Inferno (Bantam Classics) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

I was very pleased with this edition of Inferno, Dante's controversial verse of man's sins. First, the translation was smooth and stayed true to the essence of the story, even though any translation can lose some of the quality of the words. However, there are also facing pages of the original Italian as well. With a short summary of each Canto and a few powerful pencil sketches scattered here and there, this is a very well put together edition. The notes are in the back of the book, which I prefer, so as they don't detract from the story while reading it. There's also a map of Hell and of the Universe according to Dante. Altogether, this is a very informative edition and one of my favorites.

Dante Alighieri's three part epic The Divine Comedy ranks highly among the literature of the world. Written in early Italian and rhymed in terza rima, its 100 cantos display impressive allegory and use of scholastic philosophy. In INFERNO, the first volume, the narrator finds himself "half of our life's way" (around 35 years old) and lost in a forest at night. When day breaks, three savage animals bar his escape. The Roman poet Virgil (best known for his AENEID) appears and tells him that Heaven has sent him to lead Dante through Hell, Purgatory, and finally Heaven to bring him out of his spiritual malaise.

Dante's Hell differs from the traditional view of everyone together amongst flames. Here the dead receive different punishments based on their sins. Thus, the lustful are caught up eternally in a whirlwind, and astrologers and magicians have their heads reversed (so those who tried to fortell the future can only see their past). Nowhere, however, does anything seem wrong. The dead are placed into Hell not by an unjust God, but by their own decisions and actions. INFERNO is a slow beginning, most of the grace and beauty of the Comedy lies in the subsequent volumes, PURGATORIO and PARADISO. However, this first volume has a solid role in the allegorical significance of the Comedy. Dante wrote not just a simple story of quasi-science fiction, but a moving allegory of the soul moving from perdition to salvation, the act which the poet T.S. Eliot called "Mounting the saint's stair". While INFERNO may occasionally lack excitement on the first reading, the next two volumes thrill and upon reading them one can enjoy INFERNO to the fullest.

I believe that the best translation of INFERNO to get is that of Allen Mandelbaum, which is published by Bantam (ISBN: 0553213393). Mandelbaum's verse translation melds a faithful rendering of the Italian with excellent poetry, and has been praised by numerous scholars of Dante, including Irma Brandeis. Here's an example from Canto XIII, where the poet and Virgil enter a forest where the trees are the souls of suicides:

"No green leaves in that forest, only black;
no branches straight and smooth, but knotted, gnarled;
no fruits were there, but briars bearing poison"

Mandelbaum's translation also contains an interesting introduction by Mandelbaum, extensive notes (which are based on the California Lectura Dantis), and two afterwords. The first of these, "Dante in His Age" is an enlightening biography of Dante and how he came to write the Comedy while in exile. The second "Dante as Ancient and Modern" examines Dante both as a wielder of classical knowledge and as a poet working in a new and distinctly late-Medieval style (the "dolce stil nuovo") which broke poetry out of the grip of Latin and made it something for people of every class.

At the rate I'm going, I'll be in one of those circles of hell eventually, but since I'll be in such good company (all of late 13th century Florence, for starters) I don't think I can complain. In spite of Voltaire's opinion, I believe Dante is still read today, as was in Voltaire's time, because people find something of value in this, his most famous poem. The entire "Commedia" consists of two more books, the "Purgatorio" and the "Paradiso," which I have not read. I'll read them eventually, but, for the time being, I am quite happy with the "Inferno." The Florentine poet grabs Virgil as a guide that will take him out of the dark woods where Dante found himself wandering because he had lost the way of his life, and together they will go in a journey through Hell because the divine Beatrice has commanded that Dante must be led, so his eyes and heart can be opened and he can be saved. If this is true, I hope she is wrong, because I would like to talk to Dante, and if he goes to Paradise I would have no chance at all.

The "Inferno" is one of the most important poems ever written. Doomed lovers, murderers, traitors, liars, Dante's political enemies (including a Pope), righteous heathens, all of them have Hell as their final address. Dante talks to many of them, and they tell him their stories. I loved this poem. I found Odysseus where he belongs (with the liars), and Dido and Cleopatra, together in suicide. Most of all, I found an arrogant, self-centered Florentine poet who truly believed that the world revolved around him and wrote a monument of Western Literature just to prove it: I had to like Dante and his poem. The only reason I give this version four stars is because I do not think it is as good as the verse translation by Laurence Binyon. I have read both by now, and the old Binyon rendition of Florentine Italian into English is simply beautiful, where Mandelbaum's more businesslike version is clear if rather unpoetic. I wish a Binyon's version were available, but his translation of the Commedia seems to be out of print and I am the only person I know that has the "Divine Comedy" translated by Laurence Binyon. Still, I read the Mandelbaum for class and I enjoyed it almost as much as my favorite one. Whichever translation you choose (Ciardi's is in rhyme verse, too, while Musas's is not) I think you will enjoy this dark, wonderful journey that Dante took in 1300. If he is right about his poetic vision of the netherworld, most of us will be there in one circle or another, with medieval Florentines all around us. Enjoy.