Search results for ""author dante alighieri""

Beginning with Dante's liberation from Hell, Purgatory relates his ascent, accompanied by Virgil, of the Mount of Purgatory - a mountain of nine levels, formed from rock forced upwards when God threw Satan into depths of the earth. As he travels through the first seven levels, Dante observes the sinners who are waiting for their release into Paradise, and through these encounters he is himself transformed into a stronger and better man. For it is only when he has learned from each of these levels that he can ascend to the gateway to Heaven: the Garden of Eden. The second part of one of the greatest epic poems, Purgatory is an enthralling Christian allegory of sin, redemption and ultimate enlightenment.

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The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and Clive James’s translation—decades in the making—gives us the entire epic as a single, coherent, and compulsively readable lyric poem. For the first time ever in an English translation, James makes the bold choice of switching from the terza rima composition of the original Italian—a measure that strains in English—to the quatrain. The result is “rhymed English stanzas that convey the music of Dante’s triple rhymes” (Edward Mendelson). James’s translation reproduces the same wonderful momentum of the original Italian that propels the reader along the pilgrim’s path from Hell to Heaven, from despair to revelation.

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'Reveals Gray's powers of insight and invention' Guardian'One of the most vital retellings of the poem to date' SpectatorDante, now guided by Beatrice, faces the final third of his epic journey through the wheels of divine justice. Yet as he passes through the spheres of Heaven, he struggles with his faith, striving to understand the scales of good and evil that determine the fate of a human soul.The final book from Alasdair Gray, Paradise is a fitting conclusion to his own irreplaceable body of work, as well as to his masterful retelling of Dante's trilogy.

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‘Finally I realised that I had been practising for this job every time I wrote a quatrain . . . I had spent all this time – the greater part of a lifetime – preparing my instruments.’ The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and Clive James’s vivid translation – his life’s work and decades in the making – presents Dante’s entire epic poem in a single song. While many poets and translators have attempted to capture the full glory of The Divine Comedy in English, many have fallen short. Victorian verse translations established an unfortunate tradition of reproducing the sprightly rhyming measures of Dante but at the same time betraying the strain on the translator’s powers of invention. For Dante, the dramatic human stories of Hell were exciting, but the spiritual studies of Purgatory and the sublime panoramas of Heaven were no less so. In this incantatory translation, James – defying the convention by writing in quatrains – tackles these problems head-on and creates a striking and hugely accessible translation that gives us The Divine Comedy as a whole, unified, and dramatic work.

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A unique treatise by a poet, written for poets, on the art of poetry, LA VITA NUOVA is elaborately and symbolically patterned, consisting of a selection of Dante's early poems, interspersed with his own prose commentary. The poems themselves tell the story of his love for Beatrice, from their first meeting at a May Day party in her father's house, through Dante's sufferings and his attempts to conceal the true object of his devotion by the use of 'screen-loves', to his overwhelming grief ather death, ending with the transformative vision of her in heaven. These are some of the richest love poems in literature and the movement from self-pitying lament to praise for the beloved's beauty and virtue, illustrate the elevating power of love.

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One of the masterpieces of world literature, completed in 1320, Dante's La Divina Commedia describes his journey through Hell, Purgatory and his eventual arrival in Heaven. In this new version of Dante's masterpiece, Alasdair Gray offers an original translation in prosaic English rhyme.Accessible, modern and sublimely decorated, this remarkable edition told in three parts yokes two great literary minds, seven hundred years apart, and brings the classic text alive for the twenty-first century.

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Discover this fresh, pacy, modern translation of an enduring literary classic.Halfway through life, you find yourself lost, unsure of the right path. Greed, deception and pride have led you away from the ideals and dreams you cherished in younger days. How do you go on?This is the starting point of one of the most extraordinary and important journeys in western literature, a stunningly ambitious flight of imagination and philosophy which has reverberated down the years since Dante Alighieri first wrote it down in the fourteenth century. The Divine Comedy is a vision of the afterlife, the three regions of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, through which the narrator must journey in order to better understand the workings of the universe, the love of God, and his place in the world. Poet and translator Steve Ellis translated the Inferno in 1994, and it was greeted with great acclaim. Now Ellis's translation of the entire poem is published here for the first time, and Dante's epic can be experienced afresh and in new glorious life and colour, the physicality and immediacy of Dante's verse rendered in English as never before.A NEW TRANSLATION BY STEVE ELLIS

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An acclaimed translation of Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy Volume 1: Inferno that retains all the style, power and meaning of the original, this Penguin Classics edition is translated from the Italian with an introduction by Mark Musa.This vigorous translation of Inferno preserves Dante's simple, natural style, and captures the swift movement of the original Italian verse. Mark Musa's blank verse rendition of the poet's journey through the circles of hell recreates for the modern reader the rich meanings that Dante's poem had for his contemporaries. Musa's introduction and commentaries on each of the cantos brilliantly illuminate the text.Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), scion of a Florentine family, mastered in the art of lyric poetry at an early age. His first major work is La Vita Nuova (1292) an exercise in sonnet form constructed as a tribute to Beatrice Portinari, the great love of his life. It is believed that The Divine Comedy - comprised of three canticles, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso - was written between 1308 and 1320.If you enjoyed the Inferno you might like Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, also available in Penguin Classics.'Musa operates on the principle that a translator's first duty is to render the original text as exactly as possible without compromising the literary quality of the work ... [This is] the best English-language version of the Inferno currently available'Library Journal

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Michael Palma’s translation of the Inferno reproduces in contemporary English Dante’s intricate triple-rhyming terza rima form, defying the conventional wisdom of literary commentators who long argued that it simply cannot be done. This spectacular feat of poetic artistry— “accurate … admirably clear, and readable” (Richard Wilbur)—“in capturing the sense, sound, and spirit of the original … comes close to perfection” (X.J. Kennedy).

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A totally unique poetic treatise, La Vita Nuova is an elaborately and symbolically patterned selection of Dante's early poems, interspersed with his own incisive prose commentary.The poems themselves tell the story of his undying love for Beatrice, from their first meeting at a May Day party, through Dante's sufferings and his attempts to conceal the true object of his devotion, to his overwhelming grief at her death, and ending with the transformative vision of her in heaven. These are some of the richest love poems in literature and the movement from self-pitying lament to praise for his beloved's beauty and virtue illustrate the elevating power of love.This lucid new translation, based on the latest authoritative Italian edition and featuring the Italian on facing pages, captures the ineffable quality of a work that has inspired the likes of Charles Baudelaire, T. S. Eliot, Jorge Luis Borges and Louise Glück.

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Vita Nuova (1292-94) is the first of Dante's major writings. It is a supreme work of love; thirty-one poems are linked by a lyrical prose narrative poem celebrating and debating the subject of love. In the opening chapter Dante sets himself the task of giving meaning to the poetry which he composed and the events which took place after his meeting with Beatrice and the `Lord of Love'. The `new life' which this meeting inspired is the subject of Dante's most profound creation, which has been read variously as biography, religious allegory, and a meditation on poetry itself. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Robin Kirkpatrick's masterful verse translation of The Divine Comedy, published in a single volume, is the ideal edition for students as well as the general reader coming to this great masterpiece of Italian literature for the first timeThe Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption.This volume includes a new introduction, notes, maps and diagrams 'The perfect balance of tightness and colloquialism... likely to be the best modern version of Dante' - Bernard O'Donoghue'The most moving lines literature has achieved' - Jorge Luis Borges'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' - Professor David Wallace, University of PennsylvaniaIndividual editions of Robin Kirkpatrick's translation - Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso - are also available in Penguin Classics, and include Dante's Italian printed alongside the English text.

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The most captivating part of perhaps the greatest epic poem ever written, Dante's Inferno still holds the power to thrill and inspire. The medieval equivalent of a thriller, Inferno follows Dante and his faithful guide, Virgil, as they traverse the complex geography of Hell, confronting its many threats, macabre punishments, and historical figures, before reaching the deep chamber where Satan himself resides. Now, in this new translation, Clive James communicates not just the transcendent poetry of Dante's language but also the excitement and terror of his journey through the underworld. Instead of Dante's original terza rima, a form which in English tends to show the strain of composition, James employs fluently linked quatrains, thereby conveying the seamless flow of Dante's poetry and the headlong momentum of the action. As James writes in his introduction, Dante’s great poem "can still astonish us, whether we believe in the supernatural or not. At the very least it will make us believe in poetry."

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In Paradise, having plunged to the uttermost depths of Hell and climbed the Mount of Purgatory, Dante ascends to Heaven, continuing his soul's search for God, guided by his beloved Beatrice. As he progresses through the spheres of Paradise he grows in understanding, until he finally experiences divine love in the radiant presence of the deity. Examining eternal questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, Dante exercised all his learning and wit, wrath and tenderness in his creation of one of the greatest of all Christian allegories.

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The Vita Nuova, with its unusual blend of prose and poetry, is universally recognized as Dante’s early masterpiece and provides an indispensable prequel to The Divine Comedy. Set in thirteenth-century Florence, part autobiography and part religious allegory, it traces Dante’s quest to find a poetic idiom worthy of Beatrice, whom he had loved since boyhood. Her premature death plunges him into an emotional turmoil that finds release only through his faith in her continuing spiritual influence and through his determination “to write of her what has never been written of any woman”. The Vita Nuova remains a central document in European culture’s examination of love and the self. It is a hundred and fifty years since Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s groundbreaking version of the Vita Nuova. Now Anthony Mortimer, already acclaimed as translator of Cavalcanti, Petrarch and Michelangelo, produces a verse translation that avoids Rossetti’s disturbing archaisms but preserves a lyric immediacy worthy of the original. This is a Vita Nuova for the twenty-first century.

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Translated by H. F. Cary With an introduction by Claire Honess. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is one of the most important and innovative figures of the European Middle Ages. Writing his Comedy (the epithet Divine was added by later admirers) in exile from his native Florence, he aimed to address a world gone astray both morally and politically. At the same time, he sought to push back the restrictive rules which traditionally governed writing in the Italian vernacular, to produce a radically new and all-encompassing work. The Comedy tells of the journey of a character who is at one and the same time both Dante himself and Everyman through the three realms of the Christian afterlife: Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. He presents a vision of the afterlife which is strikingly original in its conception, with a complex architecture and a coherent structure. On this journey Dante's protagonist - and his reader - meet characters who are variously noble, grotesque, beguiling, fearful, ridiculous, admirable, horrific and tender, and through them he is shown the consequences of sin, repentance and virtue, as he learns to avoid Hell and, through cleansing in Purgatory, to taste the joys of Heaven.

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In the third and final part of The Divine Comedy, Dante recounts his journey through heaven, after the travails and torments of Hell and the arduous ascent of Mount Purgatory, creating a cosmology of the highest realm of creation which is astonishing in its complexity. In Dante's imagining, Paradise is formed out of concentric spheres surrounding the Earth, beginning with the Moon and ending with the Empyrean. Dante must traverse these ethereal regions guided by his beloved Beatrice, as a means of attaining wisdom, revelation and beatitude. Containing some of Dante's finest poetry, Dante's Paradise is an enduring vision of grace and a powerful allegory for the struggle for redemption. This dual-text edition completes J.G. Nichols's masterful verse translation of The Divine Comedy.

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NOTE: SOLD AS SET ONLY"Musa's commentary is thorough and clear . . . recommended." —Library Journal"Among currently available parallel-text editions, this one certainly has the most elaborate and helpful annotation . . ." —ChoiceThe publication of the first two volumes of the six-volume Divine Comedy brings readers Mark Musa's vivid verse translation of the Inferno. Musa has revised his earlier version, long cited as the most accessible and reliable of the English translations. The dual-language first volume presents Musa's translation with facing Italian text, and compiled in the second volume is his lifetime study of the Inferno, where Musa examines and discusses the critical commentary of other Dante scholars and presents his own ideas and interpretations.

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This new critical edition, including Mark Musa's classic translation, provides students with a clear, readable verse translation accompanied by ten innovative interpretations of Dante's masterpiece.

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'Happiness beyond all words! A life of peace and love, entire and whole!'A collection of cantos from Paradiso, the most original and experimental part of the Divina Commedia.One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.

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Journey into Dante’s nine circles of Hell in the epic poem, Inferno, with this elegant, unabridged edition featuring the classic translation by the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882).The Divine Comedy, written in the early fourteenth century by Dante Alighieri, continues to be essential reading for lovers of literature.The Inferno is the first part of Dante’s masterpiece, The Divine Comedy. In this epic poem, Dante is led by the poet Virgil into the nine circles of Hell—limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery—culminating in a meeting with Satan himself. Along the way, he meets a number of interesting figures. Complete and unabridged, this beautifully designed, hardcover edition with jacket features an introduction by Renaissance literature and history scholar John Lotherington and a biography detailing the life and times of Dante Alighieri. Essential volumes for the shelves of every classic literature lover, the Chartwell Classics series includes beautifully presented works and collections from some of the most important authors in literary history. Chartwell Classics are the editions of choice for the most discerning literature buffs. Other titles in the Chartwell Classics Series include: Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft; Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales; Complete Novels of Jane Austen; Complete Sherlock Holme; Complete Tales & Poems of Edgar Allen Poe; Complete Works of William Shakespeare; Divine Comedy; Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Other Tales; The Essential Tales of H.P. Lovecraft; The Federalist Papers; The Call of the Wild and White Fang; Moby Dick; The Odyssey; Pride and Prejudice; The Essential Grimm’s Fairy Tales; Emma; The Great Gatsby; The Secret Garden; Anne of Green Gables; The Essential Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe; The Phantom of the Opera; The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital; Republic; Frankenstein; Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Meditations; Wuthering Heights; Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass; A Tales of Two Cities; Beowulf; The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Little Women

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Describing Dante's second stage in his arduous journey to redemption, Purgatory features a host of unforgettable scenes and characters, and arguably some of the best poetry to be found in the Divine Comedy. The gloom, torments and evils of Hell have been left behind, but Dante's ascent of Mount Purgatory towards Paradise remains fraught with obstacles, not least the burden of his own mortality and his human passions. Purgatory is presented here in a new verse translation by acclaimed poet and prize-winning translator J.G. Nichols. Also included are the original Italian text, extensive notes and a critical apparatus focusing on Dante's life and works.

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The famed Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s two masterworks—The Divine Comedy and La Vita Nuova—in one volumeA Penguin ClassicAs a philosopher, he wedded classical methods of inquiry to a Christian faith. As an autobiographer, he looked unsparingly at his own failures to depict universal struggles. As a visionary, he dared draw maps of Hell, with Purgatory and Paradise, and populate all three realms with recognizable human beings. As a passionate lover, he became a poet of bereavement and renunication. As all of these, Dante Alighieri paved the way for modern literature, while creating verse and prose that remain unparalleled for formal elegance, intellectual depth, and emotional grandeur. The Portable Dante captures the scope and fire of Dante’s genius as thoroughly as any single volume can. It contains complete verse translations of The Divine Comedy and La Vita Nuova, as well as a bibliography, notes, and an introduction by the eminent scholar and translator Mark Musa.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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In this masterful retelling of one of the greatest works of world literature, Alasdair Gray - in his last work - offers an original translation in prosaic English rhyme. Lyrical and modern, this complete edition brings all three parts of Dante's epic journey through Hell and Purgatory and on to Paradise together in a single volume for the first time.

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Dante’s dramatic journey through the circles of hell in search of redemption – and his encounter with devils, monsters and the souls of some of the greatest sinners who ever walked on earth – is one of the cornerstones of Western literature, the summit of medieval thinking and arguably the highest poetic achievement of all time. Inferno, the first part of Dante’s Comedy, is presented here in a new verse translation by acclaimed poet and prize-winning translator J.G. Nichols, together with the original text facing, extensive notes, illustrations and a critical apparatus focusing on the author’s life and works.

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Dante is known to most readers outside Italy for his gritty descriptions of the Inferno, but there is another, gentler side to his poetry, which found expression throughout his career in verses that made him, together with his friend Guido Cavalcanti, the leading love poet of his generation. From the ballads and rime of his youth to the heart-rending lyrics written on the death of Beatrice and the more sober, philosophical canzoni of his later years, this volume provides the only English edition of the great Florentine’s complete love poems, in brilliant verse translations by Dante specialists J.G. Nichols and Anthony Mortimer.

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Richard Wilbur praises Palma’s translation as “accurate as to sense, fully rhymed, and easy, as a rule, in its movement through the tercets. Readers will find it admirably clear and readable.” The text is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations. Also included in this edition are an illuminating introduction by Giuseppe Mazzotta, a Translator’s Note, The Plan of Dante’s Hell, and six maps and illustrations. “Criticism” provides twelve interpretations by, among others, John Freccero, Robert M. Durling, Alison Cornish, Teodolinda Barolini, Giuseppe Mazzotta, and Robert Hollander. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

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This collection of Dante Alighieri’s lyrics charts his poetic evolution and displays the ground on which his Vita nuova and Divine Comedy developed. Inspired in his early poems by troubadour love poetry, Dante would later come to master all the genres of the time, such as the canzone, the sonnet and the ballad. At the same time deeply personal – dealing with themes of love, death and exile – and imbued with the poetic and political milieux of the period, Dante’s Rime offer a fascinating glimpse into the imagination of arguably the greatest writer of all time.

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Like his groundbreaking Inferno (Hackett, 2009) and Purgatorio (Hackett, 2016), Stanley Lombardo's Paradiso features a close yet dynamic verse translation, innovative verse paragraphing for reader-friendliness, and a facing-page Italian text. It also offers an extraordinarily helpful set of notes and headnotes as well as Introduction—all designed for first-time readers of the canticle—by Alison Cornish.

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Dante’s masterpiece of literature is well matched by the peerless art of Gustave Doré. Dante and his guides, Virgil and Beatrice, journey through the cantos in an allegory of the passage of the soul through the Afterlife, with the subtle engraving of Doré’s illustrations perfectly complementing the movement from darkness through to light. Flame Tree Gothic Fantasy, Classic Stories and Epic Tales collections bring together the entire range of myth, folklore, epic literature and modern short fiction. Highlighting the roots of suspense, supernatural, science fiction and mystery stories, the books in Flame Tree Collections series are beautifully presented, perfect as a gift and offer a lifetime of reading pleasure.

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In The Paradiso, Dante explores the goal of human striving: the merging of individual destiny with universal order. One of the towering creations of world literature, this epic discovery of truth is a work of mystical intensity? an immortal hymn to God, Nature, Eternity, and Love.

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Described variously as the greatest poem of the European Middle Ages and, because of the author's evangelical purpose, the `fifth Gospel', the Divine Comedy is central to the culture of the west. The poem is a spiritual autobiography in the form of a journey - the poet travels from the dark circles of the Inferno, up the mountain of Purgatory, where Virgil, his guide leaves him to encounter Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise. Dante conceived the poem as the new epic of Christendom, and he creates a world in which reason and faith have transformed moral and social chaos into order. Charles Sisson's blank verse translation is remarkable for its lucidity and vigour, and the Introduction, diagrams, maps, and notes by David Higgins provide the reader with invaluable guidance. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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La Vita Nuova (1292–94) has many aspects. Dante’s libello, or “little book,” is most obviously a book about love. In a sequence of thirty-one poems, the author recounts his love of Beatrice from his first sight of her (when he was nine and she eight), through unrequited love and chance encounters, to his profound grief sixteen years later at her sudden and unexpected death. Linked with Dante’s verse are commentaries on the individual poems—their form and meaning—as well as the events and feelings from which they originate. Through these commentaries the poet comes to see romantic love as the first step in a spiritual journey that leads to salvation and the capacity for divine love. He aims to reside with Beatrice among the stars.David Slavitt gives us a readable and appealing translation of one of the early, defining masterpieces of European literature, animating its verse and prose with a fluid, lively, and engaging idiom and rhythm. His translation makes this first major book of Dante’s stand out as a powerful work of art in its own regard, independent of its “junior” status to La Commedia. In an Introduction, Seth Lerer considers Dante as a poet of civic life. “Beatrice,” he reminds us, “lives as much on city streets and open congregations as she does in bedroom fantasies and dreams.”

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Like his groundbreaking Inferno (Hackett, 2009) and Purgatorio (Hackett, 2016), Stanley Lombardo's Paradiso features a close yet dynamic verse translation, innovative verse paragraphing for reader-friendliness, and a facing-page Italian text. It also offers an extraordinarily helpful set of notes and headnotes as well as Introduction—all designed for first-time readers of the canticle—by Alison Cornish.

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