Customer Reviews

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Volume 1: Inferno

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I found this edition of Dante's most famous book of the Divine Comedy to be excellent in all respects. The translation seemed excedingly accurate -- as an Italian prof. I was working almost exclusively from the original -- in a modern, clean style. Here the attempt is not to replicate the hendecasyllabic verse or the "third rhyming" ("terza rima").
More successful still are the notes that follow each canto, replete with explications of historical and theological references or simply of difficult lines. Not to be discounted too is the introduction which admits to not being exhaustive but is powerfully pithy and a nice springboard from which to attack the text.
Dr. Joseph A. DiLuzio

This book was my constant companion through humanities studies. The notes are clear and concise without being abstract, and having the Italian to English page by page gave the flavor of the original verses while rendering the translation nearly as graceful. For anyone wanting to take a trip to hell and back with Dante, this version provides plenty of contemporary signposts along the way.

This edition of the Inferno is by far the best English translation available for the serious student of Dante. No absurd attempt to emulate the poetic style is made here, it's strictly prose. Moreover, it's clear, easy to read prose. Remember, it was written in the vernacular, and therefore should be read in the simplest vernacular available to the English speaking reader.

Durling and Martinez's translation is by far the most literal and most comprehensive of Dante's Divine Comedy. For those encountering the text for the first time, or those who are intimately acquainted with the text will find this translation to be the best as well. The Introduction, Footnotes to each Canto, and the Additional Notes (mini-essays) are also a fantastic addition to the work.

This is one of the best traslations of the Inferno that i have been able to find. It is easy to understand and certainly not convoluted as many other versions are. In addition this version offers the italian text which is a nice addition. Finally, the notes and commentary povided in this book are amazing and perfect for use in the classroom or just6 for general enjoyment.

Great in hard copy, but the Kindle edition destroys the text. The facing page arrangement of Italian poem and English prose translation becomes alternating undifferentiated blocks of prose; they didn't even preserve the verse form of the Italian. Disgraceful work by the publishers.

I absolutely love this book! The English translations and the notes at the end of each Canto are incredibly helpful.

Some day, soon I hope, the providers of e-texts will begin to respect the wonderful books they deliver to us. Poetry is often disgracefully rendered. This exceptional 5-star translation by Robert Durling (I have the print version) is now an e-text dump, not an e-book. My Kindle can make no sense of a facing page translation with notes. What a shame. I would love to have this on my reader. Be sure to try the sample first. I look forward to a corrected version.

The basic problem here is that Durling's original was designed for facing pages of English and Italian. Durling's book, however, was dumped to the Kindle without the slightest regard for the fact that the Kindle's "page" size has nothing to do with the page size of the original -- in fact, of course, the Kindle doesn't even have a fixed "page" size. So, what do you get in the Kindle version? You get 30 lines of English followed by 30 lines of Italian, then 30 more lines of English, and so on. How this will break on your Kindle screens is completely arbitrary. For the Kindle, the text needed to be re-organized and it just wasn't. A quality version of Inferno on Kindle would be most welcome, but this isn't it.

Save your money. This is the worst, most incompetent Kindle transfer I've seen.

Volume 1: Inferno is the best title of Dante's Divine Comedy. He presents a great look into the history of renaissance Italy around the 14th century. Robert M. Durling translates the old Italian in a simplistic yet powerful manner which allows anyone familiar with the language to understand. There are excellent notes at the end of every chapter to help reiterate the points and what they meant in that era. Also, keep a bible handy because several references come directly from the old text.