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How do I read this?
I began but it is too dull. And the opening description he gives of the woods is inaccurate and made me feel like the man had never been in the woods in his lifetime.
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>>8621513
First you turn to the first page and look at the words with your eyes, when you reach the end of a page you turn to the next. Rinse and repeat.
Just because you don't agree with some description doesn't mean a books dull. If anything it should be more exciting that you find it dull because it gives you more of a reason to think than if you simply agreed with the author.
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>>8621513
>And the opening description he gives of the woods is inaccurate and made me feel like the man had never been in the woods in his lifetime.
lol, i hope you are being sincere because that's funny.
i mean, if its boring ok, drop it. but i like that overly simple opinion
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>I began but it is too dull.
I'd just kill myself at this point.
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Which edition are you reading?
If there aren't any footnotes you ought to throw it in the trash and buy a new one.
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>>8621513
Please tell what's inaccurate about his woods
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>>8621513
Why is the title inferno? Is that the official title in english?
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>>8621513
Learn Italian
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>>8621513
What do you want? Validation for your stupidity? You don't like it. Move on.
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>>8621513
Maybe lit isn't for you.
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>>8621619
Considering the fact that people have praised his writing as if it were some shrine from another world I was expected for it to be somewhat impressive. Now I don't know if the translation is bad ( from what I know it's the most recent one 2006) but what I've read just doesn't stand out. I read to the second canto and put it down because the writing felt so poor.
>>8621620
Yes. I can't stand bad descriptions of things. The author loses all credibility with me and the rest of his writing feels like a bunch of nonsense from that point onwards. Read my comment to another anon above please and let me know.
>>8621662
The pic is related. It's the book I have.
>>8622084
I've traveled to all sorts of woods, day and night. And I have never come across one that is the way he describes it. Maybe it's a bad translation but "how hard it is to say what that wood was, a wilderness, savage, brute, harsh and wild."
How can a wood be savage, harsh or wild? And before that he says that he merely only woke up and everything was blurred and lost. Maybe an experience of the wilderness can be those things but the woods itself can never be that, it makes no sense for me. This caused me too lose interest in this work that everyone holds so highly but I kept going forward and it just kept getting worse and more dull.
>>8622106
No , this is the only copy I found that had this title. On the inside its titiled the divine comedy 1.
The translator says the reason behind it is that Dante would have wanted to be called by its original name.
>>8622137
Your comment is the only stupidity here. Had I not cared about this work I would have tossed it and forgot about it but considering that it is praised I was trying to get some feedback and understand why it is so.
>>8622204
Ok?
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>>8623288
autism
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>>8621513
>How do I read this?
i dont know
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>>8623288
OP I think the problem is is that you have AUTISM
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>>8623308
sorry bout ya
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>>8621513
Unless you've been to the specific symbolic forest of middle-age that leads wayward men to the gates to Hell, you might not want to sweat the realism. It's a silly way to start reading a massive allegorical fable.
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>>8623288
you seem to suffer from a dearth of imagination and an inability to accept a work can have multiple sources of worth. Translations do differ, yes, but your dislike of his description of woods based on your personal experience is ridiculous. He came from another time, another place, and he's literally about to travel through HELL. Use your imagination. You're reading literature LITERALLY to give yourself an experience that another created.
Besides, it's a brilliant, intricate allegory, important and hilarious in context (given the living people and recently living he wrote into hell), and its rhyme scheme and imaginative, ironic conception of hell provides a wealth of imagery. I assume writing quality varies from translation to translation, but the rhyme scheme is consistent and lyrical, my translation used excellent diction, and I found the work creative, haunting, and full of metaphors and quotables that I've carried with me for over a decade.
Perhaps you should read the bible again? Or you should read Virgil? Maybe grant yourself context? This book is a frequent source of references for me.
Your dismissal of the worth of the book based on the criteria you offer is idiotic. I understand not liking writing and putting something down, but fucking 2 cantos in?
What are you? An ADHD philistine with no sense of imagination?
Keep going.
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>>8621513
the woods are an allegory, and he doesn't even describe them in the first place
so you are probably trolling
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>>8623318
No. I realized I'm just more interested into realistic literature. Thanks for your explanation.
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>>8623317
Thanks.
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>>8621513
>description he gives of the woods is inaccurate
>>8623288
>How can a wood be savage, harsh or wild?
Mother of god, you really are autistic. Have you picked up the book after playing the game, perhaps? If yes you fucked up.
Now let's have some education
When Dante says that "that wood was, a wilderness, savage, brute, harsh and wild" he really does want to say that it felt like that. That's called a metaphor, when you say one thing but mean something else that is in some way related or similar to the thing you say. But that sentence is also a visual description, one that requires your interpretation and imagination. I personally saw the forest as very dense, with dark, almost black trees, no visible green leaves, and dead trees on the ground. Like a scene from a horror movie.
Dante didn't really get lost in a forest anyway, that's just a metaphor as well, representing his sins.
If you can't identify and work with metaphors you really do have some sort of autism. I'm serious.
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>>8623288
No, it's Dante who's autistic.
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>>8621513
I got one for you, OP. Maybe you're just autistic?
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>>8623342
if you can't into similes and metaphors, maybe literature isn't for you.
but seriously what the other anon said about Virgil, the Bible and historical context is good advice.
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I read up until like the last ten cantos of Paradiso and then never picked it up again. It seems to get more simplistic thematically and more abstract and challenging poetically which I didn't really like. The huge political focus in Paradiso really turned me off.
Should probably finish it, Inferno was by far the best of the three canticles.
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>>8623363
ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING AUTISIM. Do you realize how fucking disgusting and stupid you sound? And what game are you even talking about ? I think you revealed a little more about yourself then you should have. I understand the difference between metaphor and literal text why the hell do you make it sound like its some impossible feat? I'm geussing you probably have some difficulty with that. I imagined the woods in a very similar way as you this is exactly why the text made no sense! Woods can be dark, depressing and creepy looking but how the fuck does it make it savage , harsh and wild? You can get through creepy looking woods without it being that way. I've been on strolls in pitch black woods before at 3am and never has it been SAVAGE WILD HARSH. ALL IM TRYING TO SAY IS THAT THE MAN SOUNDS LIKE HE HAS NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT AND GAVE IT NO THOUGHT ANY FURTHER.
You're all a bunch of fucking pseudo intellectuals who think you are so superior and intelligent because of the works you have read and studied but in reality you're all a bunch of fucking assholes who waste your time with this nonsense written by people who also wasted their time on nonsense for the sake of fucking time wasting.
Fuck you all , I quit this shit board, this shit website and shitty literature. It's all useless shit that makes you feel like you're better then you actually are. You're all a bunch of fucking resentful meat bags that judge and curse people AUTISTIC AUTISTIC ohhhhhh I bet you fucks have questioned yourselves constantly if you really are autistic or not.
Go back to reading your marvelous books and shit posting your amazing intellectually rich stimulating posts. Fucking faggots. Fuck you I'm out and never coming back to you pathetic miserable fools.
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>>8623405
You stopped ten cantos from the end of the Comedy?? Good grief. I found the end breathtaking and profound.
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>>8623418
THE WOODS CONTAIN BEARS. BEARS ARE WILD, SAVAGE, AND HARSH. EVEN IF DANTE DOESN'T SEE A BEAR, THE WOODS GIVE OFF THE FEELING OF WILD SAVAGE HARSHNESS. NOT THAT HARD.
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>>8623418
>I bet you fucks have questioned yourselves constantly if you really are autistic or not.
true, desu
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>>8623418
Calm down, anon, please. Look, just because you've never been in a forest you would personally describe as harsh, wild, or savage doesn't mean Dante is an idiot. A wild overgrown wood is a perfectly reasonable description, and harsh is a common descriptor of weather (a harsh cold wind). Savage isn't used as much in that sense, but his words--"esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte" describe a forest with wild animals lurking in it, which he meets almost immediately. Mandelbaum translates the line as "that savage forest, dense and difficult," so the emphasis is on how hard Dante is working to move through this terrain at night. If you've gone through woods with lots of underbrush and tight trees in the dark, it's a familiar sentiment. Anyway, if you don't want to read Dante, don't worry about it. Maybe pick him up in a decade to see if you're still so easily put off.
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>>8623449
Yours is a calm, excellent set of suggestions and thoughts. I look back at my response and regret it was not more like yours. I read the ones with all the anger and noise, and while I avoided yelling AUTISM, I called "ADHD" and "idiotic", though I didn't aim the terms directly at him, only with conditionals.
The point being your prudence in looking to communicate a point or lesson before flaming, aggrandizing your own ego, or joining in the circlejerk trolldown is well-appreciated, and I'll seek to speak like you more often in the future.
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>>8623449
he's not wrong, though
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>>8623562
Well, thank you. I've been teaching undergrad literature for a decade now, so angry or dismissive reactions to classics are something I do have to deal with at times.
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>>8623418
A new copypasta?
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>>8623629
I agree
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>>8623629
Genuine autism always has an al dente texture.
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>>8623583
What are some of your favorite works?
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>>8622137
If you're stupid enough to write "validation for your stupidity", and you don't see the obvious mistake in your writing, then you've no buisness declaring others to be stupid.
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UPDATE: >>8621513
I will read the whole work and share my thoughts if they have changed. If anyone even cares.
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>>8624548
That sounds great. Even just reading Inferno (a decent annotated version like Mandelbaum) would be an accomplishment.
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purgatory is harder to read and paradise is just... omg what i have just read and what it is supposed to mean :3
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>>8624548
I've just been lurking this thread, but I'd be interested to hear what you think. While I might not agree with all your opinions, I respect the fact that you're thinking for yourself rather than just accepting what other people say, that you came back to the thread despite being angry, and that you're still willing to give Inferno a chance.
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poetry doesn't translate
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>>8623288
>I've traveled to all sorts of woods, day and night. And I have never come across one that is the way he describes it. Maybe it's a bad translation but "how hard it is to say what that wood was, a wilderness, savage, brute, harsh and wild."
>How can a wood be savage, harsh or wild? And before that he says that he merely only woke up and everything was blurred and lost. Maybe an experience of the wilderness can be those things but the woods itself can never be that, it makes no sense for me. This caused me too lose interest in this work that everyone holds so highly but I kept going forward and it just kept getting worse and more dull.
Autism confirmed
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>>8623288
>I've traveled to all sorts of woods, day and night. And I have never come across one that is the way he describes it. Maybe it's a bad translation but "how hard it is to say what that wood was, a wilderness, savage, brute, harsh and wild."
>How can a wood be savage, harsh or wild?
how aristotle writes about it:
>(1) The poet being an imitator just like the painter or other maker of likenesses, he must necessarily in all instances represent things in one or other of three aspects, either as they were or are, or as they are said or thought to be or to have been, or as they ought to be. (2) All this he does in language, with an admixture, it may be, of strange words and metaphors, as also of the various modified forms of words, since the use of these is conceded in poetry.
you can write a poem yourself, protesting against calling the woods 'brute' and 'savage'
something about how you traveled woods day and night and never seen them brute and savage but felt how they silently cried for being perceived as such because they want to be liked too :3
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>how can a wood be wild
I'm bringing back /10 ratings just for this, 3/10
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>>8623288
Are you memeing us? You must be memeing us.
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>>8623418
>has never been in sub 32° fahrenheight woods for days on end without sleep. That's pretty savage m80.
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>>8623308
Well, you're expecting the book to be a pretty, empty painting. When you engage with great authors you have to accept the work on its own terms and try to figure out what the author was up to. Also, Dante was Italian, so it's more accurate to say that your translation sucks. The Italian one rhymes the whole way.
I know that during baby's first trip into edge land he assumes there is objectively "good" writing, but if you can't find anything in Dante you can be sure you wouldn't recognize it even if you found it.
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>>8623418
Saved. Well done lads
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>>8623288
T U R B O P L E B
U
R
B
O
P
L
E
B
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The woods are wild, man.
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read the pinsky translation, it is by far the best one.
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>>8627072
>verse translations
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>>8627086
>>>>>>>>>"""prose""" translations
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>>8625238
I'm thinking of getting Mandelbaum's version.
>>8625448
What made me angry was the fact that anons here were being very close-minded despite my opinion being very clear. They defended their opinion and rejected to recognize mine simply because it did not correlate with their own and that of the people that influenced the formation of that opinion (teachers, other anons, reviews, etc) Ive enjoyed many classics although this one doesn't seem to resonate with me. Anyhow, I will try to finish it and post a complete opinion.
>>8625702
Yeah this is a great post. I began too see the pattern of how anons here are looking at this issue from a singular narrow perspective that is their own. Aristotle said it perfectly >either as they were or are, or as they are said or thought to be or to have been. The woods were described as they were thought to be and not as they are. This discredited all of Dantes writing for me. Although I also understand now how it is hopeless to expect any form of realism in a story about a man who travels to hell.
>>8625785
I have. Camping is a hobby of mine.
>>8626607
I dident post the second post.
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>>8623418
>ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING AUTISIM. Do you realize how fucking disgusting and stupid you sound? And what game are you even talking about ? I think you revealed a little more about yourself then you should have. I understand the difference between metaphor and literal text why the hell do you make it sound like its some impossible feat? I'm geussing you probably have some difficulty with that. I imagined the woods in a very similar way as you this is exactly why the text made no sense! Woods can be dark, depressing and creepy looking but how the fuck does it make it savage , harsh and wild? You can get through creepy looking woods without it being that way. I've been on strolls in pitch black woods before at 3am and never has it been SAVAGE WILD HARSH. ALL IM TRYING TO SAY IS THAT THE MAN SOUNDS LIKE HE HAS NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT AND GAVE IT NO THOUGHT ANY FURTHER.
>You're all a bunch of fucking pseudo intellectuals who think you are so superior and intelligent because of the works you have read and studied but in reality you're all a bunch of fucking assholes who waste your time with this nonsense written by people who also wasted their time on nonsense for the sake of fucking time wasting.
>Fuck you all , I quit this shit board, this shit website and shitty literature. It's all useless shit that makes you feel like you're better then you actually are. You're all a bunch of fucking resentful meat bags that judge and curse people AUTISTIC AUTISTIC ohhhhhh I bet you fucks have questioned yourselves constantly if you really are autistic or not.
>Go back to reading your marvelous books and shit posting your amazing intellectually rich stimulating posts. Fucking faggots. Fuck you I'm out and never coming back to you pathetic miserable fools.
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>>8627125
But really translations that try to maintain rhyme are no good
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>>8627174
>The woods were described as they were thought to be and not as they are. This discredited all of Dantes writing for me. Although I also understand now how it is hopeless to expect any form of realism in a story about a man who travels to hell.
Christ neither of you get it, but you REALLY don't get it
Do you have any clue how insane a medieval forest would be? Every single woods you've ever been in has probably been cultivated to shit. Even so, the fact you don't believe woods in general can be wild is fucking AUTISTIC.
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>>8627333
I'm not going to get into this again.
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>>8621513
have to get a translated version with a lot of footnotes so you can understand all of the political references in it, otherwise there is no point in bothering with it
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>>8623288
>How can a wood be savage, harsh or wild? And before that he says that he merely only woke up and everything was blurred and lost. Maybe an experience of the wilderness can be those things but the woods itself can never be that, it makes no sense for me.
you realize he's in the woods that house the entrance to hell, right? did you expect a calm and shady forest with chipmunks and chirping birds?
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>>8623418
thsi guy for real?
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>>8627333
Gentlemen I think we have to go back and find these woods for ourselves
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>>8627695
you will meet some cool beasts there (a lion, a leopard and a she-wolf iirc) and can pet them freely with no ticket
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>>8627705
Thank you for referencing the work to show me that you read the text
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>>8623288
>how can a wood be savage harsh or wild
Try reading some frontier literature. Or watching nature docs. It's pretty obvious mate.
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>>8627715
mew
i committed quite a feat, i have read it completely all the three books
it wasn't easy, i felt light-headed when i read the third ><
it also made me read cross-dressing rape adventures of achilles on skyros because dante advertised that statius guy who wrote it pretty bad
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>>8623418
I'm gonna reply to you just to say I did.
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>>8623418
You're the hero 4chan deserves, but not the one it needs right now.
I love you OP.
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>valuing "realism"
Eh?
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why does /lit/ fall for bait so easily?
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>>8627846
I don't know, it's possible they are autistic
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It's a smear piece on people he didn't like and fanfiction which fkr some reason helped shape modern ideas of Hell.
Kind of reminds me of those "I went to hell for like ten minutes seriously I was there here is a five hundred page book on it gove christian money best seller oprah!!!!!"
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>>8623288
You do realise the woods were people, right? The suicides?
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>>8623418
witnessed
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>>8627867
0/8 u should go join them
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>>8623405
You missed out anon. The final cantos of Paradiso are some of the most breathtaking scenes in literature.
The love that moves the sun and all the other stars...
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>>8627865
>There are plebs on /lit/ who believe this
I'm going to go out on a limb and say you never did any secondary reading about the comedy. It's not considered first equal in the world of literature for nothing.
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>>8627333
>implying medieval woods weren't cultivated
woodlands would be farmed just like any other sort of land
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>>8622106
Penguin classics always have fucky names
The conquest of Gaul vs the Gallic wars
The campaigns of Alexander vs the anabasis of Alexander
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>>8627598
Bro. Real woods aren't like that, I went into the woods near my house once, Dante is full of shit.
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Damn, this thread iswild
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>>8627086
Did he die?
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>>8628228
kek
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>>8628216
They have a version that's titled the 'conventional' way. Belive it or not, the reasoning behind naming it inferno was because its what Dante would have wanted. Penguin classics is legit.
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So, i'll put this out first: i haven't read dantes inferno, but this thread is kinda rediclious. The OP being first stomped to the groud, then helped up and cuddled seems illogical.
Maybe it's the way people improve themseleves, but holy, OP your insights were closeminded, not the others, which were trolling mostly and right about you.
I'm just trying to give you some sort of reflection, so you can understand that your thoughts were insular. I know, when you have done a lot in some certain area, you don't wish for people to criticize your mind, though being open to other interpretations is the only way to allow growth.
Be more open OP.
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>>8628228
Haha
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>>8627867
Wrong woods. The Wood of suicides is Canto 13, deep in Hell.'s Seventh Circle.
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>>8623418
hey man it's okay
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>>8623288
>How can a wood be savage, harsh or wild?
...what? Have you only been to your local park?
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