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The Convivio, LibriVox audio reading (Wicksteed translation)

Dante Alighieri (author); Philip H. Wicksteed (translator); LibriVox volunteers (readers)

A public-domain audio reading by LibriVox volunteers of the first treatise of Dante's Convivio, in Philip Wicksteed's English translation.

Dante wrote the Convivio to explain his philosophy, and this audio gives listeners access to that work in English.

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LibriVox volunteers reading Dante's Convivio, Treatise I, chapters 1 to 4, in Wicksteed's translation. Public domain.

About this source

What it is

This is an English audio reading of Dante's prose work The Convivio, based on Philip H. Wicksteed's translation. Several LibriVox volunteers read the text, and this track covers Treatise I, chapters 1 to 4. The recording is not the poet's voice. The record describes the Convivio as a philosophical work that mixes prose and verse, and it says the book was written after Dante's earlier work, the Vita Nuova.

Why it matters

The Convivio explains Dante's philosophy and presents his thinking about science, politics and history in the vernacular. It shows that Dante wanted learned ideas to reach readers who did not know Latin. Wicksteed's translation, and this reading of it, let English-speaking listeners hear that argument today.

Look closer

  • Why might Dante choose to combine prose and verse to explain philosophy?
  • Who might the intended audience have been, given that the book explains learned ideas in the vernacular?
  • How does hearing several different readers change the way the argument is understood?

This speech is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Dante Alighieri on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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