>>7834799
Play Dante's Inferno.

I'm not even meming, you'll gain a decent amount of foundational knowledge if you can get past the horrible gameplay mechanics

>>7834812

thanks boss

>>7834799
Do a little background reading on why the Divine Comedy was novel for being written in Tuscan rather than Latin. Dante wrote an interesting tract on the subject... the name escapes me.

I have the version you posted OP. Its pretty good, though I kinda wish I went with the Ciardi version because its more poetic and for the better notes.

>>7835061
De vulgari eloquentia? Anyway I don't think that's necessary. A bit of historical background would be great however.

>>7835083
I don't think it is essential to read before the divine comedy, but it's worth reading a little wiki article just to be aware of how radical the Comedy was for its time.

Bloom recommends John D. Sinclair for prose and Laurence Binyon for poetry.

>Reading Dante in translation is rarely a good experience. Even the best recent versions are not as effective as the John Sinclair prose rendering in giving you an Englished Dante.

I bought the Oxford worlds classics edition without thinking and have no idea what I'm in for. I'm currently listening to a dramaticised audio book version (LibriVox) which I'm finding considerably difficult to follow.

I need to familiarize myself with older English more.

>>7835115
It's difficult to follow because it's all about meeting people from mythology and Italian history and politics and you need notes to tell you who these people are.

>>7834818
Daniel Bourke?

>>7834812
Musa is not that bad

>>7834812

I'm a big fan of the Durling-Martinez versions. I learnt Italian so I could read the Commedia in its original form but the notes are thorough, the prose is good for when trecento Tuscan is a bit incomprehensible/the denser bits of Paradiso

>>7835124
That wasn't really what I found hard to follow, actually those parts grounded me more than anything. The language was hard to follow for me. Hopefully through exposing myself to more of it I'll get better with it. I'm very ignorant of Shakespeare as well so I intend on buckling down and actively reading some Shakespeare in the near future.

>>7835288
Chart says Musa is fine just not standout.

>>7835255

Nope

>>7835083
>>7835092

Thanks, noted.