i'm reading dante's inferno in pinsky's verse translation, because i am semi-voluntarily teaching it to freshmen. as every time before into dante, i start by saying: obviously this is important and this time i'm going to get something out of it. and as every time, i am ending by slogging through in boredom and irritation. it's interesting as a "renaissance" document, in its attempt to reconcile christian theology and a pagan worldview, although it conspicuously refuses to take up any of the actual issues and tensions this raises. it strikes me as a series of aesop's fables: extremely childish moral allegories: here are misers and spendthrifts crashing into each other over and over! it would shock me if anyone down through the centuries had actually been improved morally by reading that sort of thing, and it surely can have no other purpose. what's missing from dante that you find in aesop is humor, irony, lightness of touch, a bit of indulgence for human foibles. what's missing from aesop that you find in dante is a continual grinding of specific political resentments against parties and individuals, arguably the great theme of the inferno. it's as though john boehner wrote an epic poem describing god's terrible judgment on nancy pelosi. at any rate i guess the italian (which i don't read) is beautiful. given the content, it had better be. i can't think of a classic i regard with less affection.