Danteworlds: A Reader’s Guide to the Inferno (University of Chicago Press, 2007)

This is the first guide to Dante’s Inferno to take readers on a geographic journey through the poet’s underworld—not canto by canto but circle by circle, similar to how Dante and Virgil proceed in their infernal descent. The heart of Danteworlds is an original commentary arranged according to the physical layout of Dante’s Hell. Each chapter (or “region”) of the book, from the “Dark Wood” down to the ninth circle of Hell, begins with a summary of the action and contains detailed entries followed by significant verses and useful study questions.

The entries, based on a close examination of the poet’s sources (biblical, classical, and medieval) in addition to the most up-to-date scholarship, treat the characters and creatures encountered by Dante on his journey as well as a vast array of references to religion, philosophy, history, politics, and literature. For news of people and events from Dante’s time and place, Danteworlds provides information and entertaining anecdotes drawn from the poem’s earliest commentators. The book’s critical methodology is grounded in the conviction that there is no substitute for revisiting and analyzing the primary sources (in the original languages) from the ancient world to the late Middle Ages that fired Dante’s imagination and for examining closely how he fashioned this material into a literary masterpiece.

Reviews

Throughout, Raffa finds ways to provide context and clues that encourage the reader to return to Dante’s poem for a fresh look. The book, therefore, is not only useful for first-time readers, but also for those who regularly teach the Comedy to such readers. – The Medieval Review

 . . . it does a remarkable job of conveying a great deal of information as well as a lively sense of the richness, interest, and relevance of the Inferno. – Speculum