On Dante

On Dante

After having only read a small portion of Dante's great work, I can safely say that this will be both a challenging as well as gripping experience. The main issue I have run across so far in my reading involved sometimes losing track of what exactly it is that Dante is speaking of. Sometimes I find myself lost due to the extremely formal nature of the English translation. Once in a while I am forced to read the same sentence over and over and study the context in order to discern the meaning behind something. However, this is not always the easiest task considering Dante's polysemous intent for the poem. At other times, due to a lack of background knowledge on my part, I find myself reading the notes provided in the back of the book as well as doing a little research of my own to understand Dante' various allusions and references.

On the lighter side of things, I have found Dante's comedy to be an extremely clutching read. It is by far one of the most interesting books I have read in years. The grim and wicked nature of the text is somewhat strangely exciting. I often find myself flipping pages to look again at the illustrations while in the middle of a canto or typing in the names of characters and places into search engines online hoping to find more illustrations. Also equally as interesting are Dante's political and philosophical ideas as well as his method of delivering them throughout his work.

I particularly enjoy the way he intertwines both ancient mythology and Christian beliefs. Dante's depiction of the "outlandish viscous beast" Cerberus was particularly vivid, "his eyes are bloodred; greasy, black, his beard; his belly bulges, and his hands are claws" and "there was no part of him that did not twitch" (Canto VI lines 13 -24). I cannot help but imagine these scenes in my own mind as Dante graphicly depicts them. I often find myself reading beyond the canto a day pace set for the class just to know that much more. I am extremely pleased with Dante's work so far and I am sure there will only be more interesting developments to come.