Part of: The Divine Comedy, in 3 vols. (Langdon trans.) The Divine Comedy, Vol. 2 (Purgatorio) (English only trans.)

Dante’s masterwork is a 3 volume work written in Italian rather than Latin. It embraces human individuality and happiness in a way which suggests the beginning of the Renaissance. This is a bilingual Italian and English edition. Vol. 2 Purgatorio (Purgatory) shows how souls might be perfected in a painful process which leads ultimately to one’s moral development and improvement.

  • EBook PDF
    This text-based PDF or EBook was created from the HTML version of this book and is part of the Portable Library of Liberty.
  • ePub
    ePub standard file for your iPad or any e-reader compatible with that format
  • Kindle
    This is an E-book formatted for Amazon Kindle devices.

Citation

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. The Italian Text with a Translation in English Blank Verse and a Commentary by Courtney Langdon, vol. 2 (Purgatorio) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920).

Category:

Related Collections:

Related People

St. Thomas Aquinas (Author)

Aquinas’s synthesis of Christian theology and Aristotelian philosophy was foundational for the early Renaissance, and for Dante’s blend of the classical and the contemporary. He also provided the classic formulation of the doctrine of Purgatory, obviously central to the this portion of Dane’s epic poem.
Virgil (Author)

The great Roman poet, Virgil serves both as a model for Dante’s verse and themes, and also as a character in Dante’s great epic.

Francesco Petrarch (Author)

It is not an exaggeration to say that Petrarch invented the Renaissance. His longing for his idealized beloved, “Laura,” provided a model for Dante’s adoration of Beatrice.

Critical Responses

Book

The Birth of Purgatory

Jacques Le Goff

Jacques LeGoff’s classic of medieval history traces the development and increasing popularity of the idea of purgatory. LeGoff makes the case that the idea of purgatory is not just a theological notion, but a sign of a shift in the social and intellectual world of the Middle Ages.

MORE

Connected Readings

Book

The English Works, vol. X (Iliad and Odyssey)

Homer

Homer’s Iliad

Homer’s Illiad, one of the world’s great epic poems, tells the story of the Trojan war. Like the Aeneid, it includes a voyage to the underworld, and other hallmarks of the epic that Dante consciously adopts for his Divine Comedy.

MORE

The Parallel Bible. Old and New Testaments (KJV and Revised Version)

Old Testament (Various Authors)

The influence of the Bible on Dante’s epic nearly goes without saying. It is interesting to note, however, how little discussion of heaven and hell are contained in the Bible, and how much Dante creates on his own.The Bible, for example, contains no explicit discussion of Purgatory, the location…

MORE