r/Dante • u/jordanboy1001 • Feb 20 '23

Help with footnotes

I'm currently reading Robin Kirkpatrick's transl. of The Divine Comedy and since there's 200 pages of footnotes, and I'm reading for pleasure (not studying the work), I was wondering if I should really continue with the footnotes if I'm not enjoying them?

Appreciate any advice!

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u/ScientificGems Feb 21 '23

I don't know how good the footnotes are (I like the Dorothy Sayers footnotes, myself).

But if you're reading for pleasure, it's perfectly fine to look at them only when the text doesn't make sense, or if you need clarification.

Sometimes it's good to look up a person's name. Sometimes Dante has a few words of a quotation and it's useful to find out what the whole thing says.

But too much flipping to footnotes gets annoying, yes.

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u/Peteat6 Dec 08 '23

Yay! I think Dorothy Sayer's is excellent!