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The Divine Comedy

Poet and translator Steve Ellis completes his new version of Dante's Divine Comedy, the astonishing epic that has shaped art and culture since the 14th century

Dante Alighieri (Author) 
 Dante, or Durante deli Alighieri, was born in Florence, Italy, circa 1265. His family was connected with the Guelph political alliance, supporters of the Papacy. His mother died before Dante’s tenth birthday. Dante himself was betrothed to Gemma di Manetto Donati when he was aged only 12. The pair went on to marry, but Dante’s true love was for Beatrice Portinari, who would inspire much of his poetry. Dante and Gemma had several children. 
Dante was a member of Florence’s Apothecaries’ Guild, though he did not practice as a pharmacist. Allied to the White Guelphs, with whom he fought against the vanquishing Black Guelphs, he was eventually condemned to perpetual exile from Florence. He went first to Verona and then to Liguria. There is speculation that he travelled more widely, including to Paris and Oxford, although this has not been verified. 
During his time of exile Dante conceived and wrote the three poems which form The Divine Comedy. He died in 1321, aged 56, of suspected malaria. He was buried in Ravenna, Italy, where a tomb was later erected in his name. 
 
Stephen Wyatt is a playwright and dramatist with extensive experience in stage, radio and television. 
 
Steve Ellis (Translator) 
 Steve Ellis, a Professor in English at the University of Birmingham, was born and brought up in York, and studied in Florence as part of his doctorate for London University. His frustration as a student with existing translations of Dante spurred a long-lasting desire to translate it himself.His critical works include Dante and English Poetry: Shelley to T.S. Eliot and a study of Eliot's Four Quartets. A major Gregory Award winner, he has also published two books of poetry, Home and Away and West Pathway

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

Love That Moves the Sun and Other Stars

'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.

Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso

Blake Ritson, David Warner, Hattie Morahan and John Hurt star in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Dante's epic poem.

Blake Ritson, David Warner, Hattie Morahan and John Hurt star in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Dante's epic poem. 
 
Inferno: Thirty-five year old Dante finds himself in the middle of a dark wood, in extreme personal and spiritual crisis. Hope of rescue appears in the form of the venerable poet Virgil, now a shade himself, who offers to lead Dante on an odyssey through the afterlife, beginning in the terrifying depths of Hell. 
 
Purgatorio: Dante is led up Mount Purgatory by his guide. They encounter numerous souls who have embarked on the same difficult journey - one that will eventually lead to their spiritual salvation. 
 
Paradiso: Dante's journey comes to a glorious conclusion as he is led by Beatrice, through the spheres of Paradise and into the presence of God himself. As they ascend, they encounter a number of souls who have also achieved blessedness. 
 
Many years later, the older Dante reflects on the episodes from his life that have inspired his great poem. 
 
 
©2014 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2014 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

In a glorious adaptation of The Divine Comedy, Stephen Wyatt takes a potshot at bankers, forced to sit forever on hot sands under fiery rain.

He’s done a remarkable job. Out go the cantos and rigid rhyming structures. In comes a flowing narrative that loses none of the evocative imagery of the original. And it does Wyatt’s case no harm that the three central characters — Dante the younger, Dante the elder and Virgil, his ghostly omnipresent guide through hell, purgatory and paradise — are played by Blake Ritson, John Hurt and David Warner.

Dante Alighieri (Author) Dante, or Durante deli Alighieri, was born in Florence, Italy, circa 1265. His family was connected with the Guelph political alliance, supporters of the Papacy. His mother died before Dante’s tenth birthday. Dante himself was betrothed to Gemma di Manetto Donati when he was aged only 12. The pair went on to marry, but Dante’s true love was for Beatrice Portinari, who would inspire much of his poetry. Dante and Gemma had several children. 
Dante was a member of Florence’s Apothecaries’ Guild, though he did not practice as a pharmacist. Allied to the White Guelphs, with whom he fought against the vanquishing Black Guelphs, he was eventually condemned to perpetual exile from Florence. He went first to Verona and then to Liguria. There is speculation that he travelled more widely, including to Paris and Oxford, although this has not been verified. 
During his time of exile Dante conceived and wrote the three poems which form The Divine Comedy. He died in 1321, aged 56, of suspected malaria. He was buried in Ravenna, Italy, where a tomb was later erected in his name. 
 
Stephen Wyatt is a playwright and dramatist with extensive experience in stage, radio and television.

Blake Ritson, David Warner, Hattie Morahan and John Hurt star in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Dante's epic poem. 
 
Inferno: Thirty-five year old Dante finds himself in the middle of a dark wood, in extreme personal and spiritual crisis. Hope of rescue appears in the form of the venerable poet Virgil, now a shade himself, who offers to lead Dante on an odyssey through the afterlife, beginning in the terrifying depths of Hell. 
 
Purgatorio: Dante is led up Mount Purgatory by his guide. They encounter numerous souls who have embarked on the same difficult journey - one that will eventually lead to their spiritual salvation. 
 
Paradiso: Dante's journey comes to a glorious conclusion as he is led by Beatrice, through the spheres of Paradise and into the presence of God himself. As they ascend, they encounter a number of souls who have also achieved blessedness. 
 
Many years later, the older Dante reflects on the episodes from his life that have inspired his great poem. 
 
 
 ©2014 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2014 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Penguin Classics

Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso

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 time 
 
The 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 Pennsylvania 
 
Individual 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.

The perfect balance of tightness and colloquialism . . . Likely to be the best modern version of Dante

Kirkpatrick brings a more nuanced sense of the Italian and a more mediated appreciation of the poem's construction than nearly all of his competitors

We gain much from Kirkpatrick's fidelity to syntax and nuance... His introduction...tells you, very readable indeed, pretty much all you need for a heightened appreciation of the work

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. His life was divided by political duties and poetry, the most of famous of which was inspired by his meeting with Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice,including La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy. He died in Ravenna in 1321. 
 
Robin Kirkpatrick is a poet and widely-published Dante scholar. He has taught courses on Dante's Divine Comedy in Hong Kong, Dublin, and Cambridge where is Fellow of Robinson College and Professor of Italian and English Literatures.

Inferno

'I found myself on the edge of that profound pit of pain/ that reservoir of endless tears.' 
Inferno, IV, 8-9

Energetic, racy, rude and lyrical...buy this translation and spend a damn good season in hell

A tour de force, alive, immediate, energetic and very moving

Excellent. Dante's vision vibrates again in all its original colour.The effect is dazzling

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265. When he was nine years old he met Bice Portinari, the Beatrice who inspires both his first work, La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy. Beatrice died in 1290. He had at least three children with his wife Gemma di Manetto Donati. His involvement in politics in Florence led to his exile in 1302 and he eventually settled in Ravenna where he died in 1321. 
 
Steve Ellis, Professor in English at the University of Birmingham, was born and brought up in York, and studied in Florence as part of his doctorate for London University. His frustration as a student with existing translations of Dante spurred a long-lasting desire to translate it himself. His critical works include Dante and English Poetry: Shelley to T.S. Eliot and a study of Eliot's Four Quartets.A major Gregory Award winner, he has also published two books of poetry, Home and Away and West Pathway.

Welcome to Hell. 
 
One evening, Dante finds himself lost in a dark and menacing wood. The ghost of Virgil offers to lead him to safety but the path lies through the terrifying kingdom of Satan, where Dante witnesses the strange and gruesome sufferings of the damned. 
 
Written while Dante was in exile and under threat of being burned at the stake, this dramatic, frightening and, at times, sardonically humorous vision of Hell still has the power to shock and horrify

Hell

The Comedy of Dante Alighieri

Dante's descent into the Underworld to find his lost love.

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. He was married when he was around twenty to Gemma Donati and had four children. He met Beatrice, who was to be his muse, in 1274, and when she died in 1290 he sought distraction in philosophy and theology, and wrote La Vita Nuova. He worked on the Divine Comedy from 1308 until near the time of his death in Ravenna in 1321. 
 
 
Dorothy L. Sayers wrote novels, poetry, and translated Dante for the Penguin Classics. She died in 1957. Barbara Reynolds was Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University and subsequently Reader in Italian Studies at Nottingham, and Honorary Reader at Warwick. She has written books, both on Italian authors and on Dorothy L. Sayers.

Guided by the poet Virgil, Dante plunges to the very depths of Hell and embarks on his arduous journey towards God. Together they descend through the nine circles of the underworld and encounter the tormented souls of the damned - from heretics and pagans to gluttons, criminals and seducers - who tell of their sad fates and predict events still to come in Dante&rsquo;s life. In this first part of his Divine Comedy, Dante fused satire and humour with intellect and soaring passion to create an immortal Christian allegory of mankind&rsquo;s search for self-knowledge and spiritual enlightenment.

Purgatory

'The most moving lines literature has achieved' Jorge Luis Borges

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. He was married when he was around twenty to Gemma Donati and had four children. He met Beatrice, who was to be his muse, in 1274, and when she died in 1290 he sought distraction in philosophy and theology, and wrote La Vita Nuova. He worked on the Divine Comedy from 1308 until near the time of his death in Ravenna in 1321. 
 
 
Dorothy L. Sayers wrote novels, poetry, and translated Dante for the Penguin Classics. She died in 1957. 
 
Barbara Reynolds was Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University and subsequently Reader in Italian Studies at Nottingham, and Honorary Reader at Warwick. She has written books, both on Italian authors and on Dorothy L. Sayers.

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.

The Divine Comedy & Paradise

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. He was married when he was around twenty to Gemma Donati and had four children. He met Beatrice, who was to be his muse, in 1274, and when she died in 1290 he sought distraction in philosophy and theology, and wrote La Vita Nuova. He worked on the Divine Comedy from 1308 until near the time of his death in Ravenna in 1321. 
 
 
Dorothy L. Sayers wrote novels, poetry, and translated Dante for the Penguin Classics. She died in 1957. 
 
Barbara Reynolds was Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University and subsequently Reader in Italian Studies at Nottingham, and Honorary Reader at Warwick. She has written books, both on Italian authors and on Dorothy L. Sayers.

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.

Vita Nuova

A revised edition of Dante's early poems, inspired by his love for Beatrice

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 to a noble but impoverished family. His life was divided by political duties and poetry, the most famous of which - The Divine Comedy and La Vita Nuova - was inspired by his meeting with Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice. He died in Ravenna in 1321. 
Before retiring Barbara Reynolds was Lecturer in Italian at Cambridge University. She holds 3 honorary doctorates & has translated Ariosto's Orlando Furioso for Penguin Classics.

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.

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

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. His life was divided by political duties and poetry, the most of famous of which was inspired by his meeting with Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice,including La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy. He died in Ravenna in 1321. 
Mark Musa is Distinguished Professor of French and Italian at the Center for Italian Studies, Indiana University.

This vigorous and swift blank verse rendition of the poet's journey through the circles of Hell re-creates for the modern reader the rich meanings that the poem had for Dante's contemporaries.

The finest editions available of the world's greatest classics from Homer to Achebe, Tolstoy to Ishiguro, Proust to Pullman, printed on a fine acid-free, cream-wove paper that will not discolour with age, with sewn, full cloth bindings and silk ribbon markers, and at remarkably low prices. All books include substantial introductions by major scholars and contemporary writers, and comparative chronologies of literary and historical context.

This edition prints all three parts of Dante's great poem about the journey of the soul - INFERNO, PURGATORIO and PARADISO - in the recent English translation by Allen Mandelbaum, with an introduction and explanatory notes on each canto by the noted Dante scholar, Peter Armour. This is the only reasonably priced hardback edition of one of the world's greatest masterworks and should prove to be the most accessible for students and general readers alike. It includes Botticelli's glorious and relatively unknown illustrations of THE DIVINE COMEDY, drawn in the 1480s.

Paradise

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265 and belonged to a noble but impoverished family.  His life was divided by political duties and poetry, the most of famous of which was inspired by his meeting with Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice,including La Vita Nuova and The Divine Comedy. He died in Ravenna in 1321.

The final volume in this brilliant translation destined to take its place among the great English versions of The Divine Comedy. 
 
In his translation of Paradise, Mark Musa exhibits the same sensitivity to language and knowledge of translation that enabled his versions of Inferno and Purgatory to capture the vibrant power and full dramatic force of Dante&rsquo;s poetry. Dante relates his mystical interpretation of the heavens, and his moment of transcendent glory, as he journeys, first with Beatrice, then alone, toward the Trinity. 
 
Professor Musa&rsquo;s extraordinary translation and his interpretive commentary, informative glossary, and bibliography clarify the theological themes and make Dante accessible to the English-speaking public.

Dante Alighieri

Virginia Jewiss

A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text

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.

Dante Alighieri

Books by Dante Alighieri

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Reading Remedy: books to help you deal with unrequited love

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