An introduction to Dante
- The 13th century: commerce, urbanization, growth, and success
- Italy in the 13th century: in the middle of the action
- Florence: great success in the period from 1250 to 1300; introduction of the florin
- Dante: 1265–1321
REQUIRED READING
Make sure you bring your copy of the Divine Comedy, Inferno, to class this week as we shall discuss passages and read them together. The Mandelbaum translation is the one we have chosen, and it is on the Required Reading page for this class. Its value is that it gives you an English and an Italian version on facing pages at a reasonable price.
The Divine Comedy: Inferno,
translated by Allen Mandelbaum,
Bantam Classic,
ISBN 0553213393
Why choose this translation from among the 100's that exist? Read these comments:
Review "The English Dante of choice."--Hugh Kenner.
"Exactly what we have waited for these years, a Dante with clarity, eloquence, terror, and profoundly moving depths."--Robert Fagles, Princeton University
"Tough and supple, tender and violent . . . vigorous, vernacular . . . Mandelbaum's Dante will stand high among modern translations."--The Christian Science Monitor
"Lovers of the English language will be delighted by this eloquently accomplished enterprise." --Book Review Digest
From the Publisher: This splendid verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum provides an entirely fresh experience of Dante's great poem of penance and hope. As Dante ascends the Mount of Purgatory toward the Earthly Paradise and his beloved Beatrice, through "that second kingdom in which the human soul is cleansed of sin," all the passion and suffering, poetry and philosophy are rendered with the immediacy of a poet of our own age. With extensive notes and commentary prepared especially for this edition.
RECOMMENDED READING
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: There is a good biography of Dante written by the late R. W. B. Lewis, Dante (ISBN 0670899097) and it is excellent and exactly what many of you will want: a short (200 pages), well-written, inexpensive ($19.95) biography of Dante. It is perfect for our course and although I don't want to make it a required book, I am sure that anyone who buys it will be happy they did.
