Now I shall sing the second kingdom, there where the soul of man is cleansed, made worthy to ascend to heaven. In the second book of Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy, Dante has left hell and begins the ascent of the mount of purgatory. Just as hell had its circles, purgatory, situated at the threshold of heaven, has its terraces, each representing one of the seven mortal sins. With Virgil again as his guide, Dante climbs the mountain; the poet shows us, on its slopes, those whose lives were variously governed by pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. As he witnesses the penance required on each successive terrace, Dante often feels the smart of his own sins. His reward will be a walk through the garden of Eden, perhaps the most remarkable invention in the history of literature. Now Jean Hollander, an accomplished poet, and Robert Hollander, a renowned scholar and master teacher, whose joint translation of the Inferno" was acclaimed as a new standard in English, bring their respective gifts to Purgatorio in an arresting and clear verse translation. Featuring the original Italian text opposite the translation, their edition offers an extensive and accessible introduction as well as generous historical and interpretive commentaries that draw on centuries of scholarship and Robert Hollander's own decades of teaching and reasearch.
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Summary
Now I shall sing the second kingdom, there where the soul of man is cleansed, made worthy to ascend to heaven. In the second book of Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy, Dante has left hell and begins the ascent of the mount of purgatory. Just as hell had its circles, purgatory, situated at the threshold of heaven, has its terraces, each representing one of the seven mortal sins. With Virgil again as his guide, Dante climbs the mountain; the poet shows us, on its slopes, those whose lives were variously governed by pride, envy, wrath, sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust. As he witnesses the penance required on each successive terrace, Dante often feels the smart of his own sins. His reward will be a walk through the garden of Eden, perhaps the most remarkable invention in the history of literature. Now Jean Hollander, an accomplished poet, and Robert Hollander, a renowned scholar and master teacher, whose joint translation of the Inferno" was acclaimed as a new standard in English, bring their respective gifts to Purgatorio in an arresting and clear verse translation. Featuring the original Italian text opposite the translation, their edition offers an extensive and accessible introduction as well as generous historical and interpretive commentaries that draw on centuries of scholarship and Robert Hollander's own decades of teaching and reasearch.
Description
Following the Hollanders' widely acclaimed English rendering of Inferno, PURGATORIO, the second canticle in Dante's immortalDIVINE COMEDY, enters English in the best'the clearest, most accurate, most readable-translation in decades, with unsurpassedscholarship in its introduction and with extensive notes.PURGATORIO relates in thirty-three cantos Dante's progress, still with Virgil as his guide, up the mountains of purgatory, where soulsexpiate their sins before they enter heaven. As hell has circles, purgatory has terraces, one above the other, each representing one of theseven mortal sins. In each, an appropriate type of penance is practiced, and the spirit ascending the mountain must cleanse itself of each sinof which it is guilty.Jean and Robert Hollander's verse translation with facing-page Italian offers the dual virtues of maximum fidelity to Dante's text with thepoetic feeling necessary to give the English reader a sense of the work's poetic greatness in Italian. And since Robert Hollander is a masterteacher whose achievements as a Dante scholar are unsurpassed in the English-speaking world, the introduction and commentaries thataccompany each canto offer superb guidance in essential matters of comprehension and interpretation.In addition to its inherent excellence, this transla*'on is also the text of the Princeton Dante Project website , anambitious project that offers a multimedia version of the DIVINE COMEDY and links to other Dante websites. On every count, thisedition of PURGATORIO is the literary and scholarly translation likely to be the one that survives for the greatest period in the newmillennium.
Critic Reviews
“"The Hollanders have rendered both the supple lyricism and the rich imagery of thePurgatoriowith an admirably informed expertise. . . . A model for all translators."The Literary Review "The Hollanders' translation . . . seems the most accessible and the closest to the Italian. . . . The provision of informative notes . . . is impeccable . . . with ample commentary easily and unobturisvely available at the end of each canto." --Tim Parks,The New Yorker "The Hollanders' translation is probably the most finely accomplished and may well prove the most enduring." --R.W. B. Lewis,Los Angeles Times”
”The Hollanders have rendered both the supple lyricism and the rich imagery of the Purgatorio with an admirably informed expertise. . . . A model for all translators.” The Literary Review
“The Hollanders’ translation . . . seems the most accessible and the closest to the Italian. . . . The provision of informative notes . . . is impeccable . . . with ample commentary easily and unobturisvely available at the end of each canto.” --Tim Parks, The New Yorker
“The Hollanders’ translation is probably the most finely accomplished and may well prove the most enduring.” --R.W. B. Lewis, Los Angeles Times
About the Author
Jean Hollander is a poet, teacher, and director of the Writers' Conference at the College of New Jersey.Robert Hollander, her husband, has been teaching Dante's Divine Comedy to Princeton students for forty years, and is the author of a dozen books and more than seventy articles on Dante, Boccaccio, and other Italian authors. He has received many awards, including the gold medal of the city of Florence, in recognition of his work on Dante.They are at work on their translation of Paradiso, the conclusion of the Divine Comedy.
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