Customer Reviews

Inferno (Modern Library Classics)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Anthony Esolen's [relatively] new translation of Dante's Divine Comedy is my personal favorite for leisure reading. Here he captures the high drama, rage, fear, and pathos of Dante's poem better than any other translator I've read (and I've read many). I had already read Inferno umpteen times when I bought Esolen's translation, and it was like reading it for the first time again. I was almost brought to tears by Ugolino and his story, a story, like I said, that I had already read what seemed like a million times. A good translator makes the familiar seem new again, and Esolen's version of Dante accomplishes just that.
One nice thing, poetically, about this translation is that Esolen avoids most of the flaws of other translations. His poetry is neither ridiculously ornate nor boringly literal, as many have the tendency to be. He walks the tightrope gracefully, sticking to an iambic pentameter line. He doesn't attempt to force rhyme on the translation (the fatal flaw of the otherwise excellent translation by Dorothy Sayers), but does use a rhyme when it presents itself naturally.
This translation is highly recommended for anyone interested in The Divine Comedy. The notes section is scanty, especially compared to the Ciardi and Musa translations, but should be quite enough for even beginning readers.

"Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself in a dark wilderness,
for I had wandered from the straight and true."
(Canto 1, ll. 1-3)

So begins Dante Aligheri's (1265-1321) notorious descent into the ten concentric rings of Hell. The INFERNO is not about wickedness and punishment, Anthony Esolen observes in the Introduction to his unrhymed, blank verse translation of Dante, "but about beauty and love: the terrible beauty of God which should arouse in man the most ardent love, and the ruin of beauty which the soul becomes when it turns that love elsewhere" (pp. xxii-xxiii). For Dante, the goal of human life is to know beauty, and the way to behold Beauty is through love; Hell is a place where no love can dwell (pp. xi; 423). Man's goal, Dante would say, is to dwell, body and soul, in the presence of God, enjoying the intellectual vision of God (PARADISO, Canto 14, ll. 43-51).

In the INFERNO, Virgil guides Dante the pilgrim poet through the depths of Hell, which is organized by the categories and subcategories of the sinners who dwell there. Dante first encounters the seven deadly sins on his journey, lust, gluttony, avarice, wrath and sloth, and then goes on to encounter even greater wickedness on his downward descent, before finally confronting the "evil worm" Lucifer, who flaps his wings while gnawing a hole into God's sweet creation. It is interesting to note that Dante considers violence a greater sin in that it violates the rights of God by turning creation into an arena of destruction (p. 437).

This was my second visit to Dante's Hell, though via a new translation. In his excellent Modern Library edition of Dante's INFERNO, Professor Esolen demonstrates through his insightful Introduction and endnotes that there are three fundamental principles that underlie Dante's view of the world and its beauty: that things have an end, that things have meaning, and that things are connected. Esolen is a professor of English at Providence College, and he has also translated Dante's PURGATORY for the Modern Library.

G. Merritt

Choosing which translation of Dante's Divine Comedy to read is a very subjective and personal question. Any translation involves balancing the meaning, feel, and artistry of the work, normally at the expense of at least one of these qualities. A major consideration is the topic of rhyme. The Divine Comedy has a complex rhyme scheme that suits itself well to the rhyme-rich language of Italian (where, unlike English, many words end in vowels). Translations that attempt to maintain any type of rhyme scheme often sound forced and usually compromise the meaning of the text.

At the other end of the spectrum are straight prose (spoken word) translations. Prose translations are great for communicating the story and it's nuances, however any poetical structure is lost. A third choice is a translation written in blank verse (iambic pentameter). This format allows freedom to communicate the work without rhyme, yet maintains a metrical structure. In addition, it's well suited for English (Shakespeare wrote much of his work in blank verse).

So, which version should you read? I have no vested interested in selling a particular author's work, my recommendations are just my personal opinion. My favorite version is by Mark Musa (written in blank verse). I also enjoy Anthony Esolen's translation (blank verse with some rhyme). They also both have good notes (a necessity). Ultimately, it's great to read a few and decide which version you like best, each has strengths and weaknesses.

Dante's Divine Comedy is one of the great works of world literature. T. S. Eliot famously asserted that Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world: "there is no third". Hence "Commedia", christened "divina" by Boccaccio, earns five stars - there isn't any debate.

Professor Esolen's 2002 version, published by Modern Library, doesn't attempt the intricacies of Commedia's musical terza rima, which is virtually impossible to achieve in English without semantical distortions. Prof Esolen employs blank verse with irregular rhymes, which ought to bring about a virtue of faithfulness to the original text. Looking at Prof Esolen's first Canto, however, might bring some problems to some preferring a more literal approach. Prof Esolen can be too free in his rendition, at least to me, resulting in some semantic shifts which aren't found in the original.

In the opening Canto, Dante finds himself in a "selva oscura", which means "dark/obscure woods/forest". "Selva", according to the Italian dictionary, means "forest" or "woods". This is the wording employed by the vast majority of Inferno translations. Prof Eolen opts for "wilderness", which may mean "forest", "desert" or "a tract of wasteland". The American Heritage Dictionary defines "wilderness" as "a large wild tract of land covered with dense vegetation or forests", or, "an extensive area, such as a desert or ocean, that is barren or empty; a waste". There is dual meaning: the semantics for wilderness in most parts of the world still means "a desolate uncultivated tract" eg. in the 2011 NIV John the Baptist still preached "in the wilderness".

Under the Ptolemaic system during Dante's time the sun was a "planet" (Italian: pianeta). Prof Esolen translates this as "wandering light of Heaven". To Prof Esolen's credit he glosses the phrase, but this circumlocution wasn't in the Italian.

"Uscito fuor del pelago a la riva" means, literally, "having escaped from the sea to shore": the image of a man who has just dragged himself out ashore after nearly being drowned in the sea. Prof Esolen translates: "drags his legs out of the water". It is a nice metaphoric illustration, though "his legs" isn't in Dante's original.

Dante's literal "the lake of my heart" is more memorable than Esolen's "waters of my heart".

In line 38-40, Prof Esolen talks of the sun and stars which Divine Love (ie. God) created "when their beauty move". The literal translation, poetic and beautiful, is "set in motion those beauteous things".

Of course none of these are really that problematic (except the first, perhaps), but this does mean this translation is freer than most except the terra rima approximations. Esolen's notes tends to be interpretative, and some people may prefer a less interpretative approach. I find the notes of the rival Bantam Mandelbaum edition a model of scholarly clarity. The Modern Library edition contains illustrations by 19th-century French illustrator Gustave Doré.

This review relates to the volume -Dante: Inferno-; Translated,
Edited, and with an Introduction by Anthony Esolen. The Modern
Library. 2002/2003 paperback. 491 pp. [Dual language version,
Italian on left pages, English translation on right pages.]
What makes one English translation of Dante's -Inferno-
better than another? That is a question that each reader,
with his or her own educational background, tastes,
understandings, and desires to account for must answer.
I, personally, knew that I would like this version very
much when I picked it up, read the Modern Library's biographical
piece about Dante, and then began to read Anthony Esolen's
"Introduction." The Modern Library has given any reader
the solid, but brief, background to proceed on this
quest or pilgrimage with Virgil and Dante through the
Inferno, or Hell. The biographical piece immediately
tells the reader that "Dante Alighieri, the Italian poet,
whose great allegory -The Divine Comedy- has exerted
profound effect on Western literature and thought, was born
in Florence in May 1265. He came from a noble though
impoverished family, descendants of the city's Roman
founders. *** Dante probably received his early schooling
from the Franciscans and the Dominicans; later, he studied
rhetoric with the Guelph statesman and scholar Brunetto Latini.
Another significant mentor was the aristocratic poet Guido
Cavalcanti, who strongly influenced his early work." The
piece goes on to say that for the young Dante, writing
poetry became an important expression of his passion for
art and learning, and of his abiding concern with the nature
of love and spiritual fulfillment. That is surely a very
succinct and marvelous beginning, though there is much
more in the biographical piece.
But it is the "Introduction" by Anthony Esolen, which
entrances in this version, along with his translation
itself which is clear, compelling, easily understood,
and marvellously absorbing.
One knows the nature of the translation and the translator's
quality when he begins an "Introduction" to the -Inferno-
(the first section of -The Divine Comedy-) in this fashion:
"In Plato's -Phaedrus-, Socrates explains that true love
is a passion to behold not just a beautiful face or body,
but the eternal Form of Beauty itself. To make his point
he compares the soul to a charioteer and a team of horses,
one obedient and the other unruly. While the unruly horse,

representing appetite, strains to leap upon the beloved as
soon as he is in sight, the obedient horse, the 'spirit'
or 'ambition,' heeds the reins and the whip of the shuddering
driver, who recalls that eternal Beauty and beholds its
image with awe and reverence. Dante never read the -Phaedrus-,
but in a deep sense he is at one with Plato, for he too
believes that the goal of human life is to behold Beauty,
and he too believes that the way to that beholding is
traversed by love." Truly that is a wondrous way to
begin the journey, even to Hell -- or, perhaps, especially
to -- and through -- Hell ... toward, ultimately, Paradise.
This translation is excellent. The illustrations in the
volume are by Gustave Dore. There are 7 Appendices:
(a) Virgil, from the -Aeneid-; (B) From the -Visio sancti
Pauli- (The Vision of Saint Paul); (C) Thomas Aquinas,
from the -Summa Theologiae- (On free will; On the distinction
between mortal and venial, or pardonable, sins; On sins

meriting eternal punishment; On sins of weakness and passion;
Whether sins of deliberate will-to-evil are graver than sins
committed in a state of passion; Whether pride is the beginning
of all sin; Whether one beyond the age of discretion can be
guilty of original sin but not mortal sin; On grace as the
only remedy for sin; On the sinfulness of unbelief; On
whether unbelievers may be saved; On the proper object of
human hope; On hope in the damned; Peace as the proper
effect of charity; The lawfulness of vengeance; The
relationship of zealous love and vengeance; On the support
which anger gives to fortitude; On magnanimity and honor;
and others); from -The Compendium of Theology- (Chap. 104;
"The End of the Intellectual Creature"); (D) Dante, from
-De monarchia-; (E) Dante, from -Il convivio-; (F) Boniface
VIII, -Unam sanctam (1302); (G) Bertram de Born; "Be'm
platz lo gais temps de pascor."
There are also notes to the various cantos from pp. 407-490.
For myself, there are two touchstones of the poetry and
the quality of the translation which I particularly
pay close attention to: the beginning stanzas of the
-Inferno- and Canto Five, which deals with Paolo and
Francesca. Here is Anthony Esolen's beginning:
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself in a dark wilderness,
for I had wandered from the straight and true.
How hard a thing it is to tell about,
that wilderness so savage, dense, and harsh,
even to think of it renews my fear!
It is so bitter, death is hardly more --
but to reveal the good that came to me,
I shall relate the other things I saw.
----------------------
-- Robert Kilgore.

On page 167 of his translation of the Inferno, Anthony Esolen gives the following definition: "A comedy is a song written in the humble style wherein the main character begins in grief and trouble and ends in happiness."

Wonderful, isn't it? Who wouldn't wish to be scooped up in such a Commedia?

But this Esolen, though he aims to be helpful, can be both pushy and pious. I had a boyfriend once just like him. This boyfriend used to get me in the car and start playing cassettes of motivational speakers. At certain points, he'd pause the tape and say, "See? See? That's what YOU are doing WRONG."

This is exactly how Esolen uses his commentaries on Dante. Everything Dante says Esolen uses for some heavy-handed moral point he wants to make.

On the other hand, it seems very appropriate to argue over Dante, who was, after all, the world's most artful picker of fights. Not once in the one hundred cantos of his Commedia does he say "Why can't we just get along?"

There's a lot to be said for an argumentative version. So I read Mandelbaum for beauty, Hollander for the notes, and Esolen for arguments.

I'm no expert on English translations of classic works of literature, but for pure enjoyment Anthony Esolen's translation of Dante's "Inferno" works for me. From the first line of the first canto I was hooked and Dante's journey became my own. The book is surprisingly easy to read and beautifully illustrated by none other than Gustave Dore. Kudos to The Modern Library for this lovely clothcover edition!

I bought the trilogy of books from Modern Library and also bought, Prof. Hollander's translation, Longfellow's translation, and Fletcher's translation, and I am also a first generation Italian-American with a Minor in Italian and this is a good book for the price.

The facts that are listed here in this and the subsequent volumes are good, best thing is that hey offer a different approach which compliments other translators versions, and the index is helpful, BUT, it is not as complete as some other versions out there.

Some of the commentaries are opinions, and there are a few words that I feel could have been translated differently (but that does not mean it was incorrect, just difference of opinion).

Con, he does state in the introduction that he is interpreting it in a christian way, versus objective way, but that's easy to get over.

The only thing that truly frustrated me is the ridiculous reviews I have read concerning this translation and the people who have no idea what Dante's Comedy is all about.

Is it hard to understand if you aren't well versed in Italian? Yes, even people who know Italian find it difficult at times, but that doesn't mean it's any less significant than Shakespeare.

Does Dante write about what was happening when he was alive? Yes, in a way he does so finding a good translator with LOTS of notes is crucial.

Does the meter and rhyming scheme throw people off? Well, not really. The job of a good translator is to translate and we all have to remember that the translator has to always choose between a word for word translation versus the intended meaning.

Bottom line, it's a SOLID BOOK, but if you are serious about learning all the in's and out's, Hollander's book is top notch.

As far as people who comment about this book and give it a 1/5, that is grossly inaccurate and unfari.

I can't say how many times I read Esolen's truly exceptional translation of "Inferno" as some parts I read over and over and over again. The cantos flow with such grace and ease that you do not feel as though you are reading a "translation". What better compliment can one give then that?

Cliff Marlowe is popular as William Shakespeare's greatest predecessor. Well, Dante is also deserving of that title. We should also consider the fact that this masterpiece was written about 300 years before Cliff Marlowe or William Shakespeare were even born. The most absurd thing I have ever heard about this book is that it is evil and satanic. But then, I don't believe who said this was a church goer or well educated. Well, that said this book is a phenomenal masterpiece. Probably, the best way to read this is with an openess to compromise. By that, I mean it has some theological basis, but a good priest or bishop would probably point out some flaws in his logic. But ofcourse, the bible is the same way. While the bible certainly has valid teachings of theology, we shouldn't take everything the bible says literally. Well, onto the subject at hand. The book starts with the protagonist reaching the midpoint in his life and feeling he has strayed from God's ways. (This is something we may all go through. So, it makes the book a little more personal. Good!) But even in the agony of the protagonist, the mercy of God is prevalent. (So, we can rest assured that God is merciful and forgiving.) While we may think the subject of the book contradicts this, we must be careful. As early as chapter 5, we learn that people willingly distance themselves from God and freely confess everything to the keeper of hell's gates. As we get into this book, we quickly see that Dante's perception of hell is much more complex than the fires and pitch forks that we have probably heard of since childhood. One of the greatest chapters pertains to the 'light of human reason.' This is where people who didn't acknowledge God go if they were basically good people. This is almost like a lower level of heaven. Dante emphasizes that it is the highest state man can achieve without God. Another interesting chapter follows. We are often lead to think of fornication, adultery, and sexual crimes as severe, but Dante gives a plausible reason why those are actually very lightly punished in hell. Without going on and on, Dante finds artful ways to convey tragic images. One of the most tragic is the consequences of suicide. Perhaps his most theologically sound belief is that the final level of hell is pure ice and nothingness. Remember, the church defines hell as simply 'the absence of God.' In all of Dante's journeys, he maintains interesting characters. Dante seems a bit naive, but some of the scenes where he pities the tortured souls are touching, and as the book goes on, he becomes more aggressive when he learns of the crimes of those punished more in the lower regions of hell. Virgil is actually a complex character. While we may be tempted to think of him as an angel, this is not the case. He is a tenant of the 1st level of hell (the light of human reason) and has developed an acceptance of his position. Yet, he wants to do everything he can to help Dante. Also, Virgil is not all powerful. There are times when he has to seek divine aid to get through certain passages. Also, some of the stories of the tortured souls are really interesting. (The love of Paolo and Francesca who lightly suffer in the tempest, Ciacco the Hog is not overly punished, the tales of those punished for suicide, the fate of Brunetto Latino (whom inspired Dante), the fate of Ulysses, the souls in the lower levels who would rather be forgotten, and the tragic tale of Ugolino. Strangely, the head of hell itself does not get to speak...Yet perhaps Dante felt that his state of sorrow was enough. Interestingly, we may be tempted to think of Satan as the master of hell who delights in the torments of other souls, but remember, Satan himself was thrown out of heaven and sent to hell as punishment. So Dante is probably correct to portray Satan as yet another one who suffers in hell. In all honesty, there is not a dull moment in this book. One final thing I wish to say about Dante's masterpiece is that he skillfully combines his theological interpretaions along with his knowledge of Greek Mythology. (Remember, Dante wrote this 300 years before icons such as Cliff Marlowe, William Shakespeare, John Webster, and John Milton existed.) It may not be wrong to say that Dante helped pave the way for these great writers who gave us the masterpieces of literature through the ages.