The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy

by Clive James and Dante Alighieri
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 15/05/2013

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Renowned critic and poet Clive James presents the crowning achievement of his career: a monumental translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and Clive James's new translation - his life's work and decades in the making - presents Dante's entire epic poem in a single song.


While many poets and translators have attempted to capture the full glory of The Divine Comedy in English, many have fallen short, according to Clive James. Victorian verse translations established an unfortunate tradition of reproducing the sprightly rhyming measures of Dante but at the same time betraying the strain on the translator's powers of invention. For Dante, the dramatic human stories of Hell were exciting, but the spiritual studies of Purgatory and the sublime panoramas of Heaven were no less so.


In this incantatory new translation, James - defying the convention by writing in quatrains - tackles these problems head-on and creates a striking and hugely accessible translation that gives us The Divine Comedy as a whole, unified, and dramatic work.

ISBN:
9781743512739
9781743512739
Category:
Translation & interpretation
Format:
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date:
15-05-2013
Language:
English
Publisher:
Pan Macmillan UK
Clive James

Clive James is the multi-million-copy bestselling author of more than forty books. His poetry collection Sentenced to Life and his translation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy were both Sunday Times top ten bestsellers, and his collections of verse have been shortlisted for many prizes.

In 2012 he was appointed CBE and in 2013 an Officer of the Order of Australia.

Clive James passed away from cancer in November 2019.

Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri was born in Florence Italy in 1265. In 1301, a political dispute lead to his exile from Florence.

Over the next few years he made his home in Verona, Lucca and other cities. By 1310 he had written Inferno and Purgatorio, the first two books of his Divine Comedy.

He wrote the third and concluding book, Paradiso, in the years after he found sanctuary in Ravenna in 1318.

An allegorical account of his wanderings in a spiritual wilderness and eventual salvation under the guidance of his beloved Beatrice, The Divine Comedy is recognised as Dante's masterwork and a landmark of world literature. He died in exile in 1321 and was buried in Ravenna.

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