The Divine Comedy, Volume 2: Purgatory (Musa Translation) Book

This is a great book, but does require the notes to make any sense of it. Hundreds of characters from Danté's Italy not to mention host of mythological and Biblical ones tended to distract me just reading the poetry and appreciating Dante's wonderful descriptions. I have to stop at the end of each chapter and read the notes to understand the context and people that Dante is referring to. I agree that it would be impossible to ever write this book without references to contemporary politics and so it probably felt dated in that manner even as Boccacio was writing Dante's biography and promoting this up-to-then banned masterpiece 50 years after Dante finished it. Perhaps a lot of postmodern literature will suffer from the same feeling of obsolescence? Am I a hypocrite because I also adore Pynchon, DFW, Proust and Joyce who also require dense footnotes to completely understand? Perhaps but my point was more that I have to read this in a stop and start manner and it takes a little away from the pleasure of reading straight through.

All that being said, there is nothing in Western literature quite like the Divine Comedy and this central volume of 33 cantos is of unsurpassed depth and beauty.

If I were to express this book in a picture, I would probably see something like this: from Dong Qichang (董其昌, 1555-1636) as it seems to express the long hazardous climb and yet the peaceful conclusion awaiting Dante at the top.