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Finally knocked this out during a nine-and-a-half hour plane ride over the Atlantic, which just goes to show that even torture is occasionally good for something.
"Like a wheel in perfect balance turning/ I felt my will and my desire impelled/ by the Love that moves the sun and other stars."--Paradiso XXXIII
I can’t add much to this one—it is a great classic, and deservedly so. Every protagonist who begins his story “lost in a dark wood,” every modern depiction of Hell, and every novelist who writes in his mother tongue owes this story a massive debt. Dante Aligheri did us all a great favor by casting his verse in Tuscan instead of Latin; though I love Latin, it’s hard to imagine being assigned Fabula Duarum Civitatum (by Carolus Dicensius) to enjoy in high school. The victory for the vulgar tongue has produced some great things. The fact that Dante manages an almost imperceptible fusion of medieval theology, Renaissance classics, and contemporary Italian politics—in flowing verse, no less—is just as stunning today as it must have been in 1320.
Although the Inferno is understandably the most popular part of the work, the whole thing is worth perusing, since taking the journey only as far as Hell makes for some seriously lopsided reading. I enjoyed persevering through the Purgatorio and Paradiso, particularly when it came to Dante's views of the Roman Empire. Though I do not yet teach these sections, my students will reap many benefits from this completion. I read the Penguin Classics translation by Mark Musa--if you have a good word for another version for my next read-through, let me know.
The short verdict—find it and read it. It will do far more for you than the latest pulp novel.
