Review (PDF) The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, And Paradiso
Widely considered the preeminent work of Italian literature, "The Divine Comedy" is a culmination of three exquisite allegorical poems that describe Dante's journey through the anguish of Hell, the grueling demands of Purgatory, and finally, the eternal salvation of Heaven.
Paperback: 234 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; Reprint edition (June 18, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1453640401
ISBN-13: 978-1453640401
Product Dimensions: 8 x 0.5 x 10 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #273,979 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #30 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Regional & Cultural > European > Italian #298 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Themes & Styles > Inspirational & Religious
There are a good many editions of Durante degli Alighieri's (Dante) "La Divina Comedia" available from a wide range of publishers. It seems a fair percentage of them on are incorrectly listed, with the result that the product may not match the description. For that reason, and because of the way I approached this work, I'm not going to review the production values of this edition, which I would normally do in a classic work like the Comedia. I think the reader will be better served by contacting sellers directly for specific information before purchasing.This review, instead, will focus chiefly on the translation choices made in bringing the great poem from the original Italian into English. More specifically, it will look at three older translations done by the following:Henry Francis Cary (Everyman's Library, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1909 in 1 volume)Charles Eliot Norton (Houghton Mifflin, 1902 in three volumes)Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (George Routledge & Sons, 1867 in three volumes)It is generally recognized that these are not the best translations of Dante's canticles; all have errors that editors of later editions correct in their notes. Sometimes, in fact, the correction changes the nature or the meaning of the surrounding tercets and not just the mistranslated one. All in all, they are good but not great - you could certainly do better with some of the more modern editions: Mark Musa, John Ciardi, and Allen Mandelbaum seem to be mentioned as three of the best. But I chose the older ones because I had been carrying a hard copy of Cary's translation for a very long time, and it had become a sort of personal quest to finally read it.
The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso The Divine Comedy: Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso (Everyman's Library) The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso (Penguin Classics) The Divine Comedy, II. Purgatorio. Part 2 The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Volume 1: Inferno Inferno: The Divine Comedy I The Divine Comedy: The Inferno: 1 (Xist Classics) Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Volume 1 (Galaxy Books) Dante Alighieri: Divine Comedy, Divine Spirituality (The Crossroad Spiritual Legacy Series) Heaven and Hell (on Earth): A Divine Comedy - Acting Edition The Divine Comedy (Translated, Annotated, Illustrated) The Divine Comedy, Vol. II: Purgatory The Divine Comedy, Vol. 3: Paradise The Divine Comedy, Part 1: Hell (Penguin Classics) The Divine Comedy The Divine Comedy, Part 3: Paradise (Penguin Classics) The Divine Comedy, Part 2: Purgatory (Penguin Classics) (v. 2) The Divine Comedy: Paradise: 003 (Xist Classics) The Divine Comedy: Purgatory (Xist Classics)
