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My experience reading Inferno and Purgatorio...
I recently picked up The Divine Comedy and have so far just finished reading Purgatorio.
I wanted to gauge what other people who have read this book think of it.
My personal experience so far has been pretty strange. On the one hand, the imagery of the work is absolutely striking. The descriptions of Hell and Mount Purgatory and of the various punishments dished out to sinners and penants are very graphic. One thing is for absolute certain here, Dante was incredibly imaginative and brilliant with the use of imagery. Though I am an atheist, this book has routinely managed to make me understand vividly what God and religion actually meant to people who lived back in the 1300s, dare I even say that the book even managed to put the "fear of God" into me every now and again.
On the other hand though, trying to get through this book has felt like a massive chore more often than not. Im used to reading books without having to look up references or having to read annotations and notes in order to interpret the book or at the very least make some sense of it. But this has to be the first book I've ever read that's made me feel so utterly, hopelessly stupid. I would read each Canto, understand next to nothing aside from the strictly obvious, and then I'd read the notes for the Canto and realise that there were about a MILLION different references I missed and even after reading the annotations I still didn't grasp a lot of the references. Each Canto felt like attending a 2 hour history class and towards the end of Purgatorio the Cantos were so full of allegory and references and allusions that I felt my eyes fall out of their sockets by the end.
After reading Inferno and Purgatorio, I feel like I've absorbed/understood very little. I understand now why Inferno is the most popular of the three nowadays, it's the easiest to grasp and is probably more interesting or engaging compared to Purgatorio. I'm going to start reading Paradiso soon, but before I do that I'd like to know what people who have read the entirety of the book think of it and if anyone has any tips for reading it before I proceed with the final Cantica.
I recently picked up The Divine Comedy and have so far just finished reading Purgatorio.
I wanted to gauge what other people who have read this book think of it.
My personal experience so far has been pretty strange. On the one hand, the imagery of the work is absolutely striking. The descriptions of Hell and Mount Purgatory and of the various punishments dished out to sinners and penants are very graphic. One thing is for absolute certain here, Dante was incredibly imaginative and brilliant with the use of imagery. Though I am an atheist, this book has routinely managed to make me understand vividly what God and religion actually meant to people who lived back in the 1300s, dare I even say that the book even managed to put the "fear of God" into me every now and again.
On the other hand though, trying to get through this book has felt like a massive chore more often than not. Im used to reading books without having to look up references or having to read annotations and notes in order to interpret the book or at the very least make some sense of it. But this has to be the first book I've ever read that's made me feel so utterly, hopelessly stupid. I would read each Canto, understand next to nothing aside from the strictly obvious, and then I'd read the notes for the Canto and realise that there were about a MILLION different references I missed and even after reading the annotations I still didn't grasp a lot of the references. Each Canto felt like attending a 2 hour history class and towards the end of Purgatorio the Cantos were so full of allegory and references and allusions that I felt my eyes fall out of their sockets by the end.
After reading Inferno and Purgatorio, I feel like I've absorbed/understood very little. I understand now why Inferno is the most popular of the three nowadays, it's the easiest to grasp and is probably more interesting or engaging compared to Purgatorio. I'm going to start reading Paradiso soon, but before I do that I'd like to know what people who have read the entirety of the book think of it and if anyone has any tips for reading it before I proceed with the final Cantica.
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