Purgatorio

Robert Hollander, a Princeton professor, has devoted his career to the study, translation and teaching of Dante's Divina Commedia. He has been assisted by his wife, Jean, throughout. All three parts of the Hollander translation of the Divina Commedia have now been published and are in print, in three separate volumes - one for the Inferno, a second for the Purgatorio, and a third volume for the Paradiso. Each contains the Italian text and Hollander's translation into English on facing pages. There are extensive and very helpful notes, charts and illustrations throughout, for each part of the Commedia.I think that Hollander's translation captures the meaning very well.My personal preference among available translations is, however, the translation made by Geoffrey Bickersteth. I believe he was a Cambridge University professor. Dr. Bickersteth has not only done a grand job of capturing in English the meaning of each part of the poem; he has performed the feat of putting his English wording into the form of terza rima, which is the same poetic form as Dante used for the Italian original. This is a great aid to the reader.Bickersteth's notes are good, but Hollander's notes seem to be more thorough and more complete.Bickersteth's translation was originally published some years ago in England. I am familiar with an edition of the Bickersteth translation published by Blackwell's, of Oxford. Later, in 1965, the Bickersteth translation of the entire Commedia was published in one very nice volume, on thin Bible paper with a hard binding, making it easily portable, again with the Italian text and the English text on facing pages, by Harvard University Press (as an imprint of its Belknap Press.)

This translation is very readable.

Best English translation with excellent previews of each canto & endnotes. I began reading Dante's 'Divine Comedy' after reading Ross Dreher's 'How Dante Can Save Your Life.' Although I'm not having Dreher's spiritual ride through the three books, I am learning a lot about how the world, morality, and spirituality was conceived at the transition from the 'High Middle Ages' to the early Renaissance in Italy. Dante was a genius of how to absorb everything his age knew into the biblical-narrative worlds of the Bible & Christian doctrine and morality. 'Divine Comedy' should be on everyone's reading list at least once or twice in a lifetime, like Tollkein's 'The Hobbit' & 'The Ring Trilogy.'

My dad's friend, who teaches a class on Medieval literature at a local college, saw I was reading a different translation of the Divine Comedy, and recommended I get the Hollanders' version, claiming it was both the most accurate and the best to read. I'll have to take his word as far as being the most accurate, but I can say, of the three translations I've read, this one is by far the most enjoyable to read. They perfectly capture the mood, feel, and beauty of Dante, and I don't see any reason to ever read a different translation. Part of what makes the Hollanders' version superior are the wonderful explanatory notes and pre-chapter outlines, which guide you through the journey page by page, and make the journey that much more enjoyable. They notes, rather than being boring and confusing, are well written and enjoyable to read. Last but not least, the maps in the introductions to all of the books (maps of hell, purgatory, and paradise) really add to the feel of the journey Dante and Virgil take. I couldn't recommend this book more highly.

For those who ordered the Kindle and got Kirkpatrick instead of Hollander: go to the Princeton Dante Project online. The Hollanders are unbelievably generous in putting all of their Dante scholarship on a navigable website. Italian text, English translation, easily accessed line-by-line notes, Dante's pre-Commedia works... FREE!I was several cantos into the Hollander Inferno years ago, when I realized that I was going to spend the rest of my life reading this work, and so it is proving to be. The English translation is beautiful. The explanatory notes are illuminating, providing an immersion into the world of Dante and classical literature.I've read that on Homecoming Weekend, Princeton alumni march in a parade, class by class, beginning with the oldest graduating class... except for Prof. Hollander's Dante students, who insist on marching as a group, so illuminating did they find the experience. One can see why. I'm on my third journey with Virgil and the Hollanders, and I am everlastingly grateful to them.

Wow, this was fantastic! It's a shame so many readers abandon Dante's epic journey after the Inferno. Dante's poetry is (again) beautiful—as is the Hollander translation—but his use of simile, metaphor, symbolism, and allegory is far more impressive to me in this canticle than in the Inferno.Unless you're enrolled in a university course—or are drinking buddies with a Dantean scholar—seek out an edition with plentiful notes (and read them) to get the most out of this one.Note: Hollander translation with all the notes is super helpful if you're (like me) not terribly familiar with mythology, european/church history, or biblical references

Book arrived as described

Dante is the biggest poet who ever lived- the issue often is in the trandlation. While I am a native italian, henceforth able to enjoy the original text, this translation is the best, providing also a detailed comment verse by verse. Highly recommended.

It was probably unrealistic to expect such a thick book to be printed on anything except cheap paper at the price Amazon sold it for.It would be an absolutely excellent buy for someone who wanted the whole Purgatorio but would only be using it for a relatively short period, perhaps for undergraduate study, annotating and underlining in ballpoint and basically finishing with it after a term or so.For myself, I would gladly have laid out the extra money to get it in a physically better edition if one had been available. Jean Hollander's translation is clear and very readable. She doesn't attempt the terza rima rhyme scheme and she doesn't achieve the intensity that Seamus Heaney does in his Dante versions but then she seems to allow herself fewer liberties and is of course working on the much greater scale of the whole Commedia, not just a few cantos. I haven't done detailed comparisons but my broad feeling is that she strikes the balance between close fidelity to the original and poetry that reads well in English better than any other version of the Comedy as a whole that I've read. The layout is excellent, with good spacing between the tercets encouraging you to linger over them as self-contained units without losing the flow between them. Robert Hollander's notes are scholarly and very detailed but presented in an accessible, easily digestible way.Although I have several versions already I will be adding the Hollanders' Paradiso to my collection.

I bought this as preparation for a course on Dante, recommended by the tutor, and it is an ideal choice, even for the beginner. A dual-language version, Italian on the left, English (by poet Jean Hollander) on the right, each Canto preceded by a useful summary and followed by explanatory notes by Robert Hollander, which I would say are essential to a fuller understanding of the poem, though the constant cross-referencing (which I have no intention of following up - at 73, my remaining days are more precious to me than that) makes the reading of the notes more of a chore than it need be.It might be worth noting that the 'translation' is actually a poetic English version of the original, so I was often at something of a loss as to how the English meant what the original seemed to be saying. Otherwise, absolutely perfect for my purposes.

Marvellous translation by the Hollander team.

The translation and edition are fine, but the production is bad and pages 463-494 were missing, replaced by pages 287-318 in duplicate.

I' m happy to own the book, because I am beginning a study of it.