Literary Inferno by Dante

[sun surfer]

This is the MR Literary Club selection for January 2014. Whether you've already read it or would like to, feel free to start or join in the conversation at any time! Guests are also always welcome.


Widely available in many versions and translations, including here at the MR Library-

1814 blank verse translation by H. F. Cary with the Doré illustrations, epub

1814 blank verse translation by H. F. Cary with the Doré illustrations, mobi

Multilingual 5-language version including an English translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as well as German, Portuguese, Russian and the original Italian, with the Doré illustrations, epub

Multilingual 5-language version including an English translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as well as German, Portuguese, Russian and the original Italian, with the Doré illustrations, mobi

Original Italian version with the Doré illustrations, epub

German translation, epub

English translation Part 1 with the Doré illustrations, lrf

English translation Part 2 with the Doré illustrations, lrf



So, what are your thoughts on it?

[paola]

I am sure there is going to be a lot of background in the various prefaces, but just in case I thought I'd mention the four meanings of writing that Dante himself wrote about (to Cangrande della Scala as a sort of preface to the Commedia, and previously in in the Convivio).

He argued that in his work there were multiple senses of meaning, the first literal, that is the immediate meaning conveyed by each sentence, while the second is the deeper meaning that he wants to convey, which can be allegorical, moral or anagogical. The last three together can be called all allegorical.

I've found this translation of the relevant part of the Convivio, Chapter 1 of book 2, which clarifies that not all statements can have all four meanings - yet this is also possible. To see how, in the letter to Cangrande Dante provides:

To elucidate, then, what we have to say, be it known that the sense of this work is not simple, but on the contrary it may be called polysemous, that is to say, 'of more senses than one'; for it is one sense which we get through the letter, and another which we get through the thing the letter signifies; and the first is called literal, but the second allegorical or mystic. And this mode of treatment, for its better manifestation, may be considered in this verse:

'When lsrael came out of Egypt, and the house of Jacob from a people of strange speech, Judaea became his sanctification, Israel his power.'

For if we inspect the letter alone the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt in the time of Moses is presented to us; if the allegory, our redemption wrought by Christ; if the moral sense, the conversion of the soul from the grief and misery of sin to the state of grace is presented to us; if the anagogical, the departure of the holy soul from the slavery of this corruption to the liberty of eternal glory is presented to us.

And although these mystic senses have each their special denominations, they may all in general be called allegorical, since they differ from the literal and historical; for allegory is derived from alleon, in Greek, which means the same as the Latin alienum or diversum.

When we understand this we see clearly that the subject round which the alternative senses play must be twofold. And we must therefore consider the subject of this work as literally understood, and then its subject as allegorically intended. The subject of the whole work, then, taken in the literal sense only, is 'the state of souls after death,' without qualification, for the whole progress of the work hinges on it and about it. Whereas if the work be taken allegorically the subject is 'man, as by good or ill desserts, in the exercise of the freedom of his choice, he becomes liable to rewarding or punishing justice.'

(from here).

Having said this, I think that concentrating too much on extricating all the meanings detracts from the enjoyment of the text.

EDIT - sorry, one other point: as I guess most commentaries will mention, in Dante punishment of sinners is by "contrappasso", which can be either by analogy or by contrast (in the first case, the punishment is somewhat similar in spirit to the sin - e.g. the lustful that were overcome by the tempest of their lust are battered by a real tempest; in the second case the punishment is opposite in spirit, e.g. the sullen, who were apathetic in life, are condemned to run after a flag). However in modern parlance the legge del contrappasso/contrappasso law, a quite common expression in Italian, invariably refers to contrappasso by contrast - to the point that I had forgotten that it could also mean analogy

[Bookpossum]

Just found this explanation paola - thank you very much. There's an awful lot to think about when reading this, and I'm sure a lot of it is passing me by, though in the Sayers translation there are helpful notes at the end of each Canto.

[paola]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Just found this explanation paola - thank you very much. There's an awful lot to think about when reading this, and I'm sure a lot of it is passing me by, though in the Sayers translation there are helpful notes at the end of each Canto.

Reading the original without notes is extremely hard for an Italian, as Dante's language is very very different from modern Italian, but from reading the translations they seem much more manageable. I find going back and forth with the notes does detract from the flow, so I'd go with the flow first and leave the reading of the notes until after each canto, unless you are stuck for meaning. This I think is also the problem in school: most teachers, at least in my days, were so concentrated on hammering into us each and every detail and nuance that the beauty of the verses got easily lost...

[Bookpossum]

Yes, that is what I am doing: I read the short introduction to the Canto, and the bit at the end about the images, then read the Canto and then read the notes about the people and events. At the moment I am reading five Cantos a day, as I find I lost concentration if I try to read more than that.

I can imagine that reading medieval Tuscan would be rather like reading Chaucer - almost a foreign language.

[Bookpossum]

Gosh, I'm finding this tough going! I know it was of its time, but it's all so horrific, the whole idea of endless torture in ever more horrible ways. I read it way back in my twenties, and I had forgotten just how grim it is.

At the same times there are some beautiful images:

I looked; and never shaft
So swift from bowstring sped through the thin air
As through those turbid waves a little craft

Came skimming toward us; ...
(VIII 13-16)

My favourite bits are those where he uses an example from nature to illustrate what he is saying, such as:

And now, as a hawk that has long hung waiting does -
When, without any sight at all of lure or prey,
She makes the falconer cry: "She stoops!" and goes

Dropping down weary, then suddenly wheels away
In a hundred circlings, and sets her far aloof
From her master, sullen and scornful - ...
(XVII 127-133)

(I'm reading the Dorothy Sayers translation.)

Is it just me? How are you all going?

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Gosh, I'm finding this tough going! I know it was of its time, but it's all so horrific, the whole idea of endless torture in ever more horrible ways. I read it way back in my twenties, and I had forgotten just how grim it is.

At the same times there are some beautiful images:



My favourite bits are those where he uses an example from nature to illustrate what he is saying, such as:



(I'm reading the Dorothy Sayers translation.)

Is it just me? How are you all going?

Just wanted to let you know that you are not alone. I'm finding it difficult all around. So far I'm keeping with it though. It's something I should have read long ago and if I don't do it now I'm not sure what would make me do so in the future.

[Bookpossum]

Hang in there Hamlet! I have just managed to stagger through to the end - phew!

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Hang in there Hamlet! I have just managed to stagger through to the end - phew!

Thanks for the encouragement. Every little bit helps. Congratulations on completion, and well ahead of schedule.

[Bookworm_Girl]

It's going much faster and easier for me than I anticipated it to be. It could be the translation that I chose. I'm going for the "Dante Lite" reading for my first experience which means I'm just hoping to understand a more literal meaning of the text and some of the basic references and not necessarily all of the multi-layers. So I'm just reading basic notes and not so much the academic in-depth study. I'm up to the eighth circle, but I've fallen behind with to much work and jetlag this week. Overall I'm enjoying it much more than I anticipated.

Done in such a “Dante Lite” fashion. I did enjoy it and appreciate a major notch on my reading gun handle. However, I feel that it must have made much more an impact when first published to a population that could actually believe all that about heaven and hell.

[fantasyfan]

While I prefer to use the Sayers translation, it has the added value of really wonderful notes--the best I've seen in an English translation. She was an Oxford Scholar herself and a member of the famous Inklings {the only woman in the group}. In her notes she incorporated many comments from The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante by another Inkling, Charles Williams. These notes are remarkably perceptive and if I'm using my Kindle, {I use the Ciardi version in that case} I keep the Sayers pb volume handy to note her useful comments in the "Images" section and see what Williams has to add. For instance, this is his telling comment on the justly famous Francesca and Paolo section:

"It is always quoted as an example of Dante's tenderness. So, no doubt, it is, but it is not here for that reason . . . . It has a much more important place; it presents the first tender, passionate, and half-excusable consent of the soul to sin. . . . [Dante] so manages the description, he so heightens the excuse, that the excuse reveals itself as precisely the sin . . . the persistent parleying with the occasion of sin, the sweet prolonged laziness of love, is the first surrender of the soul to Hell--small but certain. The formal sin here is the adultery of the two lovers; the poetic sin is their shrinking from the adult love demanded of them, and their refusal of the opportunity of glory."

[Bookpossum]

Yes, the notes are very good and helpful. Quite interesting to read also as being of their time, because this translation was first published in 1949 or 1950, and a few times she refers back to the Second World War, still very fresh in everyone's minds at that time of course.

That's interesting fantasyfan: I hadn't known, or at any rate remembered that she was a member of the Inklings.

[fantasyfan]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Yes, the notes are very good and helpful. Quite interesting to read also as being of their time, because this translation was first published in 1949 or 1950, and a few times she refers back to the Second World War, still very fresh in everyone's minds at that time of course.

That's interesting fantasyfan: I hadn't known, or at any rate remembered that she was a member of the Inklings.

Looks like I have to correct myself! Dorothy Sayers was a friend of Charles Williams and C. S. Lewis and read papers in other societies frequented by the Inklings but it seems--according to Lewis himself--that she was never actually a member.

[Bookpossum]

Never mind: it seemed plausible enough to me!