Review (PDF) Dante's Inferno, The Indiana Critical Edition (Indiana Masterpiece Editions)
This new critical edition, including Mark Musa’s classic translation, provides students with a clear, readable verse translation accompanied by ten innovative interpretations of Dante’s masterpiece.
Series: Indiana Masterpiece Editions
Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Indiana University Press; The Indiana Critical Edition edition (June 22, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0253209307
ISBN-13: 978-0253209306
Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #260,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #29 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Regional & Cultural > European > Italian #176 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Literature > World Literature > European #268 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Movements & Periods > Ancient & Classical
Musa is a scholar, not a poet, at least not professionally. But the authenticities of his translation's thunder, juices, epiphanies, and whiffs would indicate that scholarship makes a successful move to a new language more probable than do poetic gifts. Dante, now, was a poet. The infinite riches of his simple simple lines glow from each line of Musa's. While the essential deep love for the poem glows from each line of his commentary. Pinsky, a very good poet, spent his powers on reproducing the virtually unreproducible--the never-ending aba bcb cdc terza rima rhyme scheme. And he did an expert job. But the poetry is the loser. It's in the back seat, trying to stay awake. The real surprise is how careless Pinsky's rhythms are. Musa's pound right along-a fairly consistent, and unobtrusive, iambic pentameter. Dante, of course, rhymes and rhymes and rhymes, but always to profoundest purpose. (It is said he wrote three lines a day. The deeper one goes into the Commedia the easier it is to believe this.) What rhymes with what was clearly something Dante cared a lot about. Take Inferno 34, 34-39. Dante's final six words (and I should point out that my Italian is very limited) for these six lines are: UGLY, EYEBROW, SORROW/ WONDER, HEAD, RED. Pinsky's are: beautiful, brows, well/ was, head, this. Musa's: foul, Maker, him/ up, faces, red. The parallels the rhymes convey, as I see it, are these. Lucifer, now UGLY, is the source of the world's SORROW. (Musa faithfully pairs "foul" and "all grief should spring from him.
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