The Divine Comedy by Clive James

by Clive James

Genres: Poetry, Classics

Paperback

Published January 1, 1726

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

An expatriate Australian broadcast personality and author of cultural criticism, memoir, fiction, travelogue and poetry. Translator of Dante.

Reviews

[Diego Guardado]

Beautiful, scary, hopeful and despairing.

The most I have been invested in a book, read it a second time this time stopping every time I ran across a topic / event / character I didnmt fully understood, researxhed a little, then continued reading.

I then read it a third time in my lative language (spanish) just to grasp a better understanding / comprehension level on this verseful masterpiece, as well as to admire the art of Gustave Doré which decorated this other version.

Clive James makes an amzing job on translating while keeping the heart and tears of Dante present on every word. / Still stuns me how after being molded and shapeshifted to be understood an other language, the poem still feels authentic.

Such a beautiful book, my intrigue on how Dante portrayed hell, purgatory and heaven was satisfied to a great extent, the way he describes (the feelings) he "experienced" gets to me on a deeper level, almost makes you feel what you read.

I would recommend making pit-stops to research each character mentioned to get even more context, since this book is FULL of mythology / ancient ones.

10/10

[Ocean Cloud]

It's a collection of poems I've had my eyes on for nearly 10 years. Fascinating glimpse of traditional Christian faith... but also very subtle "do not sin" moral of story. Beware if you do sin, a poet might just delicately write about your misfortunes. ;)
Lowkey found it very humorous, in Hell. Dante the poet, asks the sinners "so what are you in here for?"
Then in Purgatory, the deceased ambush Dante basically "WHEN YOU GO BACK, TELL MY STORY"
I still have no clue what happened in Heaven... I guess it was all a fever dream?????

[Cinnamon]

Overall 3.5
Inferno 3, pergatorio 4, heaven 3.5

You had heartfelt moments and darn right madness 😂😂😂😂😂. Overall it's a book solely fantasy very very loosely based on Christian as well catholic doctrine.

[Cathy Smyth]

I have always wanted to read this, but never had the time. Not sure what I was expecting but a little surprised by the strong condemnation of the Catholic Church. I did not disagree but I was a bit shocked how much I needed to work on remembering my Greek mythology, and church doctrine

[Tamminh]

This was a painful audiobook to listen to because of 3 major obstacles:
1. The translated language is terribly flowery and arcane.
2. The audiobook reader's intonation made it even more unintelligible.
3. Many references to classical figures and the bible that are difficult to relate.

[Darren]

"[...], the deepest wish that I could feel
And all my will, were turning with the love
That moves the sun and all the stars above."

I didn't like his translation at first but it would take a lot to destroy Dante.

[bharggavi]

self insert bible fan fiction

[Timothy Hui]

One needs too much knowledge of history to appreciate it fully. Maybe I will try again in the future.