The Inferno

by Dante Alighieri, Ciaran Carson (Translator)

'Quite simply the best version of Dante there is' PAUL MULDOON, Irish Times. Almost eight centuries after its first publication, Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy remains an icon of Italian literature and of the epic genre. In Inferno, the first volume, the poet Virgil leads Dante's hero through hell, showing him the inhabitants of each of its nine circles and examples of the divine justice meted out to them. In this beautifully produced Apollo Library edition, Ciaran Carson's translation suffuses the text with wit, anger and irreverent vigour, without diminishing the pathos of the original. This is a retelling of Dante's epic journey for the twenty-first-century reader.

Genres: Poetry, Classics

322 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 5, 2020

About the author

Dante Alighieri, or simply Dante (May 14/June 13 1265 – September 13/14, 1321), is one of the greatest poets in the Italian language; with the story-teller, Boccaccio, and the poet, Petrarch, he forms the classic trio of Italian authors. Dante Alighieri was born in the city-state Florence in 1265. He first saw the woman, or rather the child, who was to become the poetic love of his life when he was almost nine years old and she was some months younger. In fact, Beatrice married another man, Simone di' Bardi, and died when Dante was 25, so their relationship existed almost entirely in Dante's imagination, but she nonetheless plays an extremely important role in his poetry. Dante attributed all the heavenly virtues to her soul and imagined, in his masterpiece The Divine Comedy, that she was his guardian angel who alternately berated and encouraged him on his search for salvation.

Politics as well as love deeply influenced Dante's literary and emotional life. Renaissance Florence was a thriving, but not a peaceful city: different opposing factions continually struggled for dominance there. The Guelfs and the Ghibellines were the two major factions, and in fact that division was important in all of Italy and other countries as well. The Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor were political rivals for much of this time period, and in general the Guelfs were in favor of the Pope, while the Ghibellines supported Imperial power. By 1289 in the battle of Campaldino the Ghibellines largely disappeared from Florence. Peace, however, did not insue. Instead, the Guelf party divided between the Whites and the Blacks (Dante was a White Guelf). The Whites were more opposed to Papal power than the Blacks, and tended to favor the emperor, so in fact the preoccupations of the White Guelfs were much like those of the defeated Ghibellines. In this divisive atmosphere Dante rose to a position of leadership. in 1302, while he was in Rome on a diplomatic mission to the Pope, the Blacks in Florence seized power with the help of the French (and pro-Pope) Charles of Valois. The Blacks exiled Dante, confiscating his goods and condemning him to be burned if he should return to Florence.

Dante never returned to Florence. He wandered from city to city, depending on noble patrons there. Between 1302 and 1304 some attempts were made by the exiled Whites to retrieve their position in Florence, but none of these succeeded and Dante contented himself with hoping for the appearance of a new powerful Holy Roman Emperor who would unite the country and banish strife. Henry VII was elected Emperor in 1308, and indeed laid seige to Florence in 1312, but was defeated, and he died a year later, destroying Dante's hopes. Dante passed from court to court, writing passionate political and moral epistles and finishing his Divine Comedy, which contains the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. He finally died in Ravenna in 1321.

Reviews

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

No words.
And this edition is amazing. Great cover and a very good translation with interesting notes.

[jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

After listening to unreal unearth I can see hozier's vision and how it connects to his music I am very pleased with this translation as someone who is a major Dante fan and of carson's work

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

The translation is free-ish, partly because it's almost impossible to approximate terza rima and be literal at the same time. Also because Carson wanted a kind of Irish flavour to the thing. The original is quite funny. This may be a bit funnier than that.

It worked very well for me. It seems to have worked for the reviewers I've looked at.

It you want literal, Charles S. Singleton's translation--at the least the one I used back in the day--is prose and has the Italian on the facing page. If you know someone who can read it aloud ...

[Ido · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely get why this was so highly regarded, after having read Dante in another language, and attempted at it again in English, at least once before.

Carson’s edition is accessible and relevant. I compared a few verses with another edition’s, and found Carson’s translation to be engaging, in a different way, if not more engaging.

The notes in the end are handy too.

Thanks to this edition, I was able to both understand and enjoy the first part of The Divine Comedy.

[Adam Manning · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vigorous telling of the classic, which provides the reader with a whole-hearted and uncompromising translation of the original Dante. Highly recommended!

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vigorous and vivid translation - extremely accessible with great notes.