The Divine Comedy (The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso) Paperback – May 27, 2003

I got this as a gift for my wife. It's a big book packed with three translations; The Inferno, The Pergatorio, and The Paradiso. It's a paperback which makes it a little easier to manage when reading since it has over 900 pages. I haven't personally seen any other versions, but this one seems to be very good.

Not only does the translator explain his process, which I found fascinating, there are notes after each section to help put the language and events in historical context, which I really appreciate. Not a fast read, if you want to get the most out of it, but well worth the time.

The "Divine Comedy" was awe inspiring. Dante, the writer can allow the reader to imagine the trip through 'Hell' and back. The descriptions of the entities that he encountered were real life and it really makes a person want to rethink their actions here on earth and not be sentenced to the fiery pits, caverns, and caves of hell. The book is outstanding and is a must read for those who desire to read fact or fiction. You decide!

Such a great classic piece comes with the best translation ever, and great notes which provide the meaning and the history of the poems after each cantos. Good read and nice meditation as well!

Certain works of human imagination transcend genius. They stagger us, forcing us to marvel at how something so nuanced and transformative could spring from one mortal mind: Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA” - all examples of this lofty tier of creativity. Dante Alighieri’s THE DIVINE COMEDY, has earned its place in the empyrean. Yes, it really is worth reading. Even today. Even if you’re not a student.First, I should touch on the quality of translation in this edition, a fundamental aspect of any foreign work written 800 years ago. John Ciardi bends his English to match Dante’s ABA rhyme scheme. This is problematic, as he acknowledges at the beginning of the book. He admits that he sometimes couldn’t fit the rhyme, so he had to manipulate the phrasing and structure. Something has to be lost in this. Original meaning had to have been distorted in his quest for that ABA sequence. I don’t read Italian, so I can’t point to any specific examples of Ciardi straying obscenely from the original, but it stands to reason that it’s not as pure a translation as one would get if it were translated in blank verse instead of terza rima. That said, the ABA does have its charms: “Time and again at daybreak I have seen/the eastern sky glow with a wash of rose/while all the rest hung limpid and serene,/and the Sun’s face rises tempered from its rest/so veiled by vapors that the naked eye/could look at it for minutes undistressed.”Reading THE DIVINE COMEDY without footnotes would be like watching Dutch TV - you can mostly figure out what’s going on, but vital details would be lost. Ciardi’s footnotes are excellent. He clearly explains the extremely arcane reference within the poem and parses the complex fourteenth century theology that Dante delves into, especially in PARADISO.Even after the better part of a millennium, THE DIVINE COMEDY is a gripping read, with imagery so surreal, intense, and moving it has rarely been rivalled in world literature. It’s mind bending imagination mixed with profound philosophical contemplation with a gloss of unrequited human yearning. It’s the story of how to live life with virtue, even when sin and temptation endlessly besiege us. To echo Dante’s first line, THE DIVINE COMEDY is “our life’s journey.”Ciardi’s translation is an imperfect but good addition to the English language Dante catalogue.

Good quality and a nice design

So we think we mostly know the story but rarely does one know the whole story without muscling your way through the read. This is dense, long term, situational reading. The whole story includes the ubiquitous `Inferno' plus the far less known `Pugatorio' and `Paradiso'. Ciardi's deeply footnoted version, I'm certain, to a 100% probability, must contain at least 1 error of some relevance to some reader, but it's certainly adequate and far more curious than my previous reads.Every reader draws his own conclusions and opinions and they are probably all correct. In the context of John Ciardi's translation, it cannot be overstated how meticulous this translation actually is. The Divine Comedy is the `first of its kind' exposition of the Tuscan dialect that much later emerges as the consolidated `Italian' language. Dante's syntax, meanings and nearly everything linguistic are 21st century translationally imputed into this `first of its kind'. The debates for perfection can never be ended.So, opinions? ... here's mine ...The `Divine Comedy' is a relentless satirical, pseudo-theological exposition of super-epic length. Context and setting are everything. The 14th Century was perhaps the single most catastrophic century for historical Western humankind and so Dante relates his world as an observer to the human cataclysm erupting all around him day after stinking day. A first-time read of Dante ... without some historical perspective on time and place, will leave the reader confused and inevitably horribly bored. That Dante skewers his living `enemies' in some level of damnation's treadmill is the `commedia'. I might suggest this historical pre-read A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th CenturySome imagine there's theology here. Some even imagine Christianity might be defined here. That notion is unfortunately absurd and very unfortunately plays into some readers mind as `Christian' to confuse scriptural vs the imaginings of Dante's fantasy. Is Christianity defined by Tom Hanks in the DaVinci Code? Of course not. Dante's epic here is nightmare scary stuff intended to keep people awake at night ... an afterlife of eternally walking the treadmill to 'paradiso' is grim indeed. A chance error of Dante's perception of sin here or there and the treadmill of damnation-to-paradise is right there to snatch you. It's fun but it's not Christianity.John Ciardi's annotation makes this translation entertaining. You will wear out Wikipedia searching for the story of the devilishly tormented and transitionally divine characters. These are generally obscure folks of no otherwise historical note then to be mentioned by Dante. Hypocrisy reigns supreme and the fundamental answers to the great 'unknowns' of the faith are dreamed up by Dante Alighieri and rendered here by Ciardi.Enjoy the show!

The book is very thick. Caught my attention as soon as i started reading.