"In the early 1300s, Dante Alighieri set out to write the three volumes which make the up The Divine Comedy. Purgatorio is the second volume in this set and opens with Dante the poet picturing Dante the pilgrim coming out of the pit of hell. Similar to the Inferno (34 cantos), this volume is divided into 33 cantos, written in tercets (groups of 3 lines). The English prose is arranged in tercets to facilitate easy correspondence to the verse form of the Italian on the facing page, enabling the reader to follow both languages line by line. In an effort to capture the peculiarities of Dante's original language, this translation strives toward the literal and sheds new light on the shape of the poem. Again the text of Purgatorio follows Petrocchi's La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata, but the editor has departed from Petrocchi's readings in a number of cases, somewhat larger than in the previous Inferno, not without consideration of recent critical readings of the Comedy by scholars such as Lanza (1995, 1997) and Sanguineti (2001). As before, Petrocchi's punctuation has been lightened and American norms have been followed. However, without any pretensions to being ""critical"", the text presented here is electic and being not persuaded of the exclusive authority of any manuscript, the editor has felt free to adopt readings from various branches of the stemma. One major addition to this second volume is in the notes, where is found the Intercantica - a section for each canto that discusses its relation to the Inferno and which will make it easier for the reader to relate the different parts of the Comedy as a whole."
"CONTENTS Abbreviations, xv Introduction, 2 PARADISO CANTO 1 Notes to Canto 1 CANTO 2 Notes to Canto 2 CANTO 3 Notes to Canto 3 CANTO 4 Notes to Canto 4 CANTO 5 Notes to Canto 5 CANTO 6 Notes to Canto 6 CANTO 7 Notes to Canto 7 CANTO 8 Notes to Canto 8 CANTO 9 Notes to Canto 9 CANTO 10 Notes to Canto 10 CANTO 11 Notes to Canto 11 CANTO 12 Notes to Canto 12 CANTO 13 Notes to Canto 13 CANTO 14 Notes to Canto 14 CANTO 15 Notes to Canto 15 CANTO 16 Notes to Canto 16 CANTO 17 Notes to Canto 17 CANTO 18 Notes to Canto 18 CANTO 19 Notes to Canto 19 CANTO 20 Notes to Canto 20 CANTO 21 Notes to Canto 21 CANTO 22 Notes to Canto 22 CANTO 23 Notes to Canto 23 CANTO 24 Notes to Canto 24 CANTO 25 Notes to Canto 25 CANTO 26 Notes to Canto 26 CANTO 27 Notes to Canto 27 CANTO 28 Notes to Canto 28 CANTO 29 Notes to Canto 29 CANTO 30 Notes to Canto 30 CANTO 31 Notes to Canto 31 CANTO 32 Notes to Canto 32 CANTO 33 Notes to Canto 33 THE NICENE CREED BOETHIUS' O QUI PERPETUA MUNDUM RATIONE GUBERNAS Notes to ""O qui perpetua' ADDITIONAL NOTES 1. The Figure of Beatrice (After Canto 2) 2. The Paradiso and the Monarchia 3.The Primacy of the Intellect, the Sun, and the Circling Theologians (After Canto 14) 4. Dante and the Liturgy (After Canto 15) 5. The Religious Orders in the Paradiso 6. The Threshold Cantos in the Comedy 7. The Fate of Phaethon in the Comedy 8. Circle-Cross-Eagle-Scales: Images in the Paradiso 9. The Final Image 10. The Neoplatonic Background 11. Dante and Neoplatonism 12. Dante's Astrology 13. The Heavens and the Sciences: Convivio 2 14. The Paradiso as Alpha and Omega Textual Variants Bibliography Index of Italian, Latin, and Other Foreign Words Discussed in the Notes Index of Passages Cited in the Notes Index of Proper Names in the Notes Index of Proper Names in the Text and Translation"
Robert M. Durling is Professor Emeritus of English and Italian Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Ronald L. Martinez is Professor of Italian at Brown University. Their works together include Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio and Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante's Rime petrose. Robert Turner has been a professional illustrator for thirty years.
Reviews for The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Volume 2: Purgatorio
"'This new edition of Inferno is distinctly user-friendly....Serious students-in or out of the classroom-who...examine the original poem alongside a readable and reliable prose translation will find this edition excellently suited to their needs.' -The Christian Science Monitor 'A useful volume for students and first-time visitors to Dante's cosmos.'- Publishers Weekly 'In this new translation, Durling tries to be as concrete as possible, producing a version that is more fluent and accurate than the versions of Mandelbaum and Musa.... Highly recommended.' -Library Journal 'Like the Inferno edition that preceded it, the Durling-Martinez Purgatorio, with its beautiful translation and superb apparatus of notes, is simply the best edition of Dante's second canticle in English. No other version offers anything close to what we find gathered here in one volume.' -Robert Harrison, Professor of Italian, Stanford University ""As Durling and Martinez complete their monumental three-volume presentation of Dante's masterpiece, we can sense their triumph and elation, despite their characteristic modesty. This, after all, is the volume with which they can demonstrate the fullness and consistency of Dante's great project, its final approach to what they describe in one footnote as 'a pitch of intensity unique in all literature.' The scholarship, as always, is graceful, comprehensive, and acute, and it surrounds a translation that is so carefully considered and fully realized as to be, at times, quite breathtaking."" --David Young, translator of The Poetry of Petrarch ""Durling and Martinez deliver Paradiso in elegant English prose faithful to Dante's Italian. The general introduction and succinct notes to each canto enable an informed reading of a frequently daunting text, while the longer 'Additional Notes,' bibliography, and indices will more than satisfy the most exigent critic. Marvelous, in the richest medieval sense of the term."" --Michael Wyatt, author of The Italian Encounter with Tudor England ""At the end of his poem Dante claims that his 'high imagining failed of power,' but Durling and Martinez have suffered no such fate in completing their translation of the Divine Comedy. Their Paradiso is a crowning achievement, a work of lucid prose and of impeccable accuracy. Readers will find themselves rewarded by the succinct, richly informative notes at the end of each canto and the extended essay-notes at the back of the volume. A splendid accomplishment."" --Richard Lansing, editor of The Dante Encyclopedia"
