July 11, 2006

The Divine Comedy, or Commedia Divina if you prefer, marked the Europe's transition from Medieval to Renaissance. Written in 1321 by Dante Alighieri, it is an epic poem composed of depictions of Hell, (Inferno), Purgatory, (Purgatorio), and Heaven, (Paradisio).

A work that has inspired countless similar depections of hell, even in modern times.

posted by FiftyPoints 18 years ago
  • TUM, you illiterate boob!
  • Is a kid, I always got bored somewhere toward the end of purgatory. I probably just liked the Gustave DorĂ© illustrations.
  • My favourite translation is by Dorothy L Sayers (she of Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels fame), which manages, incredibly, to retain both rhyme and metre, with no loss of beauty in the text. Her version of Hell Canto 1 can be found here, on a wonderful site which contains loads of other translations in various languages for comparison purposes. Fab post, grazie FiftyPoints.
  • Why, thank you. I was a little nervous about my first FPP.
  • Nobody likes anything but Inferno. Good is dumb.
  • *ahem* Evil will always triumph because good is dumb. Talk about modern retellings... high culture on ytmnd.com? Wooooah.
  • Thanks for the alternate translations, mothninja, and yeah, thanks for the post fiftypoints.
  • How many of us clicked on the Hell link before the Heaven link? Admit it. It's kind of like the proverbial train wreck.
  • I actually made myself read the whole dang thing. Reading purgatory and heaven after hell was like having to go to church after seeing a really great porno film, or perhaps like eating a whole bunch of candy floss after enjoying a large, very spicy Mexican meal. Anyway, (insert fist held up with pinky and thumb extended) HELL FUCKIN' ROCKS!
  • Hey Fifty! Nobody like s a show-off. Stick to single link posts about kittens in the future. Only kidding. Good post, and welcome. *asks somebody to explain what the post is about*
  • ...but all the kitten website have been posted :(
  • Look harder!!"!!!!
  • Great FPP, FP. I can't acess it from work, but Something Awful had a good piece the other day about Ken Lay's journey through the The Inferno. Also, it's Mr Hannon!
  • ...Or it's an album by Milla Jovovich's old band.
  • I greatly preferred Paradisio, but I was familiar with most of the saints and theology and such. I think it's a tremendous work of art.