The Divine Comedy

Dante Alighieri

May 2003 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

The authoritative translations of The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso—together in one volume.

Belonging in the immortal company of the great works of literature, Dante Alighieri’s poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise—the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation.

Now, for the first time, John Ciardi’s brilliant and authoritative translations of Dante’s three soaring canticles—The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso—have been gathered together in a single volume. Crystallizing the power and beauty inherent in the great poet’s immortal conception of the aspiring soul, The Divine Comedy is a dazzling work of sublime truth and mystical intensity.

Ratings and reviews

I read the divine comedy as part of a writing seminar in my first year of college and loved it, but I have to say that freedom of discussion really helps to make it more accessible to modern audiences -- focusing more on how Dante's work fits into the modern world of morals rather than the specific poetic forms etc. But that's just me. Paradiso was my least favorite part (oh look, another choir of angels!), and Inferno is always fun, but I have to say that I found Purgatorio to be the most intellectually interesting of the three. I'm a better person for having read it.

I can't fault the effort that went into this, nor the magnitude of the original work... but he choice made to force a rhyming scheme into the work made it hard to read. It feels shoehorned in and disruptive, diluting the original work with additions and changes (to the point of occasionally adding whole lines) that is unwarranted and damaging. I know that this was an attempt to replicate the rhyming scheme in the Italian original, but the beauty of the work doesn't need that, and actively suffers for it

I have tried several translations of Dante, and none come close to the beauty and scholarship that Ciardi provides. He gives a short prose summary of each Canto, a beautiful translation and copious footnotes that are lush with historical information and cogent analysis. No other translation comes anywhere close to Dr. John Ciardi's masterpiece. I can read no others after studying his.

About the author

Dante Alighieri was born in 1265. Considered Italy’s greatest poet, this scion of a Florentine family mastered the art of lyric poetry at an early age. He is the author of the three canticles, The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso. Politically active in Florence, he was banished to Italy in 1302. In 1274, he met the great love of his life, Beatrice, whom he immortalized in La Vita Nuova (1292) and The Divine Comedy. He died in 1321.