The Inferno: A New Verse Translation
By Dante Alighieri and Peter Thornton
4/5
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About this ebook
One of the world’s transcendent literary masterpieces, the Inferno tells the timeless story of Dante’s journey through the nine circles of hell, guided by the poet Virgil, when in midlife he strays from his path in a dark wood. In this vivid verse translation into contemporary English, Peter Thornton makes the classic work fresh again for a new generation of readers. Recognizing that the Inferno was, for Dante and his peers, not simply an allegory but the most realistic work of fiction to date, he points out that hell was a lot like Italy of Dante's time. Thornton's translation captures the individuals represented, landscapes, and psychological immediacy of the dialogues as well as Dante's poetic effects.
The product of decades of passionate dedication and research, his translation has been hailed by the leading Dante scholars on both sides of the Atlantic as exceptional in its accuracy, spontaneity, and vividness. Those qualities and its detailed notes explaining Dante's world and references make it both accessible for individual readers and perfect for class adoption.
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was an Italian poet. Born in Florence, Dante was raised in a family loyal to the Guelphs, a political faction in support of the Pope and embroiled in violent conflict with the opposing Ghibellines, who supported the Holy Roman Emperor. Promised in marriage to Gemma di Manetto Donati at the age of 12, Dante had already fallen in love with Beatrice Portinari, whom he would represent as a divine figure and muse in much of his poetry. After fighting with the Guelph cavalry at the Battle of Campaldino in 1289, Dante returned to Florence to serve as a public figure while raising his four young children. By this time, Dante had met the poets Guido Cavalcanti, Lapo Gianni, Cino da Pistoia, and Brunetto Latini, all of whom contributed to the burgeoning aesthetic movement known as the dolce stil novo, or “sweet new style.” The New Life (1294) is a book composed of prose and verse in which Dante explores the relationship between romantic love and divine love through the lens of his own infatuation with Beatrice. Written in the Tuscan vernacular rather than Latin, The New Life was influential in establishing a standardized Italian language. In 1302, following the violent fragmentation of the Guelph faction into the White and Black Guelphs, Dante was permanently exiled from Florence. Over the next two decades, he composed The Divine Comedy (1320), a lengthy narrative poem that would bring him enduring fame as Italy’s most important literary figure.
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Reviews for The Inferno
2,970 ratings86 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A handsome book, but a clunky and awkward translation.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dante's journey through Hell ranks in my top 5 favorite books. I especially like this translation, as it keeps the language modern enough to be readable, but is still beautiful. Also, there are plenty of foot and end notes to explain middle age-phrases and historical references many people may not be familiar with.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Poetry like this touches your soul Dante was a lot like Mozart a daring rebel and a genius
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The first time I read this was in high school. At the time, it was a 2½ star book...nothing special, the teacher didn't do as much with it as she might have done, I got through it and moved on.The second time I read this was in college in a course I was auditing (therefore, no grade pressure) from a professor who not only was a well-known authority but...more important...lived, breathed, ate and slept Dante. It made a world of difference. The book becomes much more alive if you understand the political situation of the day, the personal relationships in Dante's life, the references to other things going on in the world at that time.I recommend reading this to anyone with any interest. However, if you can't do it under the tutelage of someone who knows this stuff, I would recommend a well-annotated edition.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Despite its deserved reputation as being a bit hard to follow, if you stick with it, this is really worth reading.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is my first exposure to Dante's writing. I was looking for poetry by a different author when I came across this translation. When I saw the narrator, I decided it was time to read/hear some Dante :)
Dante sure thought a lot of himself! Good grief, even when he's singing the praises of some denizen of limbo, he's doing so in the context of being the vehicle of their remembrance among the living. You've probably heard the idiom, "damning with faint praise." Over and over, Dante praises himself with faint condemnation. No, Dante, it's not actually all that terrible that you trembled with fear while faced with the horrors of the pit.
I want to read an annotated translation of The Inferno. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure he was mocking and calling out some of his contemporaries, as well as commenting on figures from the past.
Most of the work came from describing and talking to the denizens of the various neighborhood of perdition, but he didn't stint on describing the environs. He readily sketched the horrific backdrops to his interactions, giving just enough detail to be clear, but leaving space for the imagination to fill in the unmentioned horrors. This is not at all bedtime listening.
I seemed to sense some negative commentary on Church doctrine, but I'm not sure if that was in the text, or if that came from my 20th/21st century perspective. For instance, he lamented the number of people, even great and good people, condemned to Limbo simply because they lived before the establishment of Christianity. To my ear, that's a reason to question the church - but to Dante it may have been just another thing that was and didn't need to be questioned. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I find The Divine Comedy among the most amazing works I've ever read--despite that the work is essentially Christian Allegory and I'm an atheist. First and foremost for its structure. Recently I read Moby Dick and though it had powerful passages I found it self-indulgent and bloated and devoutly wished an editor had taken a hatchet to the numerous digressions. There is no such thing as digressions in Dante. I don't think I've ever read a more carefully crafted work. We visit three realms in three Canticas (Hell, Purgatory and Heaven) each of 33 cantos and in a terza rima verse in a triple rhyme scheme. Nothing is incidental or left to chance . That's not where the structure ends either. Hell has nine levels, it is an imaginary landscape worthy of Tolkien or Pratchett, both in large ways and small details. I found it fitting how Dante tied both sins and virtues to love--a sin was love misdirected or applied, and the lower you go in hell, the less love there is involved, until at the lowest reaches you find Satan and traitors encased in a lake of ice. Then there are all the striking phrases, plays of ideas and gorgeous imagery that comes through despite translations. This might be Christian Allegory, but unlike say John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress it's far from dry or tedious and is full of real life contemporaries of Dante and historical figures. There are also Dante's guides here. His Virgil is wonderful--and the perfect choice. The great Latin poet of the Aeneid leading the great Italian poet who made his Tuscan dialect the standard with his poetry. I've read the entire Divine Comedy but certainly Hell is what stays most vividly in my mind. I remember the people of Hell best. There's Virgil of course, who must remain in limbo for eternity because he wasn't a Christian. There's Francesca di Rimini and her lover, for their adultery forever condemned to be flung about in an eternal wind so that even Dante pities them. And that, of course, is the flip side of this. Dante's poem embodies the orthodox Roman Catholic Christianity of the 1300s and might give even Christians today pause. Even though I don't count myself a Christian, I get the appeal of hell. In fact, I can remember exactly when I understood it. When once upon a time I felt betrayed, and knew there was no recourse. The person involved would never get their comeuppance upon this Earth. How nice I thought, if there really was a God and a Hell to redress the balance. The virtue of any Hell therefore is justice. These are the words Dante tells us are at hell's entrance.THROUGH ME THE WAY INTO THE SUFFERING CITY,THROUGH ME THE WAY TO THE ETERNAL PAIN,THROUGH ME THE WAY THAT RUNS AMONG THE LOST. JUSTICE URGED ON MY HIGH ARTIFICER;MY MAKER WAS DIVINE AUTHORITY,THE HIGHEST WISDOM, AND THE PRIMAL LOVE. BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGSWERE MADE, AND I ENDURE ETERNALLY.ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE.It's hard to see Dante's vision matching the orthodox doctrine as just however, even when I might agree a particular transgression deserves punishment. Never mind the virtuous and good in limbo because they weren't Christians or unbaptized or in hell because they committed suicide or were homosexual. And poor Cassio and Brutus, condemned to the lowest circle because they conspired to kill a tyrant who was destroying their republic. My biggest problem with hell is that it is eternal. Take all the worst tyrants who murdered millions, make them suffer not only the length of the lifetimes of their victims but all the years they might have had, I doubt if you add it up it comes to the age of the Earth--never mind eternity. Justice taken to extremes is not justice--it's vindictiveness and sadism. Something impossible for me to equate with "the primal love." Yet I loved this work so much upon my first read (I read the Dorothy Sayers translation) I went out and bought two other versions. One by Allen Mandelbaum (primarily because it was a dual language book with the Italian on one page facing the English translation) and a hardcover version translated by Charles Eliot Norton. Finally, before writing up my review and inspired by Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club, I got reacquainted by finding Longfellow's translation online. Of all of them, I greatly prefer Mandelbaum's translation. The others try to keep the rhyming and rhythm of the original and this means a sometimes tortured syntax and use of archaic words and the result is forced and often obscure, making the work much harder to read than it should be.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5On my trip to Italy I was able to re-read Dante's Inferno. I was struck by how he cleverly inserts his enemies and contemporary villains into the epic. Also, I cannot help but wonder if the ingenious torments he comes up for each sin are original with Dante. Of course, I love it that Dante doesn't hesitate to place Popes in various circles of Hell. The way he and Virgil have to dodge demons makes the trip an exciting adventure. I must admit I fully enjoyed this version by Charles Eliot Norton with the explanatory notes. I did want to add ...Fierce rivalries often split the dominant faction. So in 1302 the “Black” Guelfs, in alliance with Pope Boniface VIII, succeeded in expelling the “Whites.” Among the White Guelfs at this time was Dante (1265–1321), who had held public office. Doomed to spend the rest of his life in exile, he wrote the Divine Comedy while in exile. So, Dante puts Popes Nicholas, Boniface and Clement in the 8th and 9th circles of hell for fraud. Boniface is Dante's number one foe.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This translation replaced names- so many names! Added modern phrases.
I appreciate that I may not have been able to real the original(or earlier translation) so easily (well, I'm not sure, but this is the only translation I've read) but I could not accept the replacement of the names. South Park's Cartman? Please. I prefer purer translations. The the addition of modern phrases and names stuck out like a sore thumb. I would be reading easily, then get so thrown off that I had to stop.
Now, I've read this, and I don't know how much of it was from the original, and how much the translator replaced. Now I feel like I have to re-read it, with a different translation.
It wasn't written in 2013, so don't translate it like it was. Please.
What was intact, the messages and the stories, all that makes this a classic, earns my four stars. Since I'm rating this particular translation, however, I'm giving it two. If I find out later that earlier translations are written in a way that I can easily read, then I'll come back and only give it one star. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Basically, Dante made a list of people he didn't like and put them all in Hell. Disturbing imagery abounds and there are loads of interesting references to mythology. But it's not exactly summer reading. Glad I read it from an academic perspective, but to be honest it was a little bit of a slog. Perhaps if I knew more about Italian history I would have appreciated it a little more.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A nicely done translation, but at times I sensed the author tried to impose his voice over Dante's, and while he is good, he is no Dante. I still prefer Wordsworth.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One needs to read this just so that can fully realize the abundance of references there are to this book in modern media - really, it's ridiculous how many nods Dante gets but it is understandable. I refer to frequently, usually in the form of "you're going to the sixth circle of Hell for that!" Great way of feeling smart. Oh, and it's a good read too.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mildly amusing, though this ostensibly pure Christian author clearly has a perverse streak running through him. (As does the Christian God, so not surprising.)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The primary virtue of the Oxford / Sinclair edition is the parallel text, which means that you can both appreciate the beauty of Dante's original, and make sure that you miss none of the finer points by following the English translation. Each canto has its own introduction and endnotes, which means that important contextual information is always at hand. Inferno is for me by far the most engaging cantica, as Dante creates ever more imaginative tortures for the souls condemned to each circle of Hell. An absolute classic.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Inferno is the first part of an epic poem that rivals other greats like Ovid's Metamorphosis and Homer's Illiad and Odyssey. As one reads Dante, they must keep in mind that he was stifled politically. It has been said that without a proper avenue to voice his political distaste, Dante constructed his seven levels of Hell. Each level represents an action and it's subsequent punishment. At times the poem can become tedious and hard to follow, but there's a large amount of very memorable sequences that make this one of the greatest pieces of writing constructed.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Almost totally pointless to read without an extensive grounding in 13th century Italian political history. I'm not surprised that Dante took the narrative of exploring hell as an opportunity to portray the supposedly deserved suffering of various recent historical figures he hated but I was not prepared for the extent to which he single-mindedly devoted the Inferno to this purpose and nothing else, just one long catalog of medieval Italians I'd never heard of and what a just God would posthumously wreak on them. Also Simon told me there's a cute fan-fictioney current to the relationship with Virgil, and I thought he was exaggerating but no, it's definitely there - there's one point where Dante talks about how one of his slams on these dead Italian assholes was so on target that Virgil decided to show how happy he was with it by carrying Dante around in his big strong poet arms for a while. Anyway this is cute and gay but it's not enough to carry my interest through the book.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I have finally read the Inferno and if I am going to be honest, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. Not being a student of Italian literature and having read Clive James' English translation there was probably a lot I was missing, in the original, but I found that it was really just a horror story with the added s pice of the author being able to denigrate persons he didn't like. All this would have been extremely entertaining at the time when the names were topical, but I do not understand why it is considered such a classic. It was just a litany of various types of physical torture with no overarching point that I could see, except to list all that horror.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is an amazing achievement. I spent so much time and energy researching this book during undergrad. So many hidden meanings, so many codes and metaphors. This translation is superior to anything else I've seen and is well bound. Its nice to have Italian right next to the English. The notes are excellent, not the penguin edition is bad, its you can tell that the Hollanders have done their homework with a passion. I can't wait to read again, but first I think some more thorough reading on the popes first.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I had a collected copy of The Divine Comedy which I gave up for these three volumes. Inferno was excellent. I felt that it lived up to the translation that I read, and surpassed it in some ways. With the addition of contemporary pop-culture references throughout, we have a Hell in a very faithful to the original work. I definitely recommend these books to anyone who’s interested in The Divine Comedy.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is an amazing translation of the Inferno. It is by far the best translation of the text that I have encountered, and it is far superior to the version included in the World Literature textbook that I use. I always share some of this translation with my students particularly when we are discussing Dante's terza rima. Translations are never ideal, but this translation is the best available.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Without understanding who all these people are and why Dante wanted to see them suffer, this books is a very painful, difficult read. It really requires a companion book to make sense of the scenes.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I kinda didn't love this as much as I wanted to. The fault might be Pinsky's; he uses a lot of enjambment, which makes the poem a more graceful, flowing thing than Dante's apparently was. It might also be Dante's fault; there are a ton of allusions to contemporary politics, none of which I got at all, so I did a lot of flipping to the end notes. And, y'know, it's a little...religious. I know, who woulda thought?
I liked it okay, I guess, but I've been reading a ton of epic poetry over the last year, and this hasn't been one of my favorites. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It took me forever to get through this book. However it contains great imagery, and the notes were indispensable.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This particular version of the Inferno is a particularly great read. The Italian is translated on the opposing page and at the end of each section there's a explanation of what you've just read. I didn't use the notes to explain anything, but rather they referred me to ideas that I missed on the first read through. I've read this book 3 times and each time I find something new.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Obviously an amazing work. I just got bogged down in the middle, and it took me forever to finish. I think I would have gotten far more out of it in the context of a class that dealt with the many layers of references, or if I had simply taken more time to read the notes...but as it was, I just didn't really commit to it on a level that could remotely do it justice. I still look forward to reading Purgatorio and Paradiso, though.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Dieser Klassiker birgt so einige schöne, vielfältige und wundervolle Zitate, doch es ist kein einfaches Lesen. Oft fehlt dem modernen Leser das Wissen, um alle genannten Personen einordnen zu können. Dieser Mangel ist vermutlich dafür verantwortlich dafür, dass das Buch zwischen den Zitaten eher als Probe dient, wie gewillt man ist, sich durch seitenweise Verse durchzukämpfen. Leider geht darin die Schönheit und die Metaphorik des Textes für mich verloren. Vermutlich müsste man sich jeden Vers einzeln vornehmen, um das Werk wirklich zu verstehen.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fantastic, even though the Sayers translation may give up too much in the battle to stick to the terza rima scheme. It's not a fatal flaw by any means, but the tendency is particularly noticeable in some of the classic lines: "I could never have believed death had undone so many" becomes "It never would have entered my head / There were so many men whom death had slain" in order to cram the square English into the round Italian.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I read this book/Poem because I had always heard about it but had never read it. So I challenged myself to read this book. I chose the Pinsky translation for my read. The story was very thought provoking, and disturbing as to whether any of it could true. As a born and raised Catholic, I chose the time of the read for the Lenten season since this is not the type of literature that I normally appreciate and I'm not sure that I do appreciate it. I do, however, acknowledge the talent of the writer and his imagination but I was disappointed by the amount of politics involved in the story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It should not be surprising to hear me refer to Dante's Commedia as the greatest piece of literature ever written. This is a work that can never be read too many times and should never be read only once. Inferno is the first and most iconic piece of Dante's trilogy since it is set in Hell (which is surprisingly appealing to many people...). However, its depth far succeeds Hell's reaches and calls for a very conscientious approach to be grasped in any significant way. The Hollanders' translation I highly recommend when reading the book for a second or third time, otherwise one might easily become lost in Robert Hollander's lengthy (but interesting!) commentary.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Inferno is a classic among classics. Dante's vision, along with Milton's "Paradise Lost", form the very basis for society's concept of HELL. A must read for any literary buff.
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The Inferno - Dante Alighieri
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