Rating: 
Summary: The Fiery Pit of Doom
Review: In this literary work Dante, the author, is also the main character of his guided tour/learning experience in hell. Virgil, the ancient poet who wrote the Aenid, is his guide. It is set in the medieval late 13th century. Inferno is the first installment of a three part epic called The Divine Comedy which includes: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. It is not a comedy in the modern sense of making one laugh, but of the classical sense in that it starts tragically (Inferno) and ends happily (Paradiso).
This work first intrigued me because of the fact that Dante is writing about all the people he hates and the tortures he devises for them in Hell. I thought it interesting to see what sins he deems least and most punishable and what categories he punishes those he hates. The hardest part of understanding this poem is not only the poem format, but the allusions. All the people Dante encounters in his trek are from history, mainly old Italian politics and the Italian religious system which everyday people would have no clue as to who they are. In most translated versions of Inferno, there are side notes that explain who these people are, but constantly reading the side notes disrupts the storyline and takes away from the flow of the work.
I would recommend this poem to anyone studying in-depth about medieval Italian politics and their religious systems, but also to those who are interested in the deadly sins and how, in Dante's opinion, they should be punished; that is what drew me in.
Rating: 
Summary: It's not a Real Story But I Think There's Somethin' We Might
Review: ...found important. Dante describes three places in this book. In hell are awful things: fire, ice, awful smell, pain. In purgatory there's less awful things. The paradise is described a place where is happy people. Well, some are very happy, some one are not so but aren't that sad either. The upper you are, the happier you are. The hell is desribed also like this. The lower you are the more pain you feel. There's different kinds of crimes that these people have done.This is a great book! I love it! It's quite long but you don't have to read it word by word. The pictures are also quite good!
Rating:
Summary: Astonishingly beautiful work, and a lyrical translation
Review: I did an essay on this in first-year university, and when I picked up a random translation at the library, I dreaded having to read something so thick. I was afraid of having to read some clunky translation with prose that would be difficult to understand, but I was pleasantly surprised when I began reading, I just couldn't put it down. Ciardi did an amazing job with this translation: Dante's work flows so smoothly and beautifully on the page. I doubt you can find a translation that is so easy to read while maintaining a style and language that is true to what the original author wanted to convey. While it is true that 'Inferno' is the most interesting book of the three, it is not complete if you only read one; reading the whole work leads to a better understanding of his message regarding spirituality. It evokes such images and allegories that are vivid, imaginative and moves the reader. As biased as "The Divine Comedy" is (and it is; you'll understand this better when you read the work, or Ciardi's helpful footnotes), this is nothing short of true literary art. I highly recommend this work, and this specific translation especially. Even if you don't follow the faith, the beauty of the poetry is not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: A Musical Translation!
Review: I was introduced to Ciardi's translation of "The Divine Comedy" in an anthology of continental literature I read in college. At that time, after experiencing fragments of Fagles' horrible "verse" translation of Homer's works, I had low expectations for the translations in that anthology. However, the instant I started reading John Ciardi's verse translation of "The Inferno", my hardened heart once again began to beat with the vibrancy it had when I read poems of Wordsworth or Browning. John Ciardi, with a poetic talent that seems to be unmatched -- except for what I?ve read of W.S. Merwin's "Paradiso XXXIII," -- creates a poetic flow that feels, tastes, and even smells Italian. A poetic flow that delightfully contrasts Fagles', whose poetic flow is limited by popular styles and even phrases of the 20th century. Instead of trying to lift Dante to the 20th century, Ciardi gracefully carries us to the early 14th century. Instead of assuming that Dante is arcane, old fashioned, and in need of John's own poetic help, he believes that the original Italian is fresh, exciting, and poetically graceful. The translation of Dante would have been diluted if Ciardi were to try and bring the 14th century to us through the modernization of the language, symbolism, and even the geography of Dante's world. (Fagles even geographically modified his "Odyssey" at one point to rename a Greek river the Nile because readers may get 'confused'.) I?m glad that Ciardi tries to bring us back in time when the universe was cosmically full of life, where even the stars were more than the mere byproducts of abstract forces, chance, that can only be systematically analyzed and dissected. The medieval worldview is far richer than the purely logical and scientific mindset that?s now common. By bringing Dante to us unfiltered by that mindset, Ciardi helps move us towards the bright and vibrant medieval world. I strongly recommend John Ciardi's poetic translation of "The Divine Comedy," a lot is missed when reading only "The Inferno." The whole work is amazingly balanced.
Rating:
Summary: Longest love poem
Review: It is difficult to add something new to the thousands of pages that have already been written on Dante's Divine Comedy, the peak of Medieval/ Renaissance literature. Dante's work is the longest love poem ever put on paper, and that for a pubescent girl, whom the author probably saw only on a few ephemeral occasions. They were his 'Divine Appearances' of Beatrice. On the other hand, some 'political' aspects of the Comedy are still very modern, like the clashes between the religious and worldly powers.
Here, Dante criticizes the interventions of the Catholic Church in worldly matters to defend her profane but huge interests. Dante's work is also an eminent catholic poem. As Jesus Christ, who said 'who's not for me, is against me', Dante fulminates (and puts in Hell) against those who didn't accept his vision of society (strict separation between religous and worldly powers), or those who didn't belong to his political party and sent him in exile. My personal preference goes to the 'Hell' part, where certain images evoke the impressive pictures of Jheronimus Bosch. Everybody - even the heathen - should read this monument of human art, even if Dante's message is sometimes biased or flawed.
Rating: 
Summary: A bit overrated
Review: It may well be that I would rate this work higher if I could read it in the original. There's a great deal of energy behind it. But to me, something about it feels forced. When I read, e.g. Tolkien or Marion Zimmer Bradley, I don't have the sense that the author is answerable to any authority or has any agenda other than to write out from him- or herself -- other than to tell a good story which needs to be told. But it feels to me as if Dante made up his mind to write a great epic, and although the work clearly expresses his personal feeling as well -- his love for Beatrice and Virgil, for example --it was cleanly supportive of the Roman church. He was -- it seems to me -- in some measure being a good boy and in some measure venting for past wrongs, particularly in the Inferno. My favorite book is the Paradiso. There seems to me more there for the mytholgical mind to hold onto. But when I read Shakespeare or Goethe, something in me is deeply satisfied in a way it is not satisfied by Dante.
Rating:
Summary: 10 stars would not be enough!!
Review: The Divine Comedy" was written in Toscan by the Florentinian Dante Aligheri 700 years ago and is one of the most important texts ever written. Dante Aligheri is, along with Miguel de Cervantes, Willian Shakespeare and the Portuguese Luis de Camões, one of the most important writers of History, but we have to remember that Dante Alligheri was born some 250 years before each one of the latter. "The Divine Comedy" was first published in the beginning of the 14th century and narrates a vision Dante Alligheri had of his visit to Hell (Dante's Inferno), the Purgatory and to the Heavens (Paradiso), where he is guided by the Latin poet Virgil and later on by his muse, Beatrice, deceased some years before. His narrative is full of devout catholic sentiments and he spares no expenses in narrating the torments perpetrated in Hell, described in details, where each ring or level is reserved for each different earthly infraction that the penitent has commited when alive. The company of Virgil, a permanent resident of the first hell ring, the Limbo, is a magistral coup by Dante Aligheri and adds lustre to the text. Virgil leads Dante too through the Purgatory, where, contrary with what happens in the Inferno where there is no salvation, the souls are suffering with a view to a future life in Heaven. Dante is the first and only human being that put his feet into this after life regions, and things get increasingly intense and sometimes dangerous to him. Also to be noted is the disposition of Dante to here and there sting his earthly political opponents, which were not few, banning them to hellish confines. The final visit to the supreme heavenly region, where he meets Beatrice, is suffused with catholic symbology, fully explained by Dante, who embroiders the descriptions with all the richness of his language. You end the book asking for more, and sensing intensively the powerful richness of Dante's vocabulary. I hope you enjoy the Divine COmedy as much as I did. Good reading.
Rating:
Summary: 10 stars would not be enough!!
Review: The Divine Comedy" was written in Toscan by the Florentinian Dante Aligheri 700 years ago and is one of the most important texts ever written. Dante Aligheri is, along with Miguel de Cervantes, Willian Shakespeare and the Portuguese Luis de Camões, one of the most important writers of History, but we have to remember that Dante Alligheri was born some 250 years before each one of the latter. "The Divine Comedy" was first published in the beginning of the 14th century and narrates a vision Dante Alligheri had of his visit to Hell (Dante's Inferno), the Purgatory and to the Heavens (Paradiso), where he is guided by the Latin poet Virgil and later on by his muse, Beatrice, deceased some years before. His narrative is full of devout catholic sentiments and he spares no expenses in narrating the torments perpetrated in Hell, described in details, where each ring or level is reserved for each different earthly infraction that the penitent has commited when alive. The company of Virgil, a permanent resident of the first hell ring, the Limbo, is a magistral coup by Dante Aligheri and adds lustre to the text. Virgil leads Dante too through the Purgatory, where, contrary with what happens in the Inferno where there is no salvation, the souls are suffering with a view to a future life in Heaven. Dante is the first and only human being that put his feet into this after life regions, and things get increasingly intense and sometimes dangerous to him. Also to be noted is the disposition of Dante to here and there sting his earthly political opponents, which were not few, banning them to hellish confines. The final visit to the supreme heavenly region, where he meets Beatrice, is suffused with catholic symbology, fully explained by Dante, who embroiders the descriptions with all the richness of his language. You end the book asking for more, and sensing intensively the powerful richness of Dante's vocabulary. I hope you enjoy the Divine COmedy as much as I did. Good reading.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent traslation of a towering masterwork
Review: Think about this: Dante wrote this book around 1320, and it still sells and thrills readers today. In an age as temporal as ours, when ideas and fashions seem to come and go as fast as the dot.com craze, his writing will be around as long as intelligent people gain pleasure from reading.
The author's vision of the three stages of the afterlife is so beautifully realized; I actually felt waves of primal fear during several of the Inferno Cantos. In these medieval pages, the tortures of the damned seemed viscerally real, and soul chilling in their horror. As I read, I could almost feel myself becoming lighter as Dante and Virgil made their way up.
For my money, Ciardi's translation is the best. His style is both poetic and dramatic, and while he strives to make the text accessible to a modern reader, he does not make the mistake of cheapening the genius of Dante by making a "modern" translation. Ciardi lets the full weight of the medieval mind come through in the language and the result is vivid and extremely visual.
I really benefited from Ciardi's notes as well, which begin each Canto with a brief synopsis of what is happening, and then after each Canto a more detailed explanation of the various levels, themes, and points of interest. And, of course, all the various characters and personalities that Dante encounters in his journey toward and into Heaven are explained (if the reader does not have an extremely solid grasp of Medieval European politics (and how many of us do?), his notes are invaluable.
Of course you should read this book, and I highly recommend this translation. --Mykal Banta
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, readable translation for first-time readers
Review: This is a review of the translation and edition, not of the Commedia itself, which would be ludicrous. Read reviews of every translation available on Amazon.com, and you'll find rave reviews as well as tirades. My approach is to recommend different versions for different stages of Dante appreciation. To my mind, your first translation should satisfy the following: 1. It must be, above all, readable. Obscure words (other than historical/mythological characters) and twisted syntax will throw up a roadblock in the very first canto. 2. It should give some sense of the poetry of the original. 3. It had better convey the emotion of the original. 4. The notes should aid, not overwhelm, the curious reader.
Mr. Ciardi's translation treads a marvelous balance among these directives. Literalists will lament Ciardi's word choice and will assert inappropriate meaning changes. Purists will assail the abandonment of terza rima. (Ciardi's compromise rhyming scheme, as recounted in his introduction, is that of a practicing English-language poet.) The notes are enough - with just that little extra - to make a first reading interesting and comprehensible. (Mark Musa's notes to his translation are a bit much for a first go-around.) And the reader feels the emotions of Dante the pilgrim as well as those shades he meets along the way.
For a deeper reading, I suggest going on to Charles Singleton's Text and Commentary volumes for each canticle. These literal prose translations and notes will ensure you don't miss very much the second time around. And if you have some Italian, or any other romance language for that matter, you can follow along on the opposite page.
If you want more than that, you can try a terza rima version like Pinsky's Inferno, or other poetic efforts like Longfellow's or Dorothy Sayers'. Most versifications sacrifice clarity and readability to shoehorn the text into Dante's rhyming or metrical scheme, and I'd tackle them only after getting a good handle on the Commedia.
Finally, a word about the edition. The text has been reset into very clear, sharp type, and the original illustrations are much cleaner than in the mass-market paperback edition. The page layout is relaxed, and the look is a joy to my fiftyish eyes. It is printed on alkaline paper and will probably age better than I am managing to do. And the book lies flat when open. An index to characters, locations, and allusions is all that's missing. Buon viaggio!
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