Saturday 5 January 2019

cliff’s notes

Via Shadow Manor’s Art of Darkness blog, we are referred to this interactive study guide on Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (previously here, here and here) that allows one to explore the topology of the Underworld and understand characters and allusions throughout without reference to footnotes that tends to draw one out of the narrative, at times, instead of deeper into the poem, as Virgil does for our narrator.
While the endearingly cartoonish quality may not have the same visual seriousness with which past illustrators have treated the fourteenth century epic—every generation taking its turn—the platform more than makes up for this (if it is indeed a shortcoming at all) in scholarship and utility. Take a tour yourself at the link above.