The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

by Dante Alighieri, Robin Kirkpatrick (Translator), Robin Kirkpatrick (Introduction), Robin Kirkpatrick (Noted by), Eric Drooker (Illustrator)

Overview

This beautiful hardcover edition–containing 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 Botticelli's marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of illustrations.

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. 

Allen 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.

Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Everyman’s Library Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101608388
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/26/2013
Series:	Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Series
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	752
Sales rank:	361,310
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Dante Alighieri, born in Florence, Italy, c. 1265, is considered one of the world's greatest poets. His use of the Florentine dialect established it as the basis for modern Italian. His late medieval epic, The 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.

What People are Saying About This

Bernard O'Donoghue

"The perfect balance of tightness and colloquialism . . . Likely to be the best modern version of Dante."

Editorial Reviews

A masterly translation.” ―Judith Thurman, The New Yorker

“Kirkpatrick brings a more nuanced sense of the Italian and a more mediated appreciation of the poem's construction than nearly all of his competitors.” —The Times (London)

“We gain much from Kirkpatrick’s fidelity to syntax and nuance. . . . His introduction . . . tells you, very readable indeed, pretty much all you need for a heightened appreciation of the work.”
—The Guardian

“Likely to be the best modern version of Dante . . . The perfect balance of tightness and colloquialism.” —Bernard O’Donoghue

“This version is the first to bring together poetry and scholarship in the very body of the translation—a deeply informed version of Dante that is also a pleasure to read.” —David Wallace, University of Pennsylvania

From the Publisher

"We gain much from Kirkpatrick's fidelity to syntax and nuance. . . . His introduction . . . tells you, very readable indeed, pretty much all you need for a heightened appreciation of the work."

The Guardian (London)

"Kirkpatrick brings a more nuanced sense of the Italian and a more mediated appreciation of the poem's construction than nearly all of his competitors."

The Times (London)

"The perfect balance of tightness and colloquialism . . . Likely to be the best modern version of Dante."

Bernard O'Donoghue

"We gain much from Kirkpatrick's fidelity to syntax and nuance. . . . His introduction . . . tells you, very readable indeed, pretty much all you need for a heightened appreciation of the work."

The Guardian(London)