Best Selling Books by Dante Alighieri

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The second part of Dante''s Divine Comedy, following the Inferno, and preceding the Paradiso. The poem was written in the early 14th century. It is an allegory telling of the climb of Dante up the Mount of Purgatory, guided by the Roman poet Virgil, except for the last four cantos at which point Beatrice takes over as Dante''s guide. Purgatory in the poem is depicted as a mountain in the Southern Hemisphere, consisting of a bottom section (Ante-Purgatory), seven levels of suffering and spiritual growth (associated with the seven deadly sins), and finally the Earthly Paradise at the top. Allegorically, the Purgatorio represents the penitent Christian life. In describing the climb Dante discusses the nature of sin, examples of vice and virtue, as well as moral issues in politics and in the Church. The poem outlines a theory that all sins arise from love - either perverted love directed towards others'' harm, or deficient love, or the disordered or excessive love of good things.

The poem discusses "the state of the soul after death and presents an image of divine justice meted out as due punishment or reward",[4] and describes Dante''s travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.

"Uniting the most powerful energies of popular culture and the magnificent gothic edifice of Medieval scholasticism, Dante created a new language that combined an intense lyricism with the intellectual seriousness demanded of his project - nothing less than the creation of a Christian epic addressed to the common reader. Dante''s synthesis of epic with lyric has bequeathed to modern artists and translators a permanent imperative to translate his art into contemporary, living speech." "In this new translation of the Inferno, Elio Zappulla successfully re-creates the immediacy, directness, and psychological force of Dante''s original text. Zappulla''s faithfulness to Dante''s Italian is matched by an executed commitment to convey to today''s reader, through the lyrical cadences of everyday American English, the emotional and aesthetic impact of what he calls Dante''s "complex simplicity." At the same time, the reader is never allowed to lose sight of the Inferno''s intellectual majesty and moral grandeur."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved