Reading the Inferno: James Joyce's Notazioni on Dante's Divine Comedy

This study examines Manuscript 36,639/1, preserved at the National Library of Ireland, which provides the earliest evidence of James Joyce’s engagement with Dante’s Divine Comedy. The manuscript comprises transcriptions, glosses, and annotations on Inferno Cantos I to XXV, shedding light on Joyce’s intricate relationship with Dante’s work during his formative years as a writer. Joyce’s annotations, or Notazioni (as he titles them), reveal how Dante’s Comedy influenced the evolution of his literary style, particularly his kaleidoscopic techniques and thematic innovations. The notes demonstrate Joyce’s early linguistic experimentation, his growing familiarity with the Italian language and culture, and the sources he employed to explore the complexities of Dante’s Inferno. By tracing the facets of Dante's international reception that most profoundly impacted Joyce, this study situates the Notazioni within broader cultural and historical contexts. Joyce’s major works arguably echo not only Dante’s Comedy but also its exegesis, presenting a sophisticated reworking of textual forms where literature integrates its own interpretation, becoming at once profoundly self-referential and open to extraliterary modes of communication. The commentary in the appendix provides an in-depth examination of key entries in Joyce’s notes, illustrating how the Notazioni informed his later works, from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to Finnegans Wake. In short, the Notazioni are not mere records of a youthful fascination but rather an essential component of the creative processes that shaped Joyce’s literary genius.