The Divina Commedia of Dante Alighieri: Consisting of the Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. [The Divine Comedy].

“Dante’s theme, the greatest yet attempted in poetry, was to explain and justify the Christian cosmos through the allegory of a pilgrimage. To him comes Virgil, the symbol of philosophy, to guide him through the two lower realms of the next world, which are divided according to the classifications of the ‘Ethics’ of Aristotle. Hell is seen as an inverted cone with its point where lies Lucifer fixed in ice at the centre of the world, and the pilgrimage from it a climb to the foot of and then up the Purgatorial Mountain. Along the way Dante passes Popes, Kings and Emperors, poets, warriors and citizens of Florence, expiating the sins of their life on earth. On the summit is the Earthly Paradise where Beatrice meets them and Virgil departs. Dante is now led through the various spheres of heaven, and the poem ends with a vision of the Deity. The audacity of his theme, the success of its treatment, the beauty and majesty of his verse, have ensured that his poem never lost its reputation. The picture of divine justice is entirely unclouded by Dante’s own political prejudices, and his language never falls short of what he describes" (PMM). Henry Boyd was an Irish-born translator, likely educated at Dublin University, who is best known for his early English verse renderings of major Italian classics. In 1802 he published a three-volume translation of Dante’s Divina Commedia, accompanied by preliminary essays, notes, and illustrative apparatus, and dedicated the work to Viscount Charleville, identified on the title page as Boyd’s patron and ecclesiastical superior. In his dedication, Boyd remarks that the violence and uncertainty of the Irish Rebellion compelled him to withdraw from Charleville’s side and seek refuge in a “remote angle of the province,” where he continued his literary labors. He later undertook work on Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and in 1807 issued his translation of Petrarch’s Triumphs, further consolidating his reputation as a mediator of Italian literature for an English-speaking readership.