A review of the Hollander Dante

. . . the emotional world of the Purgatorio is one that we understand. The souls in Purgatory are sorry for their sins, and they are in pain—they have to walk through flames and the like—but they are also happy, because they are on their way to Heaven and their companions are coming with them. The emotion, basically, is Christian fellowship, or, to put it in secular terms, a cross between love and wisdom. Such mellow climes of feeling were not Dante’s home territory—he was more interested in the agony and the ecstasy—but he makes them present to us, and moving.

From The New Yorker of 9.03.07

Cloud Nine

A new translation of the Paradiso.

by Joan Acocella