Product Description

Dante Alighieri's poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise-the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3206 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-27
• Released on: 2003-05-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 928 pages

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Italian

About the Author
Dante Alighieri was considered Italy's greatest poet. He is the author of the three canticles, The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso, along with La Vita Nuova. He died in 1321. John Ciardi was a distinguished poet and professor, having taught at Harvard and Rutgers universities, and is a poetry editor of The Saturday Review. He was a winner of the Harriet Monroe Memorial Award and the Prix de Rome.

Customer Reviews

COMPLETE EDITION of the BEST RHYMING TRANSLATION!
Ciarni's points out in the "Translator Notes" that using Dante's own "Terza Rima" rhyming ending scheme of ABA BCB CDC DED etc. in English simply doesn't suit and doesn't work properly! But even a blank free verse translation also doesn't do Dante the justice he deserves since he wrote it in rhyme!

He tried mulitple techinques including assonantal terza rima, couplets, ballad stanzas and blank verse, but couldn't render Dante's poetics into the English idiom normally and naturally until he finally tried a Rhyming ending scheme of AbA CdC EfE GhG etc. where he then actually became surprised with the natural flow of the poetics. He was then happy to have the priviledge then to render Dante in a Rhyming ending scheme that was as close to Dante as possible and that could work for the English language.

Here is a few quotes by Ciarni I'd like to post:

"...I am not a Dante scholar, I have undertaken what I hope to be a poet's work...All I can truthfully say is, that equivalence as I have managed has happened by "feel".

"...I could find no translation that satisfied my sense of the original...In looking at other translations I was distressed by the fact that none of them seemed to be using what I understood as Dante's "vulgate". They seemed rather to fall into literary language, the very sort of thing Dante took pains to avoid. And none of them, above all else, gave me a satisfying sense of Dante's pace, which is to say, the rate at which the writing reveals itself to the reader."

"...This final version "feels" enough like the original, and "feels" enough like English poetry to allow me to conclude that I have probably caught it as well as I shall be able to....What has any poet to trust more than that "feel" of the thing?"

- Here are a couple of excerpts from the openings of Ciarni's Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso...

INFERNO - CANTO 1:

Midway in our life's journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood. How shall I say

what wood that was! I never saw so drear,
so rank, so arduous a wilderness!
It's very memory gives a shape to fear.

Death could scarce be more bitter than that place!
but since it came to good, I will recount
all that I found revealed there by God's grace.

How I came to it I cannot rightly say,
so drugged and loose with sleep had I become
when I first wandered there from the True Way.


PURGATORIO - CANTO 1:

For better waters now the little bark
of my indwelling powers raises her sails,
and leaves behind that sea so cruel and dark.

Now shall I sing that second kingdom given
the soul of man wherein to purge its guilt
and so grow worthy to ascend to Heaven.

Yours am I, sacred Muses! To you I pray.
Here let dead poetry rise once more to life,
and here let sweet Calliope rise and play

some fair accompaniment in that high strain
whose power the wretched Pierides once felt
so terribly they dared not hope again.


PARADISO - CANTO 1:

The glory of Him who moves all things rays forth
through all the universe, and is reflected
from each thing in proportion to its worth.

I have been in that Heaven of His most light
and what I saw, those who descend from there
lack both the knowledge and the power to write.

For as our intellect draws near its goal
it opens to such depths of understanding
as memory cannot plumb within the soul.

Nevertheless, whatever portion time
still leaves me of the treasure of that kindgom
shall now become the subject of my rhyme.

O good Apollo, for this last task, I pray
you make me such a vessel of your powers
as you deem worthy to be crowned with bay.


- This edition issued for the first time in one single volume in 2003(translated in 1954, 1957 and 1961) contains the complete Divine Comedy with Introductions, Canto to Canto End Notes, Map Diagrams, Illustrations, and Canto to Canto Summaries...all in large, spacious and eye pleasing print!

A Beautiful edition!

Best Collection/Translation
John Ciardi is certainly the best translator of the Comedy, and this collection is a perfect arrangement of his work.

Solid translation for a schizophrenic work!
This translation was easy enough to understand although the work itself suffers from a major problem and that is a sharp contrast that exists between exciting moments to ones where the lack of action is utterly unbearable. I suggest you read this version which makes it easier to understand Dante's thinking. Which is something you will want to get a firm grasp on as you enter the later sections which can be laboriously slow.