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The most beautiful and magnificently illustrated edition of Dante ever
The prospect of reading the whole of Dante’s Divine Comedy on one’s own is probably daunting. The English editions tend to come in three volumes, Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, each with the Italian and English translation side by side. In addition, many of them include multiple and extensive notes to each of the 100 cantos to explain points of language, context or interpretation. All this makes for three rather fat books, and not everyone has the stamina to embark on reading without a guide. The density is astounding; definitely the densest poem ever written, and it could definitely contend with, for example, with Joyce's Ulysses, and Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury.
Dante must be read attentively: mind will reveal itself only to mind. But Dante is not difficult to read. It is true that he writes in depth and on many simultaneous levels. Yet his language is usually simple and straightforward. If the gold of Dante runs deep, it must also rise to the surface. A lifetime of reading cannot mine all that gold; yet enough lies on the surface, or only an inch below, to make a first reading a bonanza in itself. All one needs are some suggestions as to what to look for. Thereafter, one needs only to follow the vein as it goes deeper and deeper. One must, to begin with, think allegorically.
For the first time in history the full collection of Dore's marvelous illustrations were published in color.
Now I am a happy owner of the most beautiful and magnificently illustrated edition of Dante ever.
