by Joseph Broadworth

Created on: September 26, 2010

     I will admit that I was a tad nervous when I opened a library copy of 'The Divine Comedy' more than a decade ago.  But I had made it a summer project to try to read some of the Western Canon, the literature that has stood the test of time and still stand as monuments to the talent and insight of their respective authors.  Sometimes I entered into these sessions with misplaced hubris, such as the time I heard a professor of mine say that 'Finnegan's Wake' by James Joyce was very difficult to read and understand, even by scholars. Upon hearing that, I checked it out of the library, thinking I was more intelligent and adaptable than my teachers. I actually did get halfway through the second page before giving up in bewilderment and drowning my defeat in a warm six-pack of Schlitz. So the reputation of Dante Alighieri's epic poem, 700 years young, was foremost in my mind as I opened up the venerable tome that contained all three parts - Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise.

     To be pretentious for a moment, 'La Commedia' is what the original work was called, not because it was a comedy but because it was not a tragedy, and had a somewhat uplifting conclusion. The adjective 'divine' was attached by later writers and admirers. The plot is simple, a pilgrim (Dante), awakes to find himself lost in a dark wood. He stumbles upon 'Virgil' (an Augustan poet who serves as Dante's guide) and the two start a trek through the circles of Hell. In the later parts Dante travels through purgatory and up through to paradise. But by and large, it is the first part, Inferno, that is most widely read and well-known. Dante also broke some ground by writing in Italian, which, although not unheard of, usually was second to Latin in major works up to and including that period. Native Italian-speakers say that Dante's words and rhymes are of great beauty, akin to a Michelangelo masterwork, and that consequently some of that beauty and elegance is lost in translation. I went with a blank verse translation that dispensed with the rhyme scheme.

    The historic importance of the Inferno are many, one reason being the insight given to Catholic theology of the time, the relation of pre-Renaissance writers to their Classical forebears, a one-sided view of the politics and conflicts of the various Italian city-states, and of course the fact that it is simply, honestly and incredibly well-done. And I am by no means a well-trained reader, I stumbled through the introduction, and spent much of the time reading the notes given after each canto that mercifully tried to explain the symbolism and meaning of Dante's phrases. And yes, it can be enjoyed with a six-pack of Schlitz, although to some people that would in itself be one of Dante's circles of hell.

Learn more about this author, Joseph Broadworth.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.