Dante's Mount of Purgatory

Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.0

Word count: 314K words
Chapters: 32

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Dante's Louteringsberg by Dante Alighieri. Author: Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321. Language: Dutch. Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese. Release Date: Mar 17, 2012

Editor's review

This is a Dutch translation of the Purgatorio from Dante's Divine Comedy, released as an ebook by Project Gutenberg. For readers studying Dante's reception in non-Italian Europe, it offers a freely accessible sample of an early translation in Dutch, a public-domain resource. Its value lies less in the literary standing of the translation itself than in its use as material for textual bibliography and translation history: one can observe how a nineteenth- or early twentieth-century Dutch translator handled Dante's terza rima, allusions, and theological vocabulary. It suits reading on a computer or e-reader alongside the Italian original or an English translation, and is also appropriate for library digital collections. Note that this is an electronically reset edition, not a scholarly critical edition, with no detailed notes or introduction; it is therefore better suited to readers who already have some grounding in Dante and wish to compare languages than to beginners reading straight through.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Scholars studying the history and reception of Dutch translations of Dante
Dante readers who need a free public-domain translation for comparative reading
Libraries collecting multilingual classics ebooks from Project Gutenberg
Dutch-reading readers interested in the Purgatorio of the Divine Comedy

Not a good fit for

General readers seeking a Chinese or English translation of Dante
Beginners to the Divine Comedy who need detailed notes and a scholarly introduction
Readers unfamiliar with Dutch and without a parallel text

Reading tips

Read background on the Purgatorio first, then compare chapter by chapter with the Italian original or an English translation.
Import the ebook into a reader that supports dictionary lookup, and note unfamiliar archaic Dutch words as you go.
Pair it with other Project Gutenberg translations of Dante in different languages to compare renderings of the same passage.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this a Chinese translation?

No. According to the metadata, the language is Dutch; it is a Dutch translation of the Purgatorio from Dante's Divine Comedy, released by Project Gutenberg.

Does this book include notes or an introduction?

The metadata does not mention notes or an introduction. As a Project Gutenberg electronic text, it consists mainly of the translation itself, with limited scholarly apparatus, and is not suitable for readers who depend on annotations.

Why is the title Louteringsberg?

Louteringsberg is the Dutch name for the mountain of Purgatory, the central setting of the second part of Dante's Divine Comedy, the mountain where souls are purified.

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About the author

Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321 Author

Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) is one of the most important poets in the history of Italian literature, renowned for the Divine Comedy. The library holds 61 of his works, including multiple editions and translations of the Divine Comedy, such as Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Publicly available information about the details of his life is limited, so no speculation is offered here. His writing is distinguished by a grand narrative structure and a profound symbolic system, often presenting a first-person journey through the three realms and weaving medieval theology, philosophy, and political thought into verse. His language is concise and rich in imagery, and his works have had a far-reaching influence on later European literature, widely regarded as foundational to Italian literary language.