/lit/ - Literature

>>21352138
If you want to start the Comedy, I highly recommend the Barnes and Noble hardback version, which comes with illustrations from the wood engravings of Gustave Dore.

Reading Virgil first is not necessary to understand the Comedy, but Virgil’s Aenid is a masterpiece in its own right, though it’s incomplete. What’s important to know is that:

1. Virgil was a beloved poet in Italy shortly before Dante, and Dante adored his work and idolized Virgil
2. Virgil was more secular while Dante was Catholic, so that’s why, I’m the story, Virgil can’t go to Heaven, but he can guide Dante through both Hell and Purgatory.
3. The Comedy was controversial at the time of its release because Dante put some of his contemporaries in Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Politicians, kings, poets, warriors, philosophers—it would be like someone writing a book today where they decide where Trump and Hillary Clinton go. But now that it’s several centuries old, most of these personal biases of his contemporaries don’t have any negative impact on the poem.

Give me books that argue for and against the use of violence in our political system. It seems entirely rigged and so any non-violent approach isn't worth the effort, but I'd like to read up on it before making any decisions.

>>16347989
It's a bit of both, Limbo is technically in Hell, it's just not a place of punishment and torment.

I've seen it put in this way: Limbo is full of the souls of the virtuous pagans, and Limbo, itself, is the "heaven" that the great pagans, like Aristotle or Cicero, conceived of. Limbo bears a really strong resemblance to the Elysian Fields of Greek/Roman myth, and that's not an accident. The virtuous pagans get the paradise they'd anticipated. It's just that, when they get there, they realize that there's a still greater paradise to be found in Christ, which they cannot have. Hence the note of peaceful despair in Limbo, in the first few cantos. The souls in Limbo are at peace, but they still yearn for what they could have had.

In general, in the Divine Comedy pretty much every soul gets what they actually want, what they actually crave. In Hell, in Purgatory, and in Heaven, every soul has gotten its justifiable reward. This is one of the geniuses of Christian moral cosmology. As someone once famously put it, "No one is in Hell who doesn't ultimately WANT to be there."

>>15906496
Based.

I honestly think the fact that the Inferno is the popular choice reflects our degradation as a civilization. We can no longer conceive of anything good or valuable about penance or benediction, we just get fixated on damnation.

It's possible that I won't be able to pay rent this month or even afford food in the future. My best course of action if I rule out suicide is likely to go to prison and once I do that there's no coming back to any kind of functional life afterwards. In for a penny, in for a dime right?

I'm not from the US btw if this thread is monitored, and our prisons are pretty okay so I think I'd be able to read on the inside.

Why does everyone just stop at the Inferno? The Purgatorio is even better, and the Paradiso is great, too.

I read the Revelation to John, the last book in the Bible, as Lenten observance. I've also been reading the Inferno. I'm almost done with that one, and I'll start the Purgatorio next.

What is the best translation of the Divine Comedy?