Annual Dante Reading

A few years back I decided I would read Dante at the midpoint of each year. The first line of Dante's Inferno begins:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
(In the middle of this road we call our lives)

There the pilgrim finds himself (mi ritrovai) in a dark wood, and there begins his journey towards understanding and salvation. So the middle of the year seemed to be a fitting time to read the great poet. I have read The Inferno several times (various translations) and last year I worked my way through The Purgatorio and part of the way through The Paradiso.

On July 1 of this year I began to read Daniel Halpern's edition of The Inferno which is translated by 20 contemporary poets. I am in the middle of Canto XXIX. I am proceeding straight through the text without looking up the references. Many of them I recall from previous readings, but many more still prove obscure enough to warrant digging into the scenes behind the words. It is interesting to hear the fresh voices of these poets translating Dante's text.

After I finish Halpern's book I plan to make a fresh start on The Paradiso with a reading of Jean and Robert Hollander's translation.

Busy days these days, but I'm finding time to read on the bus---and here and there.