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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Listings for Author:  

Dante Alighieri

  

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Dante Alighieri : [Divina Commedia]

[Marginalia]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Inferno

Letter H 21 - 12/11/1855 - "-The common - pretty - timid - mistletoe bought kind of kiss was not what Dante meant. Rossetti has thoroughly understood the passage throughout. You will see that in the first of the series it is really not Francesca's fault. She is nearly fainting and cannot help it."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : 

Letter H. 28 - 23/12/1855 - "You have Carey's Dante I suppose - else Matilda's quotation from the Psalms might be useless to you. Carey is on the whole the best - and very beautiful. Cayley is sometimes closer to the original."

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : 

"Why do you say that I don't like Dante? I read him through with the help of your crib & was profoundly impressed."

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : unknown

'It occurred to me lately to read Dante again &, as I required a crib very constantly I took yours & by its help went through the whole. It suggested to me innumerable speculations upon which I should have liked to ask your questions? I should have liked to know, to suggest only one question, what Dante himself really believed? That is, of course, unanswerable; but I should like to get a little nearer to an answer at all conceivable to me.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Divina Commedia

" ... it was whilst at a frivolous, rote-learning girls' school that ... [Frances Power Cobbe] developed her determined, methodical aproach [to reading] ... She read all the Faerie Queene, all of Milton's poetry, the Divina Commedia and Gerusalemme Liberata in the originals, and in translation the Iliad, Odyssey, Aenied, Pharsalia, and ... [nearly all] of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes, Ovid, Tacitus, Xenophon, Herodotus and Thucydides."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Frances Power Cobbe      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : The Divine Comedy (Purgatorio)

Fanny Kemble, 22 July 1831, following record of discussion with her aunt Dall in which the prospect was raised of her having to give up her career and personal wealth if she should marry: 'I took up Dante, and read about the devils boiled in pitch, which refreshed my imagination and cheered my spirits very much'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : The Divine Comedy

Fanny Kemble, 20 August 1832, on board ship to America: 'I have done more in the shape of work to-day, than any since the first two I spent on board; translated a German fable without much trouble, read a canto in Dante, ending with a valuation of fame.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Fanny Kemble      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : 

'As to what they read [at the Gower Street School in the 1880s] -- and [...] Lucy Harrison [headmistress] read aloud to them untiringly -- it must be what went deepest and lifted highest -- Shakespeare, Dante in Cary's translation, Blake, Wordsworth, and [...] [Miss Harrison's] own favourites, Emily Bronte, Christina Rossetti, the Brownings, Coventry Patmore [...] A reading which all [...] [Miss Harrison's] pupils heard often, and never forgot, was from Alice Meynell's "Preludes" of 1875 -- the sonnet "To a Daisy"'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Lucy Harrison, headmistress, Charlotte Mew, and other pupils at Gower Street school     Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

'Reading the "Purgatorio" again, and the "Compendium Revelationum" of Savonarola'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud]      Print: BookManuscript: Unknown

  

Dante Alighieri : unknown

'[B]e not thrown into wild delight because his genius has shone forth--misfortune & rage have occasioned this & whenever he may speak himself [underlined] Lord Byron will succeed--self is the sole inspirer of his genius he cannot like Homer Dante Virgil Milton Dryden Spencer Gray--Goldsmith [underlined] Tasso write on other subjects well[--]but what he feels he can describe extravagantly well--& therefore I never did doubt that he would one day or other write again as at first--but for God sake do not let this circumstance make you forget what a Rogue he is'.

Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Lady Caroline Lamb      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : La Vita Nuova

'Reading; First book of Lucretius, 6th book of the Iliad; Samson Agonistes, Warton's History of English Poetry; Grote 2nd vol; Marcus Aurelius; Vita Nuova; vol IV, Chapter 1 of the Politique positive; Guest on English Rhythms, Maurice's Lectures on Casuistry'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud.]      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

[Read] 'Purgatorio'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: George Eliot [pseud]      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : [probably] Inferno

'Read Dante'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : [probably] Inferno

'read Dante - finish Lambs specimens. walk to Mr Olliers. read Zapolya'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : [unknown]

'Shelley has finished the life of Tasso & reads Dante - read Pamela'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

'begin Clarissa Harlowe in Italian - S. reads and finishes Dante's Purgatorio'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Paradiso

'S. unwell - he reads the Paradiso'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Paradiso (Canto 1)

'Saturday [...] May 1st. [...] Read 1st Canto of Dante's Paradiso'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

'Sunday May 16th. Read 4 Canto's [sic] of Dante's Purgatorio.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio (Cantos 5, 6, 7, 8)

'Monday May 17th. [...] Read 5th. 6th. 7th. & 8 Canto of Dante's Purgatorio.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio (Cantos 9 and 10)

'Tuesday May 18th. [...] Read Alfieri's Tragedy of Mirra [...] Read 9 & 10th Canto of Dante's Purgatorio.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio (Cantos 11 and 12)

'Wednesday May 19th. [...] Read 11th. & 12th. Cantos of Purgatorio [...] '.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio (Cantos 13, 14, 15, 16)

'Thursday May 20th. Read 13th. 14th. 15th. & 16th Cantos of Dante's Purgatorio.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : [unknown]

'Read 7 Canto's of Dante - Begin to translate A.[lfieri] - Read Cajo Graccho of Monti & Measure for Measure'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

'Saturday Dec. 2nd. [...] Read 1 Canto of Purgatorio.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

'Wednesday Dec. 6th. [...] Read a Canto of Purgatorio.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Claire Clairmont      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : [unknown]

'Read Livy - Manfredi of Monti - Shelley writes - Read 8 Canto of Dante'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : [unknown]

'read 2 Canto's of Dante with Shelley - he reads Livy and Winkhelmann aloud'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary and Percy Shelley     Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : [unknown]

'Read Dante - S. reads Winkhelmann aloud'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Inferno

'Finish the Georgics - read 25th & 26th Cantos of Dante'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Inferno

'Finish the Inferno of Dante & the 9th book of Livy - S & I read Sismondi'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

'Read Sismondi - & the Purgatorio'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : [unknown]

'Since I left Rome I have read several books of Livy - Antenor - Clarissa Harlowe - The Spectator - a few novels - & am now reading the Bible & Lucan's Pharsalia - & Dante'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

'Write - read Lucan & the Bible S. writes the Cenci & reads Plutarch's lives - the Gisbornes call in the evening - S. reads Paradise Lost to me - Read 2 Cantos of the Purgatorio'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

'Write - Finish the 5th book of Lucan - Read the bible & with S. two Canto's of the Purgatorio'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy and Mary Shelley     Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : La Vita Nuova

'Dante's Vita Nuova'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : La Vita Nuova

'S. reads the vita nuova aloud to me in the evening'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Percy Bysshe Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : La Vita Nuova

'Finish the Vita Nuova.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : [unknown]

'Read Homer - Tacitus - Emile & 1 Canto of Dante'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Inferno

'Read 3rd Canto of l'Inferno'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Inferno

'You must be tired of my ugly handwriting - yet your book is so suggestive that one wants to talk about it - the more I read the more I am enchanted by it. - I have been struck however by your mention of Dante - which seems founded entirely on the Inferno - a poem I can only read bits of - the subject being to me so antipatetica but the Purgatorio & Paradiso - the Poet revels in beauty & joy there to the full as much as the horrors below - and some of his verses & even whole Cantos lap one in a gentle sort of Elysium - or carry one into the skies - Can anything be so wondrously poetical as the approach of the boat with souls from earth to Purgatory - Shelley's most favourite passage - the Angels guarding Purgatory from infernal spirits - the whole tone of hope - & the calm enjoyment of Matilda is something quite unearthly in its sweetness - & then the glory of Paradise - I do not rely on my own taste but the following verses appear to me to belong to the highest class of imagination; they occur in the last Canto of the Pardiso after the vision he has of beatitude -il mio veder fu maggio Che'l parlar nostro, ch'a tal vista cede. E cede la memoria al tanto oltraggio Quale e colui ch soguando vede, E dopo 'l sogno la passione impressa Rimane, e l'altro alla menta non riede Cotal son io, che quassi tutta cessa Mia visione, e ancor mi distila Nel cuor lo dolce, che nacque da essa. Cosi la neve al sole disigilla Cosi al vento nele foglie lievi Si perdea la sentenzia di Sibilla - Will you think me hypercritical about a most beautiful stanza of Keats - It was the sky lark not the nightingale that Ruth heard "amid the alien corn" - the sky lark soars and sings above the shearers perpetually - The nightingale sings at night - in shady places - & never so late in the season - May is her month - Excuse all this' [letter to Leigh Hunt]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

'You must be tired of my ugly handwriting - yet your book is so suggestive that one wants to talk about it - the more I read the more I am enchanted by it. - I have been struck however by your mention of Dante - which seems founded entirely on the Inferno - a poem I can only read bits of - the subject being to me so antipatetica but the Purgatorio & Paradiso - the Poet revels in beauty & joy there to the full as much as the horrors below - and some of his verses & even whole Cantos lap one in a gentle sort of Elysium - or carry one into the skies - Can anything be so wondrously poetical as the approach of the boat with souls from earth to Purgatory - Shelley's most favourite passage - the Angels guarding Purgatory from infernal spirits - the whole tone of hope - & the calm enjoyment of Matilda is something quite unearthly in its sweetness - & then the glory of Paradise - I do not rely on my own taste but the following verses appear to me to belong to the highest class of imagination; they occur in the last Canto of the Pardiso after the vision he has of beatitude -il mio veder fu maggio Che'l parlar nostro, ch'a tal vista cede. E cede la memoria al tanto oltraggio Quale e colui ch soguando vede, E dopo 'l sogno la passione impressa Rimane, e l'altro alla menta non riede Cotal son io, che quassi tutta cessa Mia visione, e ancor mi distila Nel cuor lo dolce, che nacque da essa. Cosi la neve al sole disigilla Cosi al vento nele foglie lievi Si perdea la sentenzia di Sibilla - Will you think me hypercritical about a most beautiful stanza of Keats - It was the sky lark not the nightingale that Ruth heard "amid the alien corn" - the sky lark soars and sings above the shearers perpetually - The nightingale sings at night - in shady places - & never so late in the season - May is her month - Excuse all this' [letter to Leigh Hunt]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Paradiso

'You must be tired of my ugly handwriting - yet your book is so suggestive that one wants to talk about it - the more I read the more I am enchanted by it. - I have been struck however by your mention of Dante - which seems founded entirely on the Inferno - a poem I can only read bits of - the subject being to me so antipatetica but the Purgatorio & Paradiso - the Poet revels in beauty & joy there to the full as much as the horrors below - and some of his verses & even whole Cantos lap one in a gentle sort of Elysium - or carry one into the skies - Can anything be so wondrously poetical as the approach of the boat with souls from earth to Purgatory - Shelley's most favourite passage - the Angels guarding Purgatory from infernal spirits - the whole tone of hope - & the calm enjoyment of Matilda is something quite unearthly in its sweetness - & then the glory of Paradise - I do not rely on my own taste but the following verses appear to me to belong to the highest class of imagination; they occur in the last Canto of the Pardiso after the vision he has of beatitude -il mio veder fu maggio Che'l parlar nostro, ch'a tal vista cede. E cede la memoria al tanto oltraggio Quale e colui ch soguando vede, E dopo 'l sogno la passione impressa Rimane, e l'altro alla menta non riede Cotal son io, che quassi tutta cessa Mia visione, e ancor mi distila Nel cuor lo dolce, che nacque da essa. Cosi la neve al sole disigilla Cosi al vento nele foglie lievi Si perdea la sentenzia di Sibilla - Will you think me hypercritical about a most beautiful stanza of Keats - It was the sky lark not the nightingale that Ruth heard "amid the alien corn" - the sky lark soars and sings above the shearers perpetually - The nightingale sings at night - in shady places - & never so late in the season - May is her month - Excuse all this' [letter to Leigh Hunt]

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

Wednesday 5 December 1917: 'L[eonard]. reading Life of Dilke [...] I'm past the middle of Purgatorio, but find it stiff, the meaning more than the language, I think.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : unknown

Saturday 31 July [entry headed 'My Own Brain,' and beginning 'Here is a whole nervous breakdown in miniature']: 'A desire to read poetry set in on Friday. This brings back a sense of my own individuality. Read some Dante & Bridges, without troubling to understand, but got pleasure from them.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Inferno

Wednesday 20 August 1930: 'I am reading Dante, & I say, yes, this makes all writing unnecessary [...] I read the Inferno for half an hour at the end of my own page [of current work]: & that is the place of honour'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : La Divina Commedia

Wednesday 24 September 1930: 'I am reading Dante; & my present view of reading is to elongate immensely. I take a week over one canto. No hurry.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Divine Comedy

Friday 27 November 1936, following lunch at Claridges with others including Sir Ronald Storrs: 'Sir R. Storrs. [...] stolid, second rate, a snob, & very vain [...] Reads seasonally: Dante: Homer: Shakespeare.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Sir Ronald Storrs      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett, 21 December 1845: 'Yesterday I was reading the "Purgatorio" and the first speech of the group of which Sordello makes one, struck me with a new purpose [goes on to quote, and to translate "off hand", lines 52-57 from Purgatorio V]'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Browning      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : De Vulgari Eloquentia

'Dante, De Vulgari Eloquentia 1309 (?) which I'd never read and now only have in translation, must have been written excitedly, and while Div[ina]. Com[media] was forming in his mind. What a pity it only deals with Canzone! [goes on to comment further on passages noted from text]'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Divine Comedy

'Johnson praised John Bunyan highly. "His 'Pilgrim's Progress' has great merit, both for invention, imagination, and the conduct of the story; and it has had the best evidence of its merit, the general and continued approbation of mankind. Few books, I believe, have had a more extensive sale. It is remarkable, that it begins very much like the poem of Dante; yet there was no translation of Dante when Bunyan wrote. There is reason to think that he had read Spenser".'

Century: 1700-1799     Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Inferno

'Throughout the autumn and winter evenings [of 1854] he [Alfred Tennyson] translated aloud to my mother the sixth Aeneid of Virgil and Homer's description of Hades, and they read Dante's Inferno together. Whewell's Plurality of Worlds he also carefully studied. "It is to me anything," he writes, "but a satisfactory book. It is inconceivable that the whole Universe was created merely for us who live in this third-rate planet of a third-rate sun."'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Alfred and Emily Tennyson     Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Divina Commedia: Inferno

From the 1806-1840 Commonplace book of an unknown reader. Under title 'Naples, 1826', C.M.G. describes the city and (mis)quotes a line from Dante, "Inferno," Canto 7: "Qui vid'i gente, piu che altrove troppa..."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: C.M.G. [anon]      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Divina Commedia

'In February 1896, seven titles were added to his [Oscar Wilde's] store. These were: Dante's "Divina commedia", accompanied by an Italian grammar and dictionary to help Wilde with the poem's medieval Italian; two massive folio volumes containing the entire surviving corpus of Greek and Latin poetry and drama; the equally weighty Liddell and Scott's "Greek Lexicon", and Lewis and Short's "Latin Dictionary". More Adey, the tranlator of Henrik Ibsen...procured the volumes and dispatched them to Reading.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Oscar Wilde      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Inferno

'I noticed in Dante today, the two lines, "quali dal vento &c." (Inferno, book 7th, 12) as curiously describing the moment chosen by Turner in the battle of Trafalgar.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: John Ruskin      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : La Vita Nuova

'W.S. Rowntree read a paper on Dante & Florence [,] H.R. Smith explained the Vita Nuova from which Mrs W.H. Smith & Mrs Edminson read selections'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Smith      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : La Vita Nuova

'W.S. Rowntree read a paper on Dante & Florence [,] H.R. Smith explained the Vita Nuova from which Mrs W.H. Smith & Mrs Edminson read selections'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Edminson      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : La Vita Nuova

'W.S. Rowntree read a paper on Dante & Florence [,] H.R. Smith explained the Vita Nuova from which Mrs W.H. Smith & Mrs Edminson read selections'.

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Howard R. Smith      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Inferno

'Miss Marriage explained fully with aid of diagrams, Dante's progress through the Inferno, selections from which were read by other members. Mr Edminson read a paper on the Purgatorio which was also supplemented with readings by various members. A. Rawlings gave a few selections from Plumtree's [sic] notes on Dante, concerning the Paradiso.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Mebers of XII Book Club     Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

'Miss Marriage explained fully with aid of diagrams, Dante's progress through the Inferno, selections from which were read by other members. Mr Edminson read a paper on the Purgatorio which was also supplemented with readings by various members. A. Rawlings gave a few selections from Plumtree's [sic] notes on Dante, concerning the Paradiso.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Members of XII Book Club     Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Purgatorio

'Miss Marriage explained fully with aid of diagrams, Dante's progress through the Inferno, selections from which were read by other members. Mr Edminson read a paper on the Purgatorio which was also supplemented with readings by various members. A. Rawlings gave a few selections from Plumtree's [sic] notes on Dante, concerning the Paradiso.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Frederick Edminson      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Inferno

'Miss Marriage explained fully with aid of diagrams, Dante's progress through the Inferno, selections from which were read by other members. Mr Edminson read a paper on the Purgatorio which was also supplemented with readings by various members. A. Rawlings gave a few selections from Plumtree's [sic] notes on Dante, concerning the Paradiso.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Miss Marriage      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : 

Harriet, Countess Granville to her sister, Lady Carlisle, 25 November 1829: 'We have a quantity of leisure here, and go on in a spirited manner with Dante. I am now reading a book that interests and enchants me, Sumner's "Records of the Creation."'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Granville family     Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Divine Comedy

'Italian quite comes up to K's promises about its easiness and on Sunday I read the first 200 lines of Dante with much success. By the end of term I should be able to read it as easily as French.'

Century: 1900-1945     Reader/Listener/Group: Clive Staples Lewis      Print: Book

  

Dante Alighieri : Inferno

'David Watson, M.A. of St. Andrews University, used to spend every spare moment of his day and whole Sundays on end with this writer [Ford] standing beside him at his pulpit and construing for him every imaginable kind of book from “Ataxerxes” of Madame de Scudéry and “Les Enfants de [sic] Capitaine Grant” by Jules Verne, to ode after ode of Tibullus, Fouqué’s “Udine”, all of the “Inferno”, the greater part of “Lazarillo de Tormes” and “Don Quixote” in the original[…] In addition, Mr. Watson had this writer translate for him orally into French “The Two Admirals”, “The Deerslayer”, and “The Last of the Mohicans”—which made this writer appreciate what a magnificent prose writer Cooper was.’

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Ford Madox Ford      Print: Book

  

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