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    The Inferno
    The Inferno
    The Inferno
    Audiobook4 hours

    The Inferno

    Written by Dante Alighieri

    Narrated by Heathcote Williams

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    ‘Abandon all hope you who enter here’ (Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch’intrate) Dante’s Hell is one of the most remarkable visions in Western literature. An allegory for his and future ages, it is, at the same time, an account of terrifying realism. Passing under a lintel emblazoned with these frightening words, the poet is led down into the depths by Virgil and shown those doomed to suffer eternal torment for vices exhibited and sins committed on earth. Inferno is the first part of the long journey which continues through redemption to revelation – through Purgatory and Paradise – and, in this translation prepared especially for Audiobook, his images are as vivid as when the poem was first written in the early years of the fourteenth century.

    Editor's Note

    Dante test

    blurb about dante's inferno

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateFeb 1, 2005
    ISBN9789629546526
    Author

    Dante Alighieri

    Dante Alighieri (Florencia, 1265 – Rávena, 1321), político, diplomático y poeta. En 1302 tuvo que exiliarse de su patria y ciudad natal, y a partir de entonces se vio obligado a procurarse moradas y protectores provisionales, razón por la cual mantener el prestigio que le había procurado su Vida nueva (c. 1294) era de vital importancia. La Comedia, en la que trabajó hasta el final de su vida, fue la consecuencia de ese propósito, y con los siglos se convirtió en una de las obras fundamentales de la literatura europea. Además de su obra poética, Dante escribió tratados políticos, filosóficos y literarios, como Convivio, De vulgari eloquentiao y De Monarchia.

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    Reviews for The Inferno

    4.5/5

    225 ratings97 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I liked this classic poem more than I expected. I may have lucked out with the translation, but I found the Inferno much easier to read than the excerpts I remember from my high school textbook. I also had the added context of having taken several classes on Florentine history in college, and I could spot a few of the cultural references Dante makes. Overall, this made for much richer reading than I expected and I'm tempted to picked up the next two books in the Divine Comedy.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I hate Shakespeare so I didn't think I'd like this, but I did. Really cool, every scene became real in my head, the black and white, cartoon version at least. The craziest part -- hell is real, to Dante and all the Catholics who read it when it was first published. How horrifying for them. Next time my grandmother wants me to go to mass with her, I'll go. He's a beautiful writer, and so modern but I don't know if thats just the English translation. Interesting perspectives on sin. It's like he knows to sin is a natural part of being human, which I keep forgetting. I hate to read those little summaries they give you because I want to read it the same way people have been for hundreds of years. He sort of invented hell, or he really saw it. The world was much more spiritual back then so to be honest I wouldn't rule it out. Maybe he saw all this in a dream. I don't know if I completely got this book but I'm just gonna keep reading it until I do. It's better if you don't read others' explanations of books like these, I think, because it is better to read it how people have always read it, and you can preserve your original reactions, based on your personal background in religion, nationality, language, faith, and sin. Maybe you think you belong in hell, maybe you think you belong in heaven, or maybe you don't believe in either or God or maybe you have your own definition of purgatory, and this will change the way we all feel about what Dante describes.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Gave me nightmares.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      It was kind of hard to understand but once I got it, it turned out to be super interesting.
    • 5/5
      Fantastic! Loved both the presentation and the book, highly recommended if you've been looking for a quality version of Dante's classic poem.
    • 4/5
      A handsome book, but a clunky and awkward translation.
    • 5/5
      I really liked the narrator! I am looking forward to hearing more from him.
    • 5/5
      Dante's journey through Hell ranks in my top 5 favorite books. I especially like this translation, as it keeps the language modern enough to be readable, but is still beautiful. Also, there are plenty of foot and end notes to explain middle age-phrases and historical references many people may not be familiar with.
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed that the narrator uses different voices to indicate different characters and who is speaking. Makes keeping track of the story more enjoyable.
    • 2/5
      As much as I enjoyed reading about the tortures he designed for his Florentine political opponents, I spent entirely too much time reading about all these characters in the footnotes. He designed an interesting underworld that was essentially Christian but integrated diverse figures from the Bible, contemporary Italy, classical Greece and Rome, and Classical mythology.
    • 2/5
      Stick with the original, this is "clever" yet not "readable."
    • 4/5
      I'm not a religious man in the least, but - like the great works of Classical composers, or the Sistine Chapel - that's hardly a consideration when reading a soaring work of near-ancient literature. Esolen's translation is marvellous, attempting to keep rhyme, meter and meaning in check, without ever sacrificing beauty. What results is a work of epic poetry which, while adhering to rules, is more than happy to flaunt them when necessary. Dante's vision is quite clever, and - although you will need copious notes at times to understand the medieval Italian history references - a sublimely beautiful piece.
    • 4/5
      This is my first exposure to Dante's writing. I was looking for poetry by a different author when I came across this translation. When I saw the narrator, I decided it was time to read/hear some Dante :)

      Dante sure thought a lot of himself! Good grief, even when he's singing the praises of some denizen of limbo, he's doing so in the context of being the vehicle of their remembrance among the living. You've probably heard the idiom, "damning with faint praise." Over and over, Dante praises himself with faint condemnation. No, Dante, it's not actually all that terrible that you trembled with fear while faced with the horrors of the pit.

      I want to read an annotated translation of The Inferno. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure he was mocking and calling out some of his contemporaries, as well as commenting on figures from the past.

      Most of the work came from describing and talking to the denizens of the various neighborhood of perdition, but he didn't stint on describing the environs. He readily sketched the horrific backdrops to his interactions, giving just enough detail to be clear, but leaving space for the imagination to fill in the unmentioned horrors. This is not at all bedtime listening.

      I seemed to sense some negative commentary on Church doctrine, but I'm not sure if that was in the text, or if that came from my 20th/21st century perspective. For instance, he lamented the number of people, even great and good people, condemned to Limbo simply because they lived before the establishment of Christianity. To my ear, that's a reason to question the church - but to Dante it may have been just another thing that was and didn't need to be questioned.
    • 5/5
      Dante's journey through Hell ranks in my top 5 favorite books. I especially like this translation, as it keeps the language modern enough to be readable, but is still beautiful. Also, there are plenty of foot and end notes to explain middle age-phrases and historical references many people may not be familiar with.
    • 5/5
      If you haven't walked through Hell with Dante, I highly recommend you do so immediately. It's quite nice.
    • 5/5
      Even though I'm not very big on religion, this is one of my favorite trilogies. I love the descriptions he gives of hell and heaven. They're very believable and made me picture them in a different way.
    • 5/5
      A good translation of a very fun book from the medieval period.
    • 2/5
      As a literature minor, I know that I'm supposed to take great joy in dissecting and analyzing a great work of literature such as The Inferno, but I didn't really enjoy this book all that much. I found way too much of the storyline to be repetitive and drawn out for two long. The first half or so of the story is basically traveling from one circle of Hell to another, finding out what the sin and the punishment for the sin in that area is, meeting and talking with one or two of the sinners and relating what they did in their lives to the reason that they are here. Dante reacts to their trials either sympathetically or feeling that they deserve what they got mainly based on who they are (if they happen to be somebody from his actual life who treated him badly or had a hand in his expulsion from his home, he feels pretty justified in thinking that they are getting what they deserve.)I don't want to take away from the greatness of this piece of literature. The rhyming scheme and the contrapasso (matching up the punishments so that they fit the crime) that Dante has developed are pure genius and the poem itself is a great accomplishment. My rating is based entirely upon my personal enjoyment (or lack there of) of the work.
    • 5/5
      I've read this book, the first of three, in French, when I was 25, and I immediately was swept away by its poetic force, its classical symmetrical construction and its sharp and benign view on the human condition. Brilliantly composed. Each canto tells the story of several prominent historical persons, set in breathtaking landscapes. Tragedy is all around, sometimes with a comical touch, but almost always compassionate. The filosofical and theological dimensions are less prominent than in book II and III. I've reread this book in Dutch (both prose and lyrical translation) and in the original Italian. An everlasting treasure.
    • 4/5
      I listened to this book on CD instead of actually reading it. The version that I had had an explination at the beginning of each verse to help you understand and then read the verse.

      In this book, you travel with Dante through the 9 circles of hell.

      I really liked this book. I forgot how much I liked Greek Mythology (which I did not expect in this book at all). It has pushed me to look into more mythology again.
    • 5/5
      The four and 1/2 stars is for the translation, not the work itself which is a five star world masterpiece. Although Dante can drag here and there in his philosophical asides, no other artist has attempted to do what Dante has done in this work: take an almost universally held belief-in this case the afterlife, and more specifically here, hell, and completely realize it. In fact, his hell was so convincing that for many people it STILL is what they believe hell to be. Ciardi's translation is a good one and one that is used in schools; however, it does not keep the terza rima rhyme scheme, and its explanations and notes are not the best. I personally think Dorothy Sayer's translation is better.
    • 4/5
      It's interesting but I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. The morality seems rather heavy-handed, maybe I'm not digging deep enough into it.
    • 3/5
      Basically, Dante made a list of people he didn't like and put them all in Hell. Disturbing imagery abounds and there are loads of interesting references to mythology. But it's not exactly summer reading. Glad I read it from an academic perspective, but to be honest it was a little bit of a slog. Perhaps if I knew more about Italian history I would have appreciated it a little more.
    • 5/5
      The best description of Hell ever.
    • 3/5
      I wanted to like this, but in the end it just got very repetitive and preachy to me. There was certainly some great symbols and imagery and the weird obsession with numerology was interesting but this semi-casual semi-academic reader could not be bothered to dig into all of the abstruse Italian references to by-gone politics family feuds etc... In some sense Dante's hubris annoyed me as well. Placing himself in his own epic, chatting it up with the greatest poets of the time etc... I know that a story is not the author but when the author directly inserts himself into that story, I don't know what I'm really to make of that.
    • 4/5
      Peter Thornton's verse translation of the first book of the Divine Commedy, The Inferno, is certainly readable. To the extent that that was an (the?) intention it succeeds. I think for a general reader who just wants to know why The Inferno has remained influential this will serve them well. There are plenty of contextualizing notes, a must for just about any translation, which will make understanding why certain people are where they are comprehensible to a contemporary reader.For study purposes I have my doubts but I have my own favorite translations so am doing more of a comparison than simply an isolated assessment. First, my preferred verse translation is still Ciardi's version (plus, if for study purposes, he translated all of the Comedy not just one book so you don't have to change translations when you leave the Inferno). Part of my favoritism here is likely because it was the third version I had read and the first with a professor who made it come alive for me, so I do want to acknowledge that. Part of it for me is how the translators try to solve the issue of form. Some compromise is necessary to make an English translation and I am not sure there is a right vs a wrong way, they will all fall well short of Dante in Italian. I just think that wrestling with a form closer to Dante's helps students to slow down and do a better close reading while making it too easy to read turns Dante's work into simply a story that can be read quickly and easily. Again, this is personal opinion and preference. The necessary notes will keep the work from being read like a contemporary novel and could, with the right effort from an instructor, keep the reading close. I just have a hard time imagining The Inferno as an easy read and hope not to see this type of translation of Purgatorio or Paradiso since those should be more difficult to grasp in keeping with Dante's apparent intentions.I would certainly recommend this to general readers who just want to read it and maybe for high school classes that want to get through it with just a few areas of closer reading. I would also recommend instructors look at it and decide if this translation would serve their purposes for what they hope to achieve in their courses. It is a good translation even though I would personally choose not to use it.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.
    • 4/5
      A nicely done translation, but at times I sensed the author tried to impose his voice over Dante's, and while he is good, he is no Dante. I still prefer Wordsworth.
    • 2/5
      I never thought I'd say it, but I think I'd rather have read this for a literature class so as to get a better understanding of it. I felt as though I simply didn't have the context to appreciate it, and my world view is sufficiently remote from Dante's that I didn't have much personal insight. If fire, brimstone, and devils with pitchforks are your thing, you'll love this. Unfortunately, they're not mine.I was pleased to have the extensive notes in this edition, however, and Pinsky's clean, modern translation was also greatly appreciated.
    • 5/5
      Poetry like this touches your soul Dante was a lot like Mozart a daring rebel and a genius
    • 3/5
      On my trip to Italy I was able to re-read Dante's Inferno. I was struck by how he cleverly inserts his enemies and contemporary villains into the epic. Also, I cannot help but wonder if the ingenious torments he comes up for each sin are original with Dante. Of course, I love it that Dante doesn't hesitate to place Popes in various circles of Hell. The way he and Virgil have to dodge demons makes the trip an exciting adventure. I must admit I fully enjoyed this version by Charles Eliot Norton with the explanatory notes. I did want to add ...Fierce rivalries often split the dominant faction. So in 1302 the “Black” Guelfs, in alliance with Pope Boniface VIII, succeeded in expelling the “Whites.” Among the White Guelfs at this time was Dante (1265–1321), who had held public office. Doomed to spend the rest of his life in exile, he wrote the Divine Comedy while in exile. So, Dante puts Popes Nicholas, Boniface and Clement in the 8th and 9th circles of hell for fraud. Boniface is Dante's number one foe.