Naturally enough, ever since Longfellow’s first visit to Europe (1826-1829), and no doubt from an eariler date still, he had been interested in Dante’s great work, but though the period of the incubation of his translation was a long one, the actual time engaged in it, was as he himself informs us, exactly two years. The three volumes of “The Divine Comedy” were printed for private purposes, as will be described later, in 1865-18, but they were not actually given to the public until the year last named. Henry Frances Carey, M.A., in his well-known version, and also his chronological view of the age of Dante under the title of What was happening in the World while Dante Lived.Ī lady who knew Italy and the Italian people well, some thirty years ago, once remarked to the writer that Longfellow must have lived in every city in that county for almost all the educated Italians “talk as if they owned him.”Īnd they have certainly a right to a sense of possessing him, to be proud of him, and to be grateful to him, for the work which he did for the spread of the knowledge of Italian Literature in the article in the tenth volume on Dante as a Translator. It includes the arguments prefixed to the Cantos by the Rev. This is all of Longfellow’s Dante translation of Inferno minus the illustrations.

WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD WHILE DANTE LIVED.

The inferno by dante alighieri