The Divine Comedy Volume 2 Purgatorio [Paperback]

The second volume of Dante's epic, printed with the original Italian and Robin Kirkpatrick's sublime translation

Climbing out of Hell, Dante in thePurgatorioreaches an island set in the southern ocean. This is Mount Purgatory, where he encounters the penitents who heroically endure their sufferings and speak of their time on Earth. Strange and fresh at every turn, Dante's narrative evokes the mountain landscape in terms of intense physical sensation, right up to the summit. There, before rising to heaven, he enters the Earthly Paradise, where he is movingly reunited with his lost love, Beatrice. This gloriously vivid portrayal of the search for redemption transformed the traditional conception of Purgatory and affirmed the dignity of human will and compassion.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. Kirkpatrick brings a more nuanced sense of the Italian and a more mediated appreciation of the poem's construction than nearly all of his competitors.
-The Times(London)Dante Alighieriwas born in 1265. Considered Italy's greatest poet, this scion of a Florentine family mastered in the art of lyric poetry at an early age. His first major work isLa Vita Nuova(1292) which is a tribute to Beatrice Portinari, the great love of his life. Married to Gemma Donatic, Dante's political activism resulted in his being exiled from Florence to eventually settle in Ravenna. It is believed thatThe Divine Comedy—comprised of three canticles,The Inferno, The Purgatorio, andlÓh