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The Divine Comedy
- Penguin Classics
- Narrated by: Jot Davies, Robin Kirkpatrick, Kristin Atherton
- Length: 17 hrs and 17 mins
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Publisher's summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide, his ascent of Mount Purgatory and his encounter with his dead love Beatrice, and finally, his arrival in Heaven.
Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption. This major translation is published here for the first time in a single volume.
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- Narrated by: Alan Cumming, Tim Curry, Simon Vance, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The modern audience hasn't had a chance to truly appreciate the unknowing dread that readers would have felt when reading Bram Stoker's original 1897 manuscript. Most modern productions employ campiness or sound effects to try to bring back that gothic tension, but we've tried something different. By returning to Stoker's original storytelling structure - a series of letters and journal entries voiced by Jonathan Harker, Dr. Van Helsing, and other characters - with an all-star cast of narrators, we've sought to recapture its originally intended horror and power.
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IS THAT NOT SO?
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 11-05-15
By: Bram Stoker
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Home Is Where the Bodies Are
- By: Jeneva Rose
- Narrated by: January LaVoy, Cassandra Campbell, Brittany Pressley, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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After their mother passes, three estranged siblings reunite to sort out her estate. Beth, the oldest, never left home. She stayed with her mom, caring for her until the very end. Nicole, the middle child, has been kept at arm’s length due to her ongoing battle with a serious drug addiction. Michael, the youngest, lives out of state and hasn’t been back to their small Wisconsin town since their father ran out on them seven years before.
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Perfect Audio.
- By Black Women Read Too on 05-19-24
By: Jeneva Rose
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Fahrenheit 451
- By: Ray Bradbury
- Narrated by: Tim Robbins
- Length: 5 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden. Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television "family."
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Wish I Hadn't Cliff Noted This in High School
- By Joel on 03-27-17
By: Ray Bradbury
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Frankenstein
- By: Mary Shelley
- Narrated by: Dan Stevens
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Narrator Dan Stevens ( Downton Abbey) presents an uncanny performance of Mary Shelley's timeless gothic novel, an epic battle between man and monster at its greatest literary pitch. In trying to create life, the young student Victor Frankenstein unleashes forces beyond his control, setting into motion a long and tragic chain of events that brings Victor to the very brink of madness. How he tries to destroy his creation, as it destroys everything Victor loves, is a powerful story of love, friendship, scientific hubris, and horror.
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ARE WE ALWAYS TO BE UNHAPPY?
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 01-28-16
By: Mary Shelley
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Blake Ritson, David Warner, Hattie Morahan and John Hurt star in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Dante's epic poem. Inferno: Thirty-five year old Dante finds himself in the middle of a dark wood, in extreme personal and spiritual crisis. Hope of rescue appears in the form of the venerable poet Virgil, now a shade himself, who offers to lead Dante on an odyssey through the afterlife, beginning in the terrifying depths of Hell.
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The Divine Comedy
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Renowned poet and critic Clive James presents the crowning achievement of his career: a monumental translation into English verse of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and this translation - decades in the making - gives us the entire epic as a single, coherent and compulsively listenable lyric poem. Written in the early 14th century and completed in 1321, the year of Dante’s death, The Divine Comedy is perhaps the greatest work of epic poetry ever composed.
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Brilliant!
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By: Clive James - translator, and others
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The Divine Comedy
- By: Dante Alighieri, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - translator
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
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Dante's Divine Comedy is considered to be not only the most important epic poem in Italian literature, but also one of the greatest poems ever written. It consists of 100 cantos, and (after an introductory canto) they are divided into three sections. Each section is 33 cantos in length, and they describe how Dante and a guide travel through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
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Not for listening.
- By Larry on 03-13-11
By: Dante Alighieri, and others
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Dante's Divine Comedy
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- Length: 17 hrs and 41 mins
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Dante Alighieri was early in recognizing that our age has a problem. His hometown, Florence, was at the epicenter of the move from the medieval world to the modern. The Divine Comedy was born in a time of troubling transition, which is why it still speaks today. In this narrative retelling and guide, from the gates of hell, up the mountain of purgatory, to the empyrean of paradise, Mark Vernon offers a vivid introduction and interpretation of a book that, 700 years on, continues to open minds and change lives.
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An Inversion of Dante
- By A.B.D. on 09-24-22
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The Divine Comedy
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- By: Dante Alighieri
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- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
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Dante Alighieri's poetic masterpiece is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise-the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation. One of the greatest works in literature, Dantes story-poem is an allegory that represents mankind as it exposes itself, by its merits or demerits, to the rewards or the punishments of justice.
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OK
- By Tad Davis on 05-22-09
By: Dante Alighieri
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The Divine Comedy
- By: Dante Alighieri
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
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One of the greatest works in literature, Dante's story-poem is an allegory that represents mankind as it exposes itself, by its merits or demerits, to the rewards or the punishments of justice. A single listen will reveal Dante's visual imagination and uncanny power to make the spiritual visible.
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Almost Divine
- By whynot? on 02-07-08
By: Dante Alighieri
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The Divine Comedy
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Blake Ritson, David Warner, Hattie Morahan and John Hurt star in this BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Dante's epic poem. Inferno: Thirty-five year old Dante finds himself in the middle of a dark wood, in extreme personal and spiritual crisis. Hope of rescue appears in the form of the venerable poet Virgil, now a shade himself, who offers to lead Dante on an odyssey through the afterlife, beginning in the terrifying depths of Hell.
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- By Adeliese Baumann on 10-21-16
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The Divine Comedy
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- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Renowned poet and critic Clive James presents the crowning achievement of his career: a monumental translation into English verse of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and this translation - decades in the making - gives us the entire epic as a single, coherent and compulsively listenable lyric poem. Written in the early 14th century and completed in 1321, the year of Dante’s death, The Divine Comedy is perhaps the greatest work of epic poetry ever composed.
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Brilliant!
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The Divine Comedy
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Dante's Divine Comedy is considered to be not only the most important epic poem in Italian literature, but also one of the greatest poems ever written. It consists of 100 cantos, and (after an introductory canto) they are divided into three sections. Each section is 33 cantos in length, and they describe how Dante and a guide travel through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
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Not for listening.
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By: Dante Alighieri, and others
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- Length: 17 hrs and 41 mins
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Overall
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An Inversion of Dante
- By A.B.D. on 09-24-22
By: Mark Vernon
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The Divine Comedy
- The Inferno, The Purgatorio, & The Paradiso
- By: Dante Alighieri
- Narrated by: Pam Ward
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Dante Alighieri's poetic masterpiece is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise-the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation. One of the greatest works in literature, Dantes story-poem is an allegory that represents mankind as it exposes itself, by its merits or demerits, to the rewards or the punishments of justice.
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OK
- By Tad Davis on 05-22-09
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Almost Divine
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The Inferno
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The epic grandeur of Dante's masterpiece has inspired readers and listeners for 700 years and has entered the human imagination. But the further we move from the late medieval world of Dante, the more a rich understanding and enjoyment of the poem depends on knowledgeable guidance.
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Into Hell
- By Adam on 10-25-19
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The Divine Comedy
- By: Dante Alighieri
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The Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed in 1320, a year before his death in 1321. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is representative of the medieval worldview as it had developed in the Western Church by the 14th century. It helped establish the Tuscan language, in which it is written, as the standardized Italian language. It is divided into three parts.
By: Dante Alighieri
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Dante's Inferno
- A Study on Part I of The Divine Comedy
- By: Anthony Esolen PhD
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- Length: 4 hrs and 38 mins
- Original Recording
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With Professor Esolen you will enter the terrible gates of Hell and progress level by infernal level to its diabolical depths. Professor Esolen places a special emphasis on the drama of the poem, leading you through each canto in succession. Professor Esolen will more than satisfy your curiosity about Hell and the fate of the damned. He will reveal in all its starkness the horror of sin and awaken in your heart a longing for divine love.
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THIS IS A LECTURER
- By Amazon Customer on 05-22-21
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The Divine Comedy: Inferno
- By: Dante Alighieri, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - translator
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 4 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The most famous of the three canticles that compose The Divine Comedy, "Inferno" describes Dante's descent into Hell midway through his life, with Virgil as a guide. As he descends through nine concentric circles of increasingly agonizing torture, Dante encounters doomed souls that include the pagan Aeneas, the liar Odysseus, the suicidal Cleopatra, and his own political enemies, damned for their deceit.
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This one needs a companion book
- By RYAN M OMAN on 08-30-20
By: Dante Alighieri, and others
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The Divine Comedy
- By: Dante Alighieri
- Narrated by: Jack Wynters
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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The Divine Comedy is Dante's record of his visionary journey through the triple realms of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. This, the first epic of which its author is the protagonist and his individual imaginings the content, weaves together the three threads of classical and Christian history, contemporary Medieval politics and religion, and Dante's own inner life including his love for Beatrice, to create the most complex and highly structured long poem extant.
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Abandon all hope
- By Julian on 02-28-19
By: Dante Alighieri
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The Divine Comedy
- By: Dante Alighieri, Herbert A. Kenny - translator
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- Unabridged
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This unique poetic translation by Herbert A. Kenny, historian and poet, is the first that incorporates the Biblical, theological and historical allusions of the greatest poem im Christendom into the text itself. It can now be appreciated without a glossary or accompanying notes. Listen as the liquid lines take you through the horrors of the "Inferno", the mysteries of "Purgatorio" and the glories of "Paradiso".
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Built-in study guide
- By Tad Davis on 06-07-11
By: Dante Alighieri, and others
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The Divine Comedy
- By: Dante Alighieri
- Narrated by: Charles Armstrong
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Paradiso is the third and final part of The Divine Comedy, Dante's epic poem describing man's progress from hell to salvation. In it, the author progresses through nine concentric spheres of heaven. Corresponding with medieval astronomy, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn deal with the four cardinal virtues Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, and Temperance.
By: Dante Alighieri
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Inferno: From The Divine Comedy
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- Unabridged
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"Abandon all hope you who enter here." ( "Lasciate ogne speranza voi ch’intrate.") Dante’s Hell is one of the most remarkable visions in Western literature. An allegory for his and future ages, it is, at the same time, an account of terrifying realism. Passing under a lintel emblazoned with these frightening words, the poet is led down into the depths by Virgil and shown those doomed to suffer eternal torment for vices exhibited and sins committed on earth.
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The Best Inferno So Far
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By: Dante Alighieri, and others
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Paradise Lost & Paradise Regained
- By: John Milton
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 16 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Paradise Lost, along with its companion piece, Paradise Regained, remain the most successful attempts at Greco-Roman style epic poetry in the English language. Remarkably enough, they were written near the end of John Milton's amazing life, a bold testimonial to his mental powers in old age. And, since he had gone completely blind in 1652, 15 years prior to Paradise Lost, he dictated it and all his other works to his daughter.
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SELL YOUR SHIRT FOR THIS AUDIO BOOK!
- By thomas on 04-23-11
By: John Milton
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The Divine Comedy
- By: Dante Alighieri
- Narrated by: Alastair Cameron
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Dante's Divine Comedy is a mythical epic poem adventure in which Dante is guided through heaven, purgatory, and hell. Each after-life division is further divided. The sections of heaven are on different planets and stars, the sections of purgatory are divided along the upward journey of a mountain, and the levels of hell are an upside-down funnel composed of seven rings of punishment.
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beautiful
- By Josh on 08-20-17
By: Dante Alighieri
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Inferno
- The Divine Comedy, Book 1
- By: Dante Alighieri
- Narrated by: Joe Carlson
- Length: 5 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Have you ever heard the sounds of Hell? Felt the darkness and the ice? Tasted the burnt air on your tongue? Dante’s Inferno will give you a flavor of the wretchedness of sin that you will never forget. The images and action that bring you down into the very center of judgment and consequence, into that eternal realm of woe, will stick to the ribcages of your mind, and change the way you see the world, the devil, and your own flesh.
By: Dante Alighieri
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The Iliad of Homer
- By: Elizabeth Vandiver, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Vandiver
- Length: 6 hrs and 4 mins
- Original Recording
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For thousands of years, Homer's ancient epic poem the
Iliad has enchanted readers from around the world. When you join Professor Vandiver for this lecture series on the Iliad, you'll come to understand what has enthralled and gripped so many people. Her compelling 12-lecture look at this literary masterpiece -whether it's the work of many authors or the "vision" of a single blind poet - makes it vividly clear why, after almost 3,000 years, the
Iliad remains not only among the greatest adventure stories ever told but also one of the most compelling meditations on the human condition ever written.
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Vandiver never disappoints
- By Machteacher on 07-23-13
By: Elizabeth Vandiver, and others
What listeners say about The Divine Comedy
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- Anonymous
- 10-07-20
bravo! best dante on audible
amazing to finally have a decent contemporary translation of the divine comedy on audible. this is without a doubt the version you should listen to. very thankful for this existing. it's necessary to pair this with the great courses audio course on the divine comedy and some podcast episodes like "entitled opinions" two-part episode. and look at the Dore illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy while following along.
three points of feedback on the production (but none of these are dealbreakers):
it's necessary to listen to the introduction before listening to the book itself. they should've put the introduction at the beginning instead of moving it to the end. it's not like there are spoilers in this book. they should've cut the very long introduction up into chapters within the audible app. right now it's all one: an hour and a half long section. but there are obvious subsections that should've been separated out so you can skip around or jump back to a specific topic within the introduction.
there should be a narrator that has a different accent/sounding voice than everyone else that reads the canto commentaries at the end of each canto. i know people who aren't familiar with this book think it disrupts the flow, but realistically nobody reads this book straight through. it's impossible. the canto commentaries are part of the fun. every pilgrim who picks up this book needs a guide/virgil. surprised the commentaries weren't included at all. they could've been stacked together at the end for listeners who want to jump back and forth.
the voices of the narrators go from loud to soft throughout. so on my car speakers, i kept on having to turn the volume up and then the volume down. the emotional performances and characters were wonderful. but sometimes it sounded like they were whispering and other times they were intense. good for drama, not so great for an audiobook.
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- stinkypete
- 08-11-24
I compare...
there can be no English standard of Dante - but if there could be this might be it
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- Anonymous User
- 01-21-22
Essential Reading
Dante’s Divine Comedy is essential reading for literature, theology, philosophy and history. The Penguin edition is a trusted classic and the audio version is excellent.
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- Tad Davis
- 11-15-20
Solid, read with gusto
I tried to read Kirkpatrick’s translation when all three parts were first published in one volume. It was a hard slog. I tend to gravitate toward translations that are written on a more consistently accessible level: less charitable people might describe them as “dumbed down.” I had recently finished reading Stanley Lombardo’s translation of the Comedy, which I think is NOT dumbed down, but which I found more immediately intelligible. With Kirkpatrick, I found myself having to stop and retrace my steps fairly often to parse the sentence I'd just read.
For whatever reason, I found this much less of a problem while listening to it. Part of it is the energy brought to the task by the excellent narrators Penguin has chosen for the task. But part of it is something I've noticed with other poetry that seems dense at first glance: it's like a mobile that lies flat on the table, but assumes a vivid, moving form when you hang it from the ceiling and let it spin in the air.
....up to a point. The simplest translating style in the world is going to make the third canticle, Paradise, a challenge for most modern readers. The other two parts are grounded in vivid descriptions of human suffering. But in Paradise, by definition, no one is suffering, so the space is filled up with increasingly abstract theological hair-splitting. The spectacular vision of the heavenly Rose and of the Trinity at the end of the journey is worth the price of admission, but it was hard for me, at least, to find a place to fasten onto in the meantime. Kirkpatrick appears to be following the conscientious translator’s maxim that his English rendering should be as simple as Dante’s Italian, but not one bit simpler.
The big disadvantage of listening to the Comedy, as opposed to reading it, is that you don't have access to the hundreds of notes that accompany the text and explain Dante’s many allusions to contemporary politics, classical mythology and other areas of learning. It doesn't appear that Penguin is participating in the Kindle read-along program, but this title would be a good candidate for it. (If you tackle this as your first try at the Divine Comedy, you should definitely have a copy of the Penguin text to follow. You could then stop between each canto and check the notes for what you've just heard.)
The introduction is placed at the end of the recording, presumably to avoid “spoilers.” I'm in favor of trying to read the work before reading the introduction, but how the concept of spoilers could apply to the Divine Comedy baffles me. So, spoilers: Dante gets through hell and purgatory, meets Beatrice, gets a tour of heaven, has a vision of the Trinity, and ends the poem abruptly at that point. (Curiously, at the time I listened to the audiobook, the introduction, which is nearly two hours long, was bundled into the single track labeled “End Credits.”)
Wherever it's placed, Kirkpatrick’s introduction — read by himself — is marked by great clarity. It provides the historical background of Florentine politics and Dante’s place in that world; the place of Italy in the rivalry between the Holy Roman Empire and the nation-states then rising in Europe; and most of all it provides a high-level exposition of the Comedy itself. Dante is writing an epic, he says, but he remains a poet of love. The introduction is rounded off with an exploration of the technical problems involved in translating Dante.
Penguin has gone to quite a bit of trouble to put this together with different narrators. In this case, Jot Davies takes on the main burden as the Pilgrim and the voices of the people Dante meets along the way; Kristin Atherton is Beatrice; and the translator, Robin Kirkpatrick, takes the role of Virgil (and acquits himself well, leading me to suspect he's had professional training in the spoken arts). The overall direction seems to have been: read it with GUSTO. I don’t think there are any other recordings of the poem that put so much feeling into the reading, or so much variety into the voices: it’s hard to believe at times that there are only three narrators.
My one and only complaint is one that applies to a couple of the Penguin offerings. The volume sometimes varies beyond the level of comfort: the pilgrim’s narration drops off into a whisper until he encounters one of the denizens of the afterlife, whose voice suddenly screeches out at top volume. This doesn't happen all the time, just sometimes, so it's not really a deal-breaker, just an occasional annoyance.
On the whole, this is one of the best Penguin Classics offerings I've encountered in their new series of unabridged recordings.
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15 people found this helpful
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- G Man
- 01-07-21
Rating of narration only...
Note: this is now the fourth time I’ve read the The Divine Comedy. (And fourth translation as well.) It is still my favorite book of all-time. But I struggled to get anything out of this particular version of the book. The narration was so bad!
Now I like when there are multiple narrators, and in this here we even have the translator, Robin Kirkpatrick, lending his voice to the story. Although his voice is not at all the embodiment of Virgil that I would have had in my head I can certainly appreciate him wanting to take up that part, and think it’s cool. He even does a fine job. Likewise, Kristin Atherton who does all the female voices.
No, my problem is with the lead voice actor. I had to speed up the playback to 1.3x just to bring his tempo and enunciation up to normal speed! Yes, this meant the other voices were a little too fast but there are many many moments where the lead actor is too slow! And his performance is akin to one “hamming it up” - except here it’s not done in jest but in all seriousness. It’s so overly dramatic it’s excruciating to listen to. I did not think I would ever want to hear a book read in a droning tone but if presented with that alternative I would have easily chosen it! A hundred times I practically wanted to scream out loud, ‘ Just read the #@&%ing thing!’
Also of note: this is the first version I’ve read/heard that did not have the chapter headings. In previous readings I’d always wondered if they were necessary or even wanted. But I can now say that the answer to both is definitely, “Yes!”. They’re needed to help keep one’s bearings; to help us understand or remind us what circle or plane, etc we are currently on.
The introduction - which was put at the end of the audiobook - makes this translation valuable, but it is my suggestion that buyers get the physical book instead of this audio version.
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7 people found this helpful