Preparing for the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along: The Divine Comedy

The 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along begins in a few days and it’s time to get ready for our first book! If you’ve been part of our read-alongs the last few years, you know that we’ve already read some of the greatest novels of all time — works like War and Peace, Don Quixote, and The Count of Monte Cristo. But our first book of 2021 has been called “The Greatest Single Work of Western Literature.” I speak, of course, of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Dante’s masterpiece has had a profound effect on some of the world’s most influential writers. For instance, T.S. Eliot wrote an entire essay titled “What Dante Means to Me.” And James Joyce “proclaimed an undying admiration for The Divine Comedy: ‘I love my Dante as much as the Bible….He is my spiritual food, the rest is ballast'” (Irish Times, “The Divine Comedy: The Greatest Single Work of Western Literature”). As we look ahead to our own reading of this highly regarded work, I hope it has as profound an impact on us as well.

What to Know Before Beginning to Read The Divine Comedy

Before setting out on this metaphysical journey, it is important to note that The Divine Comedy is called a comedy in the classic sense of the word, a drama in which a character in a low state rises to an elevated state. It is not the kind of comedy that is meant primarily to amuse or to provoke laughter. The Divine Comedy is a trilogy of poems (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso), each of which contains 33 cantos, or chapters, introduced by a single canto at the beginning, for a total of 100. After reading only novels so far in previous chapter-a-day read-alongs, The Divine Comedy will be our first epic poem, and because it is written in verse it poses special challenges for the reader but also offers unique rewards.

Here, briefly, is what we have to look forward to:

“Dante’s Divine Comedy, one of the most sublime expressions of world literature of all time, narrates in poetic form the journey made by the man Dante to the kingdoms of the afterlife in order to save his soul. Aided in traversing Hell and Purgatory by his guide Virgil, who represents reason, and Beatrice, the symbol of faith, Dante undertakes this journey after getting lost in the ‘woods’ of sin. By descending into the infernal world, climbing back up through the realm of purgation, and entering that of bliss, Dante effects a real purification of body and spirit. Nonetheless the Divine Comedy is also a ‘universal journey’: the purpose of his narrative, as Dante states…, is to transport all of mankind from the state of misery to one of happiness.” – Museo Casa di Dante

After what all of humanity has endured for the past year, I think we could all stand to be transported from misery to happiness. Wouldn’t it be great if our journey with Dante through Hell and Purgatory to Paradise corresponded with the world’s emergence from the pandemic? We can only hope and pray. In any case, we will be reaching the peak of Paradise as the Easter season begins.

Challenges and Approaches

As Clifton Fadiman and John Major point out in The New Lifetime Reading Plan, though there are challenges to reading Dante’s masterpiece, it is definitely accessible to the everyday reader:

“To the beginning reader it at first seems almost impenetrable. To daunt us, there is first its theology, derived from the great thinker Thomas Aquinas… There is its complex systems of virtues and vice, in part stemming from Aristotle. There is the fact that, as Dante tells us, the poem is written on four levels of meaning. There is its constant use of allegory and symbol, not a mere device with Dante, but part of the structure of his thought. And finally, the poem is stuffed with contemporary references…”

These challenges are what make The Divine Comedy a perfect candidate for reading a chapter a day. The slow deliberate pace will allow us to appreciate the poetic language and ruminate on its imagery and meaning. As Fadiman and Major remind us, we need not be intimidated by the challenges:

“Despite these and many more impediments, Dante can still move the nonscholarly reader. Perhaps it is best, as T. S. Eliot advises in his famous essay, to plunge directly into the poem and pay little or no attention to the possible symbolic meanings. Its grand design can be understood at once. This is a narrative…of human life as it is lived on earth — even though Dante has chosen to make our earthly states vivid by imagining a Hell, a Purgatory, and a Paradise. We, too, live partly in a state of misery, or Hell. We, too, are punished for our sins and may atone for them, as do the inhabitants of Purgatory. And we, too, Dante fervently believed, may, by the exercise of reason…and faith, become candidates for the state of felicity described in the Paradiso…A good way of trying Dante is to read a canto…without paying any attention to the notes. Then reread it using the notes.”

We can also help ourselves out by choosing a translation that is comfortable and readable. Fadiman and Major recommend Mandelbaum’s translation. Cleo at Classical Carousel had this comment regarding translations: “…an Italian professor I knew (who knew English better than I do, lol!) said the most faithful to the Italian is Allen Mandelbaum, HOWEVER, she said Ciardi, even though he takes liberties, is the most like Dante in flavour. I’ve read the Ciardi version and it’s wonderful!” As I mentioned in the announcement post, I will be sampling translations by Ciardi, Muso, and Norton before deciding on which one to stay with.

That’s it for now. Remember that starting on January 1 I will be posting a quote from the current chapter (canto) on both Twitter and Facebook using the hashtag #divinecomedyreadalong. I do it mostly to hold myself accountable and to encourage everyone to keep reading, but I invite you to post your own quotes and/or thoughts and reactions as you read. It really adds to the communal experience when we share. You can also write comments here on any of the Divine Comedy posts.