Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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303 of 304 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, readable translation for first-time readers, December 27, 2004
This is a review of the translation and edition, not of the Commedia itself, which would be ludicrous. Read reviews of every translation available on Amazon.com, and you'll find rave reviews as well as tirades. My approach is to recommend different versions for different stages of Dante appreciation. To my mind, your first translation should satisfy the following: 1. It must be, above all, readable. Obscure words (other than historical/mythological characters) and twisted syntax will throw up a roadblock in the very first canto. 2. It should give some sense of the poetry of the original. 3. It had better convey the emotion of the original. 4. The notes should aid, not overwhelm, the curious reader.
Mr. Ciardi's translation treads a marvelous balance among these directives. Literalists will lament Ciardi's word choice and will assert inappropriate meaning changes. Purists will assail the abandonment of terza rima. (Ciardi's compromise rhyming scheme, as recounted in his introduction, is that of a practicing English-language poet.) The notes are enough - with just that little extra - to make a first reading interesting and comprehensible. (Mark Musa's notes to his translation are too detailed for a first go-around, though Ciardi's get a bit much, too, in the last two canticles.) And the reader feels the emotions of Dante the pilgrim as well as those shades he meets along the way.
For a deeper reading, I suggest going on to Charles Singleton's Text and Commentary volumes for each canticle. These literal prose translations and notes will ensure you don't miss very much the second time around. And if you have some Italian, or any other romance language for that matter, you can follow along on the opposite page.
If you want more than that, you can try a terza rima version like Pinsky's Inferno, or other poetic efforts like Longfellow's or Dorothy Sayers'. Most versifications sacrifice clarity and readability to shoehorn the text into Dante's rhyming or metrical scheme, and I'd tackle them only after getting a good handle on the Commedia.
Finally, a word about the edition. The text has been reset into very clear, sharp type, and the original illustrations are much cleaner than in the mass-market paperback edition. The page layout is relaxed, and the look is a joy to my fiftyish eyes. It is printed on alkaline paper and will probably age better than I am managing to do. And the book lies flat when open. An index to characters, locations, and allusions is all that's missing. Buon viaggio!
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68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb and accessable translation of Dante's masterpiece, November 19, 1999
Those of us not fortunate enough to be able to read Italian and thus savor Dante's masterpiece in its original language have the next best thing--the comprehensively noted translation by another great poet, the late John Ciardi. This superb and handsome hardbound edition of Ciardi's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy is not simply the collected, earlier translations of The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso, which in past years appeared in separate paperback editions: This edition is the final Ciardi translation from earlier forms which were "a work in progress." In this magnificent final translation, the non-Italian-speaking reader can savor Dante's extrodinary fusion of morality with the metaphorical architecture of Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, explored with pathos and sympathy for the human condition which, in the mind of Dante, constantly yearns for The All in All. A volume that should be required reading for anyone who aspires to understand man's place in the universe.
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140 of 154 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Musical Translation!, August 25, 2003
I was introduced to Ciardi's translation of "The Divine Comedy" in an anthology of continental literature I read in college. At that time, after experiencing fragments of Fagles' horrible "verse" translation of Homer's works, I had low expectations for the translations in that anthology.However, the instant I started reading John Ciardi's verse translation of "The Inferno", my hardened heart once again began to beat with the vibrancy it had when I read poems of Wordsworth or Browning. John Ciardi, with a poetic talent that seems to be unmatched -- except for what I?ve read of W.S. Merwin's "Paradiso XXXIII," -- creates a poetic flow that feels, tastes, and even smells Italian. A poetic flow that delightfully contrasts Fagles', whose poetic flow is limited by popular styles and even phrases of the 20th century. Instead of trying to lift Dante to the 20th century, Ciardi gracefully carries us to the early 14th century. Instead of assuming that Dante is arcane, old fashioned, and in need of John's own poetic help, he believes that the original Italian is fresh, exciting, and poetically graceful. The translation of Dante would have been diluted if Ciardi were to try and bring the 14th century to us through the modernization of the language, symbolism, and even the geography of Dante's world. (Fagles even geographically modified his "Odyssey" at one point to rename a Greek river the Nile because readers may get 'confused'.) I?m glad that Ciardi tries to bring us back in time when the universe was cosmically full of life, where even the stars were more than the mere byproducts of abstract forces, chance, that can only be systematically analyzed and dissected. The medieval worldview is far richer than the purely logical and scientific mindset that?s now common. By bringing Dante to us unfiltered by that mindset, Ciardi helps move us towards the bright and vibrant medieval world. I strongly recommend John Ciardi's poetic translation of "The Divine Comedy," a lot is missed when reading only "The Inferno." The whole work is amazingly balanced.
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