It's interesting to see the thoughts of a foreign reader on Dante. I'm Italian so during the last three years of high school I studied one part per year (Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso). I recognize The Devine Comedy as one of the most fine work in literature but its main themes are deeply connected to Christianity/the Italian political situation in XIII-XIV centuries: I think people from other countries and cultures may find it difficult to approach the reading at first. What do you think?
I didn’t come across Dante until I studied the Renaissance in my degree. At school we focused on Shakespeare (as is to be expected in an English school). I found it difficult to read until I began to pick up on the main themes and references to different areas of the Catholic faith. It definitely helped that I’d already read the Bible and Paradise Lost.
I’ve often said to @nealc25 that I wish I could read Dante in the original Italian. I can tell that something is lost in the translation when I read it in English and I’d like to know what. There is also this Clive James translation which I saw in a bookshop recently which takes a modern approach to translating the text in a similar way to Seamus Heaney.
It’s interesting though, I get asked about The Divine Comedy more than any other book. It certainly has a following!