The Inferno of Dante Alighieri (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

Dante Alighieri (Author), Ciaran Carson (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2004 | Series: New York Review Books Classics

This startling new translation of Dante's Inferno is by Ciaran Carson, one of contemporary Ireland's most dazzlingly gifted poets. Written in a vigorous and inventive contemporary idiom, while also reproducing the intricate rhyme-scheme that is so essential to the beauty and power of Dante's epic, Carson's virtuosic rendering of the Inferno is that rare thing—a translation with the heft and force of a true English poem. Like Seamus Heaney's Beowulf and Ted Hughes's Tales from Ovid, Ciaran Carson's Inferno is an extraordinary modern response to one of the great works of world literature.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

While news-making controversy rages over the mounting mound of Bible translations, yet another Dante's Inferno in English doesn't much bother anyone. Nor should it in the case of Ulster poet Carson's version. Comparison with dual-language editions confirms it is faithful to the original, only with a slight Scots-Irish accent (e.g., in using girn instead of snarl), which may require occasional recourse to a collegiate dictionary. Writing in Dante's form, terza rima, necessarily with plenty of off rhymes (English isn't rhyme-rich like Italian), Carson nicely manages the form's propulsive thrust; when Virgil wants Dante to get a move on in this version, we share his urgency. Carson says that as he got deeper into the work, he took a lot of walks around Belfast. Perhaps the rhythm of his pace infected that of his verse. At any rate, this is brisk reading, and the journey from the dark wood through Hell's nine circles to Satan's waist and beyond has seldom been so bracing. An excellent choice for first acquaintance with a perpetually fascinating classic. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"A Dante not for the shelf but for the eye and voice, addictively readable, virtually demanding to be recited aloud." -- Tim Rutten, LA Times, December 18, 2002

"A creative transformation that deserves our highest admiration and respect." -- Guardian

"An excellent translation, or adaptation...It has spit as well as polish, creating something pithy and original." -- Independent

"Quite simply the best version of Dante there is." -- Paul Muldoon, The Irish Times --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 328 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics (October 31, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590171144
• ISBN-13: 978-1590171141
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #403,296 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riotously funny (and moving, too), January 22, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Inferno of Dante Alighieri (Hardcover)

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.)

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hell of a good book, September 10, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Inferno of Dante Alighieri (Hardcover)

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Heretical Perspective, November 16, 2009

By 

Keith A. Comess - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Inferno of Dante Alighieri (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

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".