Dante's epic, The Divine Comedy, is brought to the reader in this superbly presented and unabridged edition.
The opening part of Dante's poetic masterwork, The Inferno introduces Dante as a character. We see the poet lost in a dark wood, and promptly confronted by three mighty beasts: a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. Symbolic of sinful behaviour and desires, the trio of creatures pursue Dante into darkness, wherein Virgil - a deceased Roman poet representing human cognition and reason - appears.
Initially unsure of Virgil's intentions, Dante is persuaded when the poet mentions that Beatrice Portinari, a young woman Dante knew and a symbol of love, sent him to find Dante with instructions from the Virgin Mary. It is thus that their journey to the underworld begins, with Virgil to act as Dante's guide through the malevolent environs.
It is in this work that Dante's famed division of the Hellish realms, the Nine Circles, are detailed. These layers of the underworld each carry a particular type of sinner, with the punishments and agony ascending in intensity the deeper the descent. The poem reaches its stunning finale in the very core of Hell and the discovery of Lucifer - the Devil.
Purgatory is the second part of Dante's epic poem, telling the story of Dante's ascent to the Garden of Eden.
Upon departing Hell, Dante and Virgil journey onward, eventually reaching the shores of the Mount of Purgatory. Here, the two ascend and behold the series of terraces which constitute this realm.
Much of Dante's personal philosophy of sin revolves around the emotion of love - as such, many of the inhabitants of purgatory have directed love in a wrong or sinful manner, ultimately with the design of causing harm to others. Various misdeeds - the Seven Deadly Sins - constitute the sequential terraces of purgatory - namely pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony and lust.
At the highest peak of Purgatory is the Garden of Eden; after reuniting with his paramour Beatrice, Dante takes a drink from the River Eunoë, and prepares for his ascent to the heavenly paradise.
Paradise, the third and final part of The Divine Comedy, tells the story of Dante's journey through the heavenly realms.
Representative of the divine soul's ascent to the Lord, this timeless epic portrays haven as a series of intricate spheres which surround the Earth. Each of these represents an astronomical body, such as the Moon, Mercury, Venus and even the distant stars.
Dante's deceased love interest, Beatrice Portinari, is his guide through the journey to the paradise of heaven. Just as Dante depicted Hell as having nine circles, Heaven is depicted as consisting of nine celestial spheres. Gradually the pair ascend through each of these, observing their appearance and meeting with various inhabitants along the way.
The poem's grand finale sees Dante and Beatrice enter the Empyrean - the very home of God himself. Beatrice's beauty becomes more marked, while Dante himself is bathed in an intense light, so that he may be fit to behold the divine. He experiences a vision of a gigantic rose, symbolic of love, where all the souls of heaven reside in eternal splendour and virtue. Thereafter, and with the help of St. Bernard, Dante efforts to arrive at a final understanding of heaven and the nature of the Holy Trinity.
Splendidly presented in dual columned format, this edition of Dante's epic contains the well-regarded translation by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who himself spent a lifetime in study of Renaissance poetry.
