The Divine Comedy: Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso (in one volume); Introduction by Eugenio Montale (Everyman's Library Classics Series)

This Everyman’s Library edition-containing in one volume all three cantos Inferno Purgatorio and Paradiso-includes an introduction by Nobel Prize-winning poet Eugenio Montale a chronology notes and a bibliography. Also included are forty-two drawings selected from Botticellis marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of illustrations.Translated in this edition by Allen Mandelbaum The Divine Comedy begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. It proceeds on a journey that in its intense recreation of the depths and the heights of human experience has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity. Mandelbaum’s astonishingly Dantean translation which captures so much of the life of the original renders whole for us the masterpiece of that genius whom our greatest poets have recognized as a central model for all poets. Review “The English Dante of choice.” -Hugh Kenner“Exactly what we have waited for these years a Dante with clarity eloquence terror and profoundly moving depths.” -Robert Fagles Princeton University“A marvel of fidelity to the original of sobriety and truly of inspired poetry.” -Henri Peyre Yale University From the Inside Flap Introduction by Eugenio Montale; Translation by Allen Mandelbaum From the Back Cover This story begins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year of our Lord 1300. It proceeds on a journey that in its intense re-creation of the depths and the heights of human experience has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity. About the Author Dante Alighieri born in Florence Italy c. 1265 is considered one of the worlds greatest poets. His use of the Florentine dialect established it as the basis for modern Italian. His late medieval epicThe Divine Comedy was above all inspired as was all his poetry by his unrequited love for Beatrice a woman he may have seen only from afar. He died in 1321 having completed his great work yet an exile from his native city. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CANTO I Dante finds himself astray in a dark Wood where he spends a night of great misery. He says that death is hardly more bitter than it is to recall what he suffered there; but that be will tell the fearful things be saw in order that be may also tell bow be found guidance and first began to discern the real causes of all misery. He comes to a Hill; and seeing its summit already bright with the rays of the Sun be begins to ascend it. The way to it looks quite deserted. He is met by a beautiful Leopard which keeps distracting his attention from the Hill and makes him turn back several times. The hour of the morning the season and the gay outward aspect of that animal give him good hopes at first; but he is driven down and terrified by a Lion and a She-wolf. Virgilcomes to his aid and tells him that the Wolf lets none pass her way but entangles and slays everyone that tries to get up the mountain by the road on which she stands. He says a time will come when a swift and strong Greyhound shall clear the earth of her and chase her into Hell. And he offers to conduct Dante by another road; to show him the eternal roots of misery and of joy and leave him with a higher guide that will lead him up to Heaven.  IN THE middle of the journey of our life1 I came to myself in a dark wood2 where the straight way was lost. Ah! how hard a think it is to tell what a wild and rough and stubborn wood this was which in my thought renews the fear! So bitter is it that scarcely more is death: but to treat of the good that I there found I will relate the other things that I discerned. I cannot rightly tell how I entered it so full of sleep was I about the moment that I left the true way. But after I had reached the foot of a Hill3