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Inferno of Dante Alighieri

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This translation of Dante's Inferno is a great read -- something I never thought I'd say. Most others I've read have been reverent and stately and mostly lacking in forward momentum. This one drives forward with gusto. By freeing himself from the constraints of "appropriate" diction, Carson is able to use the full resources of the English language to retell Dante's story. (All that, and he maintains the terza rima rhyme scheme too!) I imagine that some people will dislike the colloquial, almost bantering tone of the translation, but I loved it. I've tried re-reading the Inferno for many years, and I always fizzle out around Canto VII. This time I ploughed straight through -- and found it challenging enough that I'm going back through with pencil in hand and making notes in the margin. (The translation itself is lightly annotated -- enough explanation to keep oriented, but not so much that you become overwhelmed with details about the Guelphs and Ghibellines.)

Anyone at all familiar with Carson's previous work would have expected his version of the Inferno to be a brilliant accomplishment and a not-to-be-missed event. They will not be disappointed. The translation is simply stunning, capturing the fire and guts of Dante in a series of vivid, visceral phrases and images. Carson's version is both literary and cinematic; it also maintains a strong narrative line -- something very few translations manage (particularly those which, like this one, stick to the original rhyme scheme.)

It is, of course, a translation, Carson's work (and spiritual autobiography) as much as Dante's. Literal translations of greater and lesser fidelity are available (as is the original Italian text, for those who can enjoy it), but to my mind it's more interesting to see what one creative spirit can do with the work of another. So if Carson says 'my life' where Dante said 'our life', it's a choice, not an error; Dante may have felt himself to represent the human community, but Carson, caught in the predicament of modern man, must go it alone. (This is not to deny, of course, that the reader goes with him; hw could it be otherwise?) Indeed, his journey is all the more perilous: for Carson, unlike Dante, lives in a world where heaven is doubtful, but where hell, in various forms, is dismayingly real.

Highly recommended.

In the relatively recent past, there has been a "spate" of new translations of the great classic poems: these include the Fagles versions of "Aeneid", "Iliad" and "Odyssey"; the Heaney "Beowulf"; the Hughes "Tales from Ovid". The Ciaran Carson "Inferno" now joins the list, accompanied by a chorus of critical accolades ("Quite simply the best version of Dante there is", according to Mr. Paul Muldoon's back-jacket blurb). I've read the Lawrence Grant White (1948, Pantheon Books, accompanied by gorgeous illustrations by Gustave Dore) and the C.H. Grandgent (1947 Viking Portable) versions and, in my estimation, the Carson version is the least "poetic" and interesting of these options.

Having no knowledge of medieval Tuscan, I cannot comment on the actual degree of correspondence between this translation and the original, but based on various disclaimers Carson makes in his introduction, I suspect there are few. In fact, he hints that great liberties were taken and admits he had no understanding of the original language when he undertook this "translation". Given that, I was curious as to how this work was accomplished. Some hints of what transpired ("translating ostensibly from the Italian, Tuscan or Florentine, I found myself translating as much from English or various Englishes..."). Carson is disarmingly candid in further admitting that, "Some phrases and rhymes have been adapted, adopted or stolen(from previous translators).." and then he lists 6 translators whose work he "boosted".

All that aside, how does this read? Not very well. In fact, the poetry seems to have been stripped from the poem, leaving a "modern" form that does not give much hint regarding its ancient origins. In the preface to "Paradise Lost" (Oxford edition), Philip Pulman makes reference to "updated versions" such as this and...he is quite dismissive of them. Seemingly, in an effort to make the original more "accessible" to modern audiences, something is "lost in the translation of the translation", if you will. To me, this version is stark and joyless. Here is one example from Canto V 121. The Carson version: "There is no greater pain, I fear, than to recall past joy in present hell..." or this from the L.G. White version: "There is no greater grief Than to recall a bygone happines In present misery...", or this, "There is no greater sorrow than to recall, in misery, the time when we were happy...", or perhaps this, "No grief surpasses this In the midst of misery to remember bliss" (C.H. Grandgent version).

In conclusion, there is much to be said for discarding antiquated English or removing added flourishes from previous translations. These points can be compellingly argued in the case of the Penguin translations of Proust when compared to the Moncrieff versions. However, unlike the Fagles versions of Homer ("updated" but not stripped of content), the Carson version is a "Waste Land" (pardon the pun), rather than an "Inferno".

When I finally decided to try to plug some of the holes that my 'classical education' had somehow left unfilled, "The Inferno" was high on my list. Since I don't know any Italian, choosing a decent translation was one of the first questions to be addressed. I spent an hour in Cody's comparing various options (there are a gazillion translations out there) - this was one of two that I ended up buying.

Surprisingly (to me at any rate), roughly half of the available translations chose the low road of not even bothering to preserve Dante's famous terza rima metric scheme, with the excuse that only a 'literal translation' can convey the meaning adequately. Fie on your laziness, say I - it obviously can be done, even if you are too lamebrained to try. So I rejected the 'literal translations' out of hand, for the same reason that I would not choose a translation of 'Eugene onegin' that didn't at least try to preserve Pushkin's meter, when it is obviously such an intrinsic aspect of the work.

I can't vouch for the fidelity of Carson's translation, but I liked it a lot. He does well by the terza rima, while managing to achieve an overall natural flow of the language. At times it is highly colloquial, which might disturb the purists:

"Ratbreath, when he heard this, rolled his eyes,
and hissed 'Don't listen, it's a dirty trick,
so he can jump. He must think we're not wise.'

And he, whose AKA was Señor Slick,
replied: 'It's dirt indeed, to get my comrades
in the s**t; in fact, it's rather sick.'

Now Harley Quinn, unlike the other blades,
was eager for some sport. "

Canto XXII, lines 107-114.

As for the work itself, I think everyone knows the story. I haven't read "Purgatorio" or "Paradiso" yet - it seems highly likely to me that the "Inferno" is the most fun of the three, if only because it's entertaining to see how he uses it as a vehicle for getting even with his enemies. But, if you've been putting it off for years because you're intimidated by its status as a "classic", don't be put off any longer. It's actually a lot of fun, and easy to read.

Comparing translations is an auxiliary source of entertainment, for those (like myself) who enjoy that kind of thing

This is one of the best books I have read in a very long time. It is truely a classic.

A wow translation, written by an Irishman who walked the streets of divided bloody Belfast for inspiration, I've read a number of Infernos, so far Carson is my favorite

This was required reading for a graduate course in medieval history.
Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321) "Devine Comedy" weaved together aspects of biblical and classical Greek literary traditions to produce one of the most important works of not only medieval literature, but also one of the great literary works of Western civilization. The full impact of this 14,000-line poem divided into 100 cantos and three books is not just literary. Dante's autobiographical poem Commedia, as he titled it, was his look into the individual psyche and human soul. He explored and reflected on such fundamental questions as political institutions and their problems, the nature of humankind's moral actions, and the possibility of spiritual transformation; these were all fundamental social and cultural concerns for people during the fourteenth-century. Dante wrote the Commedia not in Latin but in the Tuscan dialect of Italian so that it would reach a broader readership. The Commedia was a three-part journey undertaken by the pilgrim Dante to the realms of the Christian afterlife: Hell, (Inferno), Purgatory, (Purgatorio), and Paradise, (Paradisio).

The poem narrated in first person, began with Dante lost midlife. He was 35 years old in the year 1300 and in a dark wood. Being lost in the dark wood was certainly an allegorical device that Dante used to express the condition of his own life at the time he started writing the poem. Dante had been active in Florentine politics and a member of the White Guelph party who opposed the secular rule of Pope Boniface VIII over Florence. In 1302, The Black Guelphs who were allied with the Pope, were militarily victorious in gaining control of the city and Dante found himself an exile from his beloved city for the rest of his life. Thus, Dante started writing the Commedia in 1308 and used it to comment on his own tribulations of life, and to state his views on politics and religion, and heap scorn on his political enemies.

Dante's first leg of his journey out of the dark wood was through the nine concentric circles of Hell (Inferno), escorted by his favorite classical Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid. Dante borrowed heavily from Virgil's Aeneid. Much of Dante's description of hell had similarities to Virgil's description in his sixth book of the Aeneid. Dante's three major divisions of sin in hell where unrepentant sinners dwelled, had their sources in Aristotle and Augustinian philosophy. They were self-indulgence, violence, and fraud. Fraud was considered the worst of moral failures because it undermined family, trust, and religion; in essence, it tore at the moral fabric of civilized society. These divisions were inversions of the classical virtues of moderation, courage, and wisdom. The fourth classical virtue, justice, is what Dante came to believe after his journey through hell that all its inhabitants received for their unrepentant sins. There were nine concentric circles of hell inside the earth; each smaller than the previous one. For Dante the geography of hell was a moral geography as well as a physical one, reflecting the nature of the sin. Canto IV describes the first circle of hell, Limbo, which is where Dante met the shades, as souls where called, of the virtuous un-baptized such as Homer, Ovid, Caesar, Aristotle, and Plato.

In the four circles for the sin of self-indulgence Dante met shades who where lustful, gluttons, hoarders and wrathful. In the second circle of Hell, lustful souls were blown around in a violent storm. In Canto V, one of the great dramatic moments of the poem, Dante had his first lengthy encounter with an unrepentant sinner Francesca da Rimini, who committed adultery with her brother-in-law. Like all the sinners in hell, Francesca laid the blame for her sin elsewhere. She claimed to be seduced into committing adultery after reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. At the end of the scene, Dante fainted out of pity for Francesca.

In Canto X, the sixth circle of hell reserved for heretics who are punished by being trapped in flaming tombs, Dante took the opportunity to use the circle to chastise political leaders for participating in political partisanship. A Florentine who was a leader in the rival Ghibbelline political party, Farinata degli Uberti, accosted Dante. Both men aggressively argued with each other, recreating in hell the bitterness of partisan politics in Florence. Farinata predicted Dante's exile. Dante used this Canto to show the dangerous tendencies of petty political partisanship that he harbored.

The seventh circle of hell was subdivided into three areas where sinners were punished for doing violence against themselves, their neighbors, or God. In Canto XIII Dante encountered Pier della Vigne in the wood of the suicides. The shades there were shrubs who had to speak through a broken branch. Pier spoke to Dante about how he had been an important advisor to Emperor Frederick II, and how he blamed his fall, and his suicide, on the envy of other court members. This Canto was especially important because Dante came to grips with his own "future" fall from political power and exile. Pier's behavior served as a strong example to Dante how not to act in exile. Whether he had been tempted to commit suicide is not clear; however, he certainly had been prone to the selfish and despairing attitude that Pier represented.

The last two circles of hell contained the sinners of fraud. In the eighth circle, there were ten ditches for the various types of fraud such as Simony, thievery, hypocrisy, etc. Canto XIX described the third ditch, which contained those guilty of Simony, the sin of church leaders perverting their spiritual office by buying and selling church offices. Simonists were buried upside down in a rock with their feet on fire. Pope Nicholas III mistakenly addressed Dante as Pope Boniface VIII who was the current Pope in 1300, and whose place in hell was thereby predicted. This is not surprising since Boniface was the person most responsible for Dante's exile. In an interesting literary twist, Nicholas "confessed" to Dante, as if he was a priest, his sin of greed and nepotism. He admitted that even after becoming Pope he cared more for his family's interests than the good of the whole Church. Dante responded to Nicholas' "confession" with a stinging condemnation of Simony drawn from the Book of Revelation. After this encounter, Dante came to understand that hell was a place of justice.

Canto XXXIV, the last one in the Inferno, depicted Satan with three heads. Each head was chewing the three worst sinners of humankind. The middle head was chewing on the head of Judas Iscariot, who was a disciple to Jesus and his betrayer. The other two heads were chewing Brutus and Cassius; the murderers of Julius Caesar, and the two men Dante faulted for the destruction of a unified Italy. Dante considered the two ultimate betrayals against God and against the empire as the worst betrayals perpetrated in the history of humankind.

Thus, Dante's intent in his Commedia was to teach fourteenth-century readers that if one wanted to ascend spiritually towards God then one needed to learn the nature of sin from the unrepentant. By doing this, one could learn to overcome the same tendencies found in themselves. He wanted people to realize what he had come to learn that political partisanship would only stand in the way of unifying Italy and keep it from regaining any of its former glory that it enjoyed during the time of the Roman Empire.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in literature and medieval history.

This was required reading for a graduate course in medieval history.
Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321) "Devine Comedy" weaved together aspects of biblical and classical Greek literary traditions to produce one of the most important works of not only medieval literature, but also one of the great literary works of Western civilization. The full impact of this 14,000-line poem divided into 100 cantos and three books is not just literary. Dante's autobiographical poem Commedia, as he titled it, was his look into the individual psyche and human soul. He explored and reflected on such fundamental questions as political institutions and their problems, the nature of humankind's moral actions, and the possibility of spiritual transformation; these were all fundamental social and cultural concerns for people during the fourteenth-century. Dante wrote the Commedia not in Latin but in the Tuscan dialect of Italian so that it would reach a broader readership. The Commedia was a three-part journey undertaken by the pilgrim Dante to the realms of the Christian afterlife: Hell, (Inferno), Purgatory, (Purgatorio), and Paradise, (Paradisio).

The poem narrated in first person, began with Dante lost midlife. He was 35 years old in the year 1300 and in a dark wood. Being lost in the dark wood was certainly an allegorical device that Dante used to express the condition of his own life at the time he started writing the poem. Dante had been active in Florentine politics and a member of the White Guelph party who opposed the secular rule of Pope Boniface VIII over Florence. In 1302, The Black Guelphs who were allied with the Pope, were militarily victorious in gaining control of the city and Dante found himself an exile from his beloved city for the rest of his life. Thus, Dante started writing the Commedia in 1308 and used it to comment on his own tribulations of life, and to state his views on politics and religion, and heap scorn on his political enemies.

Dante's first leg of his journey out of the dark wood was through the nine concentric circles of Hell (Inferno), escorted by his favorite classical Roman poet Virgil, author of the Aeneid. Dante borrowed heavily from Virgil's Aeneid. Much of Dante's description of hell had similarities to Virgil's description in his sixth book of the Aeneid. Dante's three major divisions of sin in hell where unrepentant sinners dwelled, had their sources in Aristotle and Augustinian philosophy. They were self-indulgence, violence, and fraud. Fraud was considered the worst of moral failures because it undermined family, trust, and religion; in essence, it tore at the moral fabric of civilized society. These divisions were inversions of the classical virtues of moderation, courage, and wisdom. The fourth classical virtue, justice, is what Dante came to believe after his journey through hell that all its inhabitants received for their unrepentant sins. There were nine concentric circles of hell inside the earth; each smaller than the previous one. For Dante the geography of hell was a moral geography as well as a physical one, reflecting the nature of the sin. Canto IV describes the first circle of hell, Limbo, which is where Dante met the shades, as souls where called, of the virtuous un-baptized such as Homer, Ovid, Caesar, Aristotle, and Plato.

In the four circles for the sin of self-indulgence Dante met shades who where lustful, gluttons, hoarders and wrathful. In the second circle of Hell, lustful souls were blown around in a violent storm. In Canto V, one of the great dramatic moments of the poem, Dante had his first lengthy encounter with an unrepentant sinner Francesca da Rimini, who committed adultery with her brother-in-law. Like all the sinners in hell, Francesca laid the blame for her sin elsewhere. She claimed to be seduced into committing adultery after reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. At the end of the scene, Dante fainted out of pity for Francesca.

In Canto X, the sixth circle of hell reserved for heretics who are punished by being trapped in flaming tombs, Dante took the opportunity to use the circle to chastise political leaders for participating in political partisanship. A Florentine who was a leader in the rival Ghibbelline political party, Farinata degli Uberti, accosted Dante. Both men aggressively argued with each other, recreating in hell the bitterness of partisan politics in Florence. Farinata predicted Dante's exile. Dante used this Canto to show the dangerous tendencies of petty political partisanship that he harbored.

The seventh circle of hell was subdivided into three areas where sinners were punished for doing violence against themselves, their neighbors, or God. In Canto XIII Dante encountered Pier della Vigne in the wood of the suicides. The shades there were shrubs who had to speak through a broken branch. Pier spoke to Dante about how he had been an important advisor to Emperor Frederick II, and how he blamed his fall, and his suicide, on the envy of other court members. This Canto was especially important because Dante came to grips with his own "future" fall from political power and exile. Pier's behavior served as a strong example to Dante how not to act in exile. Whether he had been tempted to commit suicide is not clear; however, he certainly had been prone to the selfish and despairing attitude that Pier represented.

The last two circles of hell contained the sinners of fraud. In the eighth circle, there were ten ditches for the various types of fraud such as Simony, thievery, hypocrisy, etc. Canto XIX described the third ditch, which contained those guilty of Simony, the sin of church leaders perverting their spiritual office by buying and selling church offices. Simonists were buried upside down in a rock with their feet on fire. Pope Nicholas III mistakenly addressed Dante as Pope Boniface VIII who was the current Pope in 1300, and whose place in hell was thereby predicted. This is not surprising since Boniface was the person most responsible for Dante's exile. In an interesting literary twist, Nicholas "confessed" to Dante, as if he was a priest, his sin of greed and nepotism. He admitted that even after becoming Pope he cared more for his family's interests than the good of the whole Church. Dante responded to Nicholas' "confession" with a stinging condemnation of Simony drawn from the Book of Revelation. After this encounter, Dante came to understand that hell was a place of justice.

Canto XXXIV, the last one in the Inferno, depicted Satan with three heads. Each head was chewing the three worst sinners of humankind. The middle head was chewing on the head of Judas Iscariot, who was a disciple to Jesus and his betrayer. The other two heads were chewing Brutus and Cassius; the murderers of Julius Caesar, and the two men Dante faulted for the destruction of a unified Italy. Dante considered the two ultimate betrayals against God and against the empire as the worst betrayals perpetrated in the history of humankind.

Thus, Dante's intent in his Commedia was to teach fourteenth-century readers that if one wanted to ascend spiritually towards God then one needed to learn the nature of sin from the unrepentant. By doing this, one could learn to overcome the same tendencies found in themselves. He wanted people to realize what he had come to learn that political partisanship would only stand in the way of unifying Italy and keep it from regaining any of its former glory that it enjoyed during the time of the Roman Empire.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in literature and medieval history.

The product was in excellent condition as stated in the ad. Delivery was on time and I would purchase again from the seller.

The first line in the Inferno is "Nel mezzo del camin del nostra vita." This translates roughly as "In the middle of the journey of our life." The first line in this translation is "In the middle of the journey my life." Translational freedom aside, "nostra" is the Italian possessive pronoun for "our" not "my." Part of the point of the Inferno is that the reader goes with Dante and Virgil. Changing "our" to "my" cahnges the entire point and tenor of the poem. When a translation has this glaring an error in the first line, it does not bode well for the rest of the text. On a less academic note, this version does not have the original Italian on the opposite page. Even to non-speakers, the original language is still beautiful to read in comparison to the English. My opinion in the world of Dante scholars may not carry much weight, but for what little weight it has, this translation is bad bad bad.