Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy 1: Inferno

DANTE ALIGHIERI was born in Florence in 1265 into a family from the lower ranks of the nobility. He may have studied at the university of Bologna. When he was about twenty, he married Gemma Donati, by whom he had four children. He first met Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice, in 1274, and when she died in 1290 he sought consolation by writing La Vita nuova and by studying philosophy and theology. During this time he became involved in the conflict between the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in Florence; he became a prominent White Guelf and, when the Black Guelfs came to power in 1302, Dante was, during his absence from the city, condemned to exile. He took refuge initially in Verona but eventually, having wandered from place to place, he settled in Ravenna. While there he completed the Commedia which he began in about 1307. Dante died in Ravenna in 1321.

ROBIN KIRKPATRICK graduated from Merton College, Oxford. He has taught courses on Dantes Commedia in Hong Kong, Dublin and for more than twenty-five years at the university of Cambridge, where he is Fellow of Robinson College and Professor of Italian and English Literatures. His books include Dantes Paradiso and the Limitations of Modern Criticism (1978), Dantes Inferno: Difficulty and Dead Poetry (1987) and, in the Cambridge Landmarks of World Literature series, Dante: The Divine Comedy (2004). His own published poetry includes Prologue and Palinodes (1997); he is currently working on a long poem (in five acts) entitled Paradise Rag.

DANTE ALIGHIERI

Translated and edited by ROBIN KIRKPATRICK

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN CLASSICS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

(a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0652, New Zealand

(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

www.penguin.com

This translation first published in Penguin Classics 2006

Translation copyright Robin Kirkpatrick, 2006

The text of the Commedia is reprinted from La Commedia secondo lantica vulgata, edited by Giorgio Petrocchi, Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Dante Alighieri a cura della Societ

Dantesca, copyright 1994 by Casa Editrice Le Lettere Firenze

Lines from The Unnameable by Samuel Beckett are quoted by permission of the estate of Samuel Beckett.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders. The publishers will make good in future printings any errors or omissions brought to their attention.

All rights reserved

The moral right of the editor has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

9780141916446