Dante Aligheri’s 14th century magnum opus The Divine Comedy is a work which, to be completely honest, I struggled with quite a lot. My struggles lay in two main areas, the first, being the philosophizing and theologic debating in the Purgatorio and Paradiso, and the second being in finding both the greatness and relevance behind a thick barrier of history and language. The plot of The Divine Comedy is so famous I hardly need to go over it; Dante Aligheri strays from the path of God only to travel through Hell, Purgatory, and finally Heaven seeking spiritual knowledge, truth, and eternal paradise. Many have pointed out that this is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a very politically charged work, and by saying that, I do not mean by 21st century standards, but rather by the standards of the early 1300s. Dante Aligheri was part of a great Christian schism in Italy which resulted in his exile, and, feeling very bitter, he wrote an epic poem describing how he believed God truly existed and describing how all his enemies get sent to Hell and all his favorite people get sent to Purgatory or Heaven. This espousing of theology comes primarily in the sections of Purgatory and especially Paradise. In fact, the entirety of the Paradiso can be summarized as Dante asking questions about how Heaven works and someone answering him. I am certainly positive that these thoughts were immensely wise, learned, and influential for Medieval Christian thought, but, as I said before, a big wall I ran into for The Divine Comedy was relating myself to it in any way. I believe that a large part of the greatness of “great literature,” and especially very old great literature, lies in things that any human can appreciate anywhere at any time. Dante’s The Divine Comedy is quite difficult for an American to appreciate in the 21st century, especially for one whose branch of Christianity does not perfectly co-align with Dante’s. 

     Additionally, I have heard nothing but immense praise for the beauty of Dante’s poetics in Italian. I believe that Dante is, most likely, one of the greatest poets of all time. However, I can not be sure, since I am reading him in English. Mark Musa as a translator I hold much higher than John Ciardi, whom I started out with and hated immediately. However, Musa, as well as all Anglophone translators, cannot match the insanely impressive ABA BCB CDC rhyme scheme of Dante, nor can he perfectly translate all the nuances. Therefore, Musa’s poem is quite easy and enjoyable to read (I love epic poetry dearly), but it is very saliently not Dante, which makes it harder still to appreciate the work. I put Dante’s The Divine Comedy at 3 ducks out of 5 mostly because I believe that it is an amazing poem (if we were to judge Latin poets off just English translations, their greatness would be shrunk a hundredfold), but not one that I can appreciate easily at this stage of my life. Perhaps if I find interest in studying early Italian language or culture, or in early Western Christian doctrine, I will gain a greater appreciation. Alas, for now, a middling score is as high a praise as I can give it.