Dante's Divine COmedy

[CLForrest]

So I've been reading Dante's divine comedy now for a little while, and have made my way through the pages of burning hell and am now finding myself in Purgatorio.  What do you guys think of his comedy?

[Mountain_Muse]

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CLForrest wrote:

So I've been reading Dante's divine comedy now for a little while, and have made my way through the pages of burning hell and am now finding myself in Purgatorio.  What do you guys think of his comedy?

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I have not read this book from cover-to-cover since college, but the entire work still stays with me and is on my "list".  

Why have you chose to read it?

Purgatorio was my favorite part of the work..

Mtn Muse

[CLForrest]

I think the reason I decided to read this comedy was because of the fact that I myself am looking into writing an epic poem.  Reading this comedy, and coupling it with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey has given me a lot a insight.  Also, they are just fun reads.  I think my favorite so far has been Purgatorio as well.  I haven't made it to Paradiso yet though, I'm getting there slowly.  The way everything is worded gets my brain into an uproar sometimes. Haha

[Earth72]

I read my way through Dante's Inferno but have not made it through the rest of the poem. I am a casual reader so symbolism, etc is not something that I go out of my way to examine. What I took away from the hours of reading was a understanding, or at least feeling, of what society was in Dante's time. I think that is what makes a good classic, epic, or Pulitzer-level writing. The writer takes time to delve into his/her culture and capture it so well that 2,000 years later the reader can read it like a current event.

[Stacia]

I'm loving this thread! I studied Classics and Medieval and Renaissance Italian in college, so anything like this gets me very excited! My personal favorite portion of La Divina Commedia is the Inferno, because I feel the emotions of the various people he encounters evoke very vivid pictures in your mind. Also, I love much of the artwork that has been done based on the stories of the Inferno. What has been your favorite story/character so far? And I think that's fantastic that you're planning on writing an epic poem! That's an excellent style of writing that you don't see any more (or at least, I haven't). What is your story going to be about?

[Peppermill]

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CLForrest wrote:

I think the reason I decided to read this comedy was because of the fact that I myself am looking into writing an epic poem.  Reading this comedy, and coupling it with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey has given me a lot a insight.  Also, they are just fun reads.  I think my favorite so far has been Purgatorio as well.  I haven't made it to Paradiso yet though, I'm getting there slowly.  The way everything is worded gets my brain into an uproar sometimes. Haha

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You may be interested in the posts on Dante here:

http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Epics-Etc/bd-p/U1001/page/4

Laurel did her usual strong job of leading the discussion at that time.  I didn't succeed in staying with it all the way to the end.  But, there are good links in here to some wonderful unline sources -- the one I particularly remember is the one at Princeton largely driven by the translators Jean and Robert Hollander.

(I believe the very first discussion on the Epics board is of that great English epic, Paradise Lost, which is far from a favorite of mine!)