A recent television documentary about Dante and The Divine Comedy inspired me to finally read this revered work. Flipping through a copy of Dante in translation, it can sometimes seem that the copious footnotes are going to overwhelm the actual text, and I suppose that’s why I would always place the book back on the shelf and move on. In this 2013 edition the Australian poet Clive James has dispensed with the footnotes entirely, incorporating some of that information into the text on what he feels to be a strict need to know basis. This won’t always be satisfying for any reader not thoroughly versed in classical mythology or European history, but it does make the poem seem more accessible, and I think it’s a worthwhile tradeoff.
There’s a major stylistic change as well. Knowing he could never match the musicality of the original Italian, James has replaced the rhyming triplets with quatrains, a form he’s familiar with and more at ease. I’ll leave it to scholars to determine how convincing the translation is and just say that I find this version consistently clever and engaging.
The Divine Comedy is so famous that practically anyone who has even heard of it likely knows the basic setup. I’m not inclined to get into a lengthy discussion of the particulars. The journey through Hell is of course harrowing and gets worse the deeper Dante goes. Where personal growth and narrative tension are concerned, the climb up Mount Purgatory is probably the most meaningful section. Dante is preoccupied with learning the background of every person he meets in order to spread the news back home, or perhaps (where appropriate) to encourage others to intercede through prayer. All very commendable, but it is after all his mission to see to his own salvation, and such distractions get in the way. By the time he meets his idol Beatrice, he is still lacking the necessary level of reflection and self-examination. Beatrice chastises him for his presumption, which raises a few eyebrows amongst the heavenly host. On the final leg of the journey things become more abstract, the imagery more confusing. It’s not so obvious where or on what anyone is standing, which seems likely enough when traveling through the celestial regions. There are more testimonials as before, and quite a few theological discourses that attempt to explain that famous oneness of all things. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself rereading some passages several times. Bearing all this in mind, I would recommend this work to anyone with a taste for poetry and the ability to set all skepticism aside.
By way of a sidenote, I must say I felt badly for Virgil, the great Latin poet who serves as Dante’s guide through Hell and Purgatory. As a member of the pre-Christian world, he is permanently barred from entering Heaven and must pass the time in the place called Limbo, a subsection of the first circle of Hell. People there are neither rewarded nor punished, existing in a perpetual milling about, apparently without so much as a dartboard or a pot of coffee to divert them. Of all the lingering questions I’ve taken away, probably the most persistent one is whether Virgil would have felt grateful to be released from Limbo, albeit to serve as a tour guide through Hell. It’s been said that variety is the spice of life, but things down there get very spicy indeed.
I’m now reading The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. Existentialist philosophy on the heels of The Divine Comedy. Hopefully my brain won’t suffer from whiplash.