Product Description

Guided by the poet Virgil, Dante plunges to the very depths of Hell and embarks on his arduous journey towards God. Together they descend through the nine circles of the underworld and encounter the tormented souls of the damned - from heretics and pagans to gluttons, criminals and seducers - who tell of their sad fates and predict events still to come in Dante’s life. In this first part of his Divine Comedy, Dante fused satire and humour with intellect and soaring passion to create an immortal Christian allegory of mankind’s search for self-knowledge and spiritual enlightenment.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #451346 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-27
• Original language: Italian
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

About the Author
Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. He was married when he was around twenty to Gemma Donati and had four children. He met Beatrice, who was to be his muse, in 1274, and when she died in 1290 he sought distraction in philosophy and theology, and wrote La Vita Nuova. He worked on the Divine Comedy from 1308 until near the time of his death in Ravenna in 1321. Dorothy L. Sayers wrote novels, poetry, and translated Dante for the Penguin Classics. She died in 1957. Barbara Reynolds was Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University and subsequently Reader in Italian Studies at Nottingham, and Honorary Reader at Warwick. She has written books, both on Italian authors and on Dorothy L. Sayers.

Customer Reviews

The best reading version
This is the story of a descent into Hell, still being read over 700 years after it was written. Whatever your religious beliefs, Dante wrote about a journey common to many; the downward spiral we can only escape from when we finally reach the very bottom.

The advantage of the D.L. Sayers translation is its readability. Miss Sayers was a best selling author; like Dante she knew how to keep the reader interested in the story. Her translation isn't always 100% accurate (which is why this edition gets four stars, and not five). But the technical accuracy was generally sacrificed for the more exciting read - if you want to read Dante for your own pleasure, this is the version to get.