Volume 4 of Indiana's six-volume edition of Dante's Divine Comedy consists of Mark Musa's extensive commentary on the Purgatory. Enlightening for the general reader as well as the student of Italian or comparative literature. Volume 3 is the companion volume, a dual-language edition of Dante's Purgatory.
Situated between the horrors of the Inferno and the theological complexities of the Paradiso, the Purgatory is the most human of the canticles of the Divine Comedy. This edition reprints an extensively revised version of Musa's 1981 translation (Indiana Univ.), supplemented with a detailed modern textual commentary. Musa (Italian, Indiana Univ.) has also translated and published on Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Machiavelli. This translation is accurate, if a bit stiff. Though using a three-line stanza, he does not attempt Dante's terza rima. Drawing heavily on Umberto Bosco and Giovanni Reggio, Musa's commentary is solid, explaining the theological, historical, and literary aspects of Dante's lines, as well as the shades of meaning in his language, in a manner suitable for readers without Italian. Recommended, when it appears in a less expensive edition.
-Thomas L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, GA
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