Customer Reviews

Inferno: A New Verse Translation

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I had always wanted to read Dante's La Divinia Comedia, but literature from the fourteenth century often requires the constant use of a dictionary while reading. I was pleasantly surprised to find Palma's translation both modern and entertaining. It makes Dante seem more like a contemporary writer, and one often forgets the work is over 700 years old.
Be assured, you'll have trouble putting this book down, it makes you feel like you were right there with Dante and Virgil as they tour the Inferno. Another nice feature is this version also contains the original Latin on the facing pages. Invest in the hardcover copy, because you'll want to keep this one around for many years!

When I first discovered that a past class required a brand new hardcover "Inferno" when there were a thousand 50 cent paperbacks of other translations out there already, I was not so happy to buy this book. My opinion quickly changed when I opened it - this is not a usual rendition of Dante. Studying from this text, I felt like I was reading Inferno for the first time. Palma captures the imagery, the poetry, and the emotional dynamics of the Italian. This is certainly the most beautiful translation of Dante I have ever encountered, and if you cannot read the original, this is the requisite edition to make up for the loss.

Having explored many translations of Dante's Inferno, I found Palma's translation a revelation. I have read those by Mandelbaum, Sinclair, Singleton, Sayers, Anderson, Ciardi, Pinsky, Zapulla and Musa. Although all of them have things in their favor, none of these versions captured me the way that Palma's has. His ability to incorporate Dante's 'terza rima' (triple rhyme scheme - aba bcb cdc, etc.) into his faithful translation, along with a natural, unforced American English syntax, seems to capture some of what Dante might have had in mind. As a reader I was swept along by the language, from tercet to tercet, the rhyme scheme and poetic language providing a powerful driving force that connected the verses within each canto. The Publisher's Weekly review of the hardbound edition took Palma to task for "some puzzling, clunky passages." Well, yes, but the powerful momentum and overall readability provided by the terza rima more than compensates for the occasional "poetic" word order demanded by the rhymes - Palma's introductory essay accurately points out that Dante's Italian has plenty of its own puzzling, clunky passages. I have appreciated Allen Mandelbaum's scholarly blank verse translation for providing an accurate and poetic sense of Dante's meaning - I still use it when I wish to check the appropriateness of a particular translation - but reading it always felt like work. In another recent translation, Pinsky incorporated consonant-driven rhymes (a la Yeats) to simulate terza rima, and though his translation is elegant, it didn't grab me as did Palma's. (And, I admit to being vaguely, and perhaps unreasonably, disturbed by Pinsky's compression of Dantean tercets into smaller numbers of lines.) In comparison, once I started Palma's translation, I couldn't stop reading. Having finished the first reading, I read it again. And then again. This has never happened to me before. It still is on my bedside table, and I dip into it often. It is a joy to read aloud. I appreciate the facing Italian text - it is enjoyable to sound out the Italian for comparison with the English, even if one doesn't read Italian. I'd love to see Palma do the rest of the Divine Comedy - this translation deserves wide respect and readership.

After trying several other translations, I found Palmer's work to be perfect for actual reading. I am making my way through this translation confident that I will finally finish Dante's masterwork. Plenty of notes provided for additional insight from the translator. There are many other translations on the market; my suggestion is that you make a careful comparison between them and then don't pass this one up.

if lights did outshine the sun. If the grand lion purchased her cub. if i lived long will I back be beyond our sun?
I have enjoyed this translation above all, as a journey into the deepest fears of a heart. Wording so finely crafted, this version soars even higher than the tre tim poet laurete's.
I did believe in an idea that the almighty bestows certain individuals with a spark. Sometimes that spark is a beauty that is in the looks. At others, in the heart of writing. This soul must have been touched by that omnipotent. whilome in Albion there dwelt a youth, child Harold was he hight.

how many people have heard about Byron? Lord Gordon Noel? The theme that plays his harp on his own strange imagine.

As that man once had his time of eternity here on the mother, so have we as others, as well as others so have they well. \

Well lived?

Well died?

I no not of that, but here we live and then we live, forward his is the isabella of a fountain,-- dreams and dreams fallen into dreams.

I wonder a thousand years, we fall asleep, does it end up feeling no more?

Read him! This translation in all makeup is beautiful, elegant. Let go and float down a lineup linnen limes, and the others? Other translations? None of this Magnitude of elegance. None even of this nobel voice of Diction. I'll admit i have no ticket in this line of poetry. I'm speaking of the hard Rime. This one had many of a hard rime. Though speed does do well in its tempo. I have no understanding to say this is the best translation. It did move me deeper than the rest, though. If dimes tangle loose by A wild of pink lemonade lowering, will the crem shine upwards even in the plains of hard woodless tundra. As it soaks my sleeps, slivers become numb. cards remind me of railings of bronzen warmth.

I've read a great number of Inferno translations, & after Robert Pinsky's this is my favorite. In many places it's even more cursive than Pinsky's, but at some moments that are crucial to me it falls short. In any event, this is a wonderful translation to read both for Dante's & it's own merit.