The second volume of Oxford's new Divine Comedy presents the Italian text of the Purgatorio and, on facing pages, a new prose translation. Continuing the story of the poet's journey through the medieval Other World under the guidance of the Roman poet Virgil, the Purgatorio culminates in the regaining of the Garden of Eden and the reunion there with the poet's long-lost love Beatrice. This new edition of the Italian text takes recent critical editions into account, and Durling's prose translation, like that of the Inferno, is unprecedented in its accuracy, eloquence, and closeness to Dante's syntax. Martinez' and Durling's notes are designed for the first-time reader of the poem but include a wealth of new material unavailable elsewhere. The extensive notes on each canto include innovative sections sketching the close relation to passages--often similarly numbered cantos--in the Inferno. Fifteen short essays explore special topics and controversial issues, including Dante's debts to Virgil and Ovid, his radical political views, his original conceptions of homosexuality, of moral growth, and of eschatology. As in the Inferno, there is an extensive bibliography and four useful indexes. Robert Turner's illustrations include maps, diagrams of Purgatory and the cosmos, and line drawings of objects and places mentioned in the poem.

About the Author
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 the University of Minnesota. Their works together include Dante's Inferno and Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante's "Rime petrose." Robert Turner has been a professional illustrator for more than 20 years. He works at the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe.

Reviews
'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



Book Information
ISBN 9780195087451
Author Dante Alighieri
Format Paperback
Page Count 720
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 1047g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 155mm * 45mm