Thursday, January 19, 2012
The Divine Comedy: Hell by Dante Alighieri, translated by Dorothy L Sayers. 1949, ISBN 0 14 044 006 2.
The Divine Comedy: Inferno By Dante Alighieri, translated by Charles Eliot Norton. 1891.
The Sayers translation was the actual book. I purchased it probably in 1973. This is the third time I have read it. The Norton translation is an ebook (1ddcn10.mobi, it is a Gutenburg text, google it.) I don't remember where I downloaded it from, but it is in the public domain.
I read these two translations canto by canto. Sayers tried to translate into English the poetic form of the original Italian. She discusses it in the introduction. Norton is a prose translation. Both have notes to explain various references, but Sayers are much better (of these two.)
This is a story that takes place in medieval Italy. It is about a lost soul (Dante) searching for the truth. Hell is populated with many famous people, some real and some fictional. Also, there are many people that Dante knew, but who are unknown today.
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