Penguin Books Winter 2013 - Bookseller Services - Penguin Group

108
The Divine Comedy
Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso
Dante Alighieri
Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Robin Kirkpatrick
Cover by Eric Drooker
An epic masterpiece and a foundational work of the
Western canon, The Divine Comedy describes Dante’s
descent into Hell with Virgil as his guide; his ascent of
Mount Purgatory and reunion with his dead love, Beatrice;
and, finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions
of faith, desire, and enlightenment and furnished with
semiautobiographical details, Dante’s poem is a brilliantly
nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption. This
acclaimed blank verse translation is published here for
the first time in a one-volume edition.
dAnte AlighieRi (1265–1321) was born in Florence and is considered
Italy’s greatest poet. It is believed that the Divine Comedy was written between
1308 and 1320.
RoBin kiRkPAtRiCk is a professor of Italian and English literature at the
University of Cambridge and has written a number of books on Dante and on the
Renaissance.
eRiC dRookeR is an award-winning painter and graphic novelist who has
illustrated dozens of covers for the New Yorker and designed the animation for the
film Howl, based on the poem by Allen Ginsberg. He lives in Berkeley, California.
month
“ The perfect balance of tightness and
colloquialism . . . Likely to be the best modern
version of Dante.” —Bernard O’Donoghue
“ 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.”
—The Times (London)
“ We gain much from Kirkpatrick’s fidelity to
syntax and nuance. . . . His introduction . . .
tells you, very readably indeed, pretty much all
you need for a heightened appreciation of the
work.” —The Guardian (London)
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