt talking about you.

I know. I was just responding to your post because I agreed.