The Divine Comedy, Vol. 2: Purgatory

dante alighieri mark musa

_The Divine Comedy_ is perhaps the greatest Christian classic ever written, and probably the greatest adventure story ever told. Dante wrote it to entertain, guide, and enrich ordinary readers, not just the intellectual elite. This clear new version with unique aids makes the fascinating story accessible to such readers today.

Those who love Dante best as a storyteller and teacher will find in this book what they have been waiting for...the freshest, clearest, most exact, and most readable Divine Comedy in the English language, with full-page illustrations and original notes.

Genres classicspoetryfictionliteraturereligionitalian literaturefantasyphilosophymedievalitaly

399 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1321

Series

La Divina Commedia

Places

purgatory,

This edition

Format: 399 pages, Paperback
Published: May 30, 1985 by Penguin Classics
ISBN
ASIN
Language: English

Characters More characters

Virgilio (publius Vergilius Maro)

an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period...
Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri (c.1265 - 1321), commonly known as Dante, was an Italian poet of the Middle Ages. He was born in Florence; he died and is buried in Ravenna. The name Dante is, according to the words of Jacopo Alighieri, a hypocorism for Durante. In contem...

About the author

dante alighieri

Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the comic story-teller, Boccaccio, and the poet, Petrarch, he forms the classic trio of Italian authors. Dante Alighieri was born in the city-state Florence in 1265. He first saw the woman, or rather the child, who was to become the poetic love of his life when he was almost nine years old and she was some months younger. In fact, Beatrice married another man, Simone di' Bardi, and died when Dante was 25, so their relationship existed almost entirely in Dante's imagination, but she nonetheless plays an extremely important role in his poetry. Dante attributed all the heavenly virtues to her soul and imagined, in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy, that she was his guardian angel who alternately berated and encouraged him on his search for salvation.

Politics as well as love deeply influenced Dante's literary and emotional life. Renaissance Florence was a thriving, but not a peaceful city: different opposing factions continually struggled for dominance there. The Guelfs and the Ghibellines were the two major factions, and in fact that division was important in all of Italy and other countries as well. The Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor were political rivals for much of this time period, and in general the Guelfs were in favor of the Pope, while the Ghibellines supported Imperial power. By 1289 in the battle of Campaldino the Ghibellines largely disappeared from Florence. Peace, however, did not insue. Instead, the Guelf party divided between the Whites and the Blacks (Dante was a White Guelf). The Whites were more opposed to Papal power than the Blacks, and tended to favor the emperor, so in fact the preoccupations of the White Guelfs were much like those of the defeated Ghibellines. In this divisive atmosphere Dante rose to a position of leadership. in 1302, while he was in Rome on a diplomatic mission to the Pope, the Blacks in Florence seized power with the help of the French (and pro-Pope) Charles of Valois. The Blacks exiled Dante, confiscating his goods and condemning him to be burned if he should return to Florence.

Dante never returned to Florence. He wandered from city to city, depending on noble patrons there. Between 1302 and 1304 some attempts were made by the exiled Whites to retrieve their position in Florence, but none of these succeeded and Dante contented himself with hoping for the appearance of a new powerful Holy Roman Emperor who would unite the country and banish strife. Henry VII was elected Emperor in 1308, and indeed laid seige to Florence in 1312, but was defeated, and he died a year later, destroying Dante's hopes. Dante passed from court to court, writing passionate political and moral epistles and finishing his Divine Comedy, which contains the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. He finally died in Ravenna in 1321.