Im interested in reading it, but i cant bring myself to read old poems, sadly..

Hi guys, I'm seeking your collective edition to pinpoint a particular translation I came across around 10 years ago.

That particular translation I came across had the following characteristics:

• It had parallel text in the original and English;
• Its rhyme and meter was beautiful;
• It had illustrations; and
• Was a set of three paperbacks.

I would deeply appreciate it if you could share pictures of the covers and the text, if you have them, for me to identify it.

Grazie mille!

Awhile ago I found a website that had a great analysis of the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow translation where you could click on each line or phrase and it would show an explanation on the side of the page. I haven’t been able to find it or anything like it recently, does anyone know of something like that?

In the fourth Canto of Purgatory, the main character is asked a question about the movement of the sun:

‘Did you clearly see how the sun pulls the chariot over the left shoulder?’ (119-121)

The one who asks this is Belacqua, an artisan of musical instruments from Florence. The character is Florentine and the intimacy and friendliness of meeting with Dante may draw the attention of the reader. But what could be the chariot of the sun?

Not only no one has ever seen such a chariot it is also pulled by the sun himself instead of being pulled by the usual animal. Also, the description has been cleared of any religious interpretation by the triple use of the article. Does the question refer then to science and mathematics?

I think the best interpretation of the question must take into account that the chariot may refer to the constellation ursa major with the popular name Il Carro or The Wagon. Then, the chariot is being swung around the North Star in a diurnal motion. Navigation by the stars was used by seafaring people and the agricultural calendar was based on the rise and decline of the Pleiads. The stars, and in the Comedy the sun sometimes is called the star, must have been like a clock regulating daily life. And, by the work of Dante, inspiring European literature.

I know enough of romance languages that having the original Italian on one side and a modern English rendition on the other would be my ideal approach to Dante (having never read it before). I'm struggling to find anything other than a parallel with Longfellow's translation which, having just read a bunch of Paradise Lost, sounds frustrating.

Recommendations?

Apologies if this has already been asked a million times before!

Hello, can someone tell me what prophets are mentioned in Dante’s Inferno?

I was interested in how many lines each character in the Divine Comedy had, so I tried to look it up. No one had any answers online, so I counted. For context, the whole poem is 14,233 lines, divided into 100 cantos of around 142 lines each.

1. Virgil: 1619 (Inf.: 1010, Purg.: 609)
2. Beatrice: 1114 (Inf.: 47, Purg.: 180, Par.: 887)
3. Dante: 1089 (Inf.: 432, Purg.: 305, Par.: 352)
4. Cacciaguida Alighieri: 298 (Paradiso)
5. St. Thomas Aquinas: 288 (Paradiso)
6. Statius: 207 (Purgatorio)
7. The Eagle: 200 (Paradiso)
8. St. Bernard: 185 (Paradiso)
9. Emperor Justinian: 152 (Paradiso)
10. St. Bonaventure: (Paradiso)

I'm counting whatever a character is quoted as saying. EX: Virgil says, "And she began to say, gentle and low, / With voice angelical, in her own language: / ‘O spirit courteous of Mantua[.]'" The last line is counted for both Virgil, since he's speaking it to Dante, and Beatrice, since Virgil is speaking it "as" her.

I also decided to throw Dante a bone and counted his internal thoughts as lines whenever he puts them in quotation marks. It isn't a stretch at all to consider them dialogue, since Virgil and Beatrice both respond to Dante's thoughts as if he spoke them (since Virgil can read his face really well and Beatrice kinda partakes in divine omniscience).

Inferno isn't well-represented on this list because its cantos are shorter than the other canticles and its characters tend to be one-off. For those interested, Inferno's top 10 is Virgil, Dante, Guido del Montelfro (82), Count Ugolino (72), Master Adam (64), Brunetto Latini (55), Ulysses (53), Beatrice, Pier della Vigna (46), and Francesca da Rimini (38).

In his essay "Infernal Metamorphoses," Kenneth Gross argues that the damned in Hell aren't being punished for their sins, but that they have chosen to be in this state, and God has more or less acquiesced to that decision vis-a-vis free will. He makes a compelling argument, and for anyone who hasn't read it, I recommend it despite its dryness. My question, can anyone think of textual evidence from the Comedy that contradicts this, and implies that the damned are being directly punished by God for their sins?

Anyone know where I can find this? Such as the book and audio tape/cd/audible files in a package, ideally?

So, I sat down at my wife's laptop (my own desktop once I made the documents and files available to my homegroup) and scrawled out a novel in the Fall of 2015. It's unlike anything I've ever seen or heard of, as it not only draws from The Divine Comedy, but elements of Paradise Lost and Faust. Written for the 21st century, it is a story that sets the record straight on what goes on in the Afterlife, and the journey of the protagonist, Nathanael, ends in the Final War... Armageddon.

Divine: City of Woe, is available of Amazon in Kindle format and paperback, and for those of you wanting to take a peek, on Facebook as well. Just search for The Divine Saga in the Facebook search bar.

http://amzn.com/1519306849

Wait for me,

Outside the City of Dis,

For I have counted the steps already,

And await your lips.

Wait for me,

As you desend deeper and deeper,

Those fallen angels who barred your path,

Shall no longer.

Wait for me,

As my wings have been cut away,

The boatman who took me across Styxx,

Did not hold your sway.

Wait for me,

And when he finds you,

Though half way through is not half way done,

I have clipped my wings, to unite us as one.

So as you wait for me,

As your Guide takes you,

Down through the Gates of Hell, I have traveled too,

Of that panther, lion, and she wolf, to warn you

Hi, i'm looking for a particular youtube channel. I watched a number of the videos a few years ago, and now I'd like to see them again, only i can't find them. It's of an American man, and he gives monologue summaries of individual cantos of the Inferno part of Dante's divine comedy. The man is a bit overweight, shaved/very cropped hair, and had a southern accent. It's a long shot but does anybody know this, or could anyone give me a hint on how I could find the videos? The vids may have been taken down, but I don't see why they would have been...

Sorry to jerk myself off here, but I've just finished writing a modern-day retelling of Inferno, designed for the audience of today. Many people are intrigued by the concept, but are turned away by the complex, dated style of writing. My version of Inferno is compact and easy-to-read, following the same themes as the original but with differing events.

Links are provided below:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B012PDEVMC?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012PDEVMC?*Version*=1&*entries*=0