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Rating: 
Summary: Best translation I've encountered
Review: Absolutely excellent. Ciardi's description of the Canto, and the actual translated text followed by his notes helped me disect and understand Inferno better than anyone's translation to date.There are suppositions, where Ciardi does his best to determine or even guess what Dante's intentions where with phrases and descriptions. This is not by any means a negative attribute of his efforts. Any speculation is clearly stated, and determined using history, Greek mythology, and Dante's political entanglements at the time of his writings. This is a copy worth collecting. Too bad Random House has discontinued both Pergatorio and Paradisio in hard cover though...hard to find.
Rating:
Summary: Best translation I've encountered
Review: Absolutely excellent. Ciardi's description of the Canto, and the actual translated text followed by his notes helped me disect and understand Inferno better than anyone's translation to date. There are suppositions, where Ciardi does his best to determine or even guess what Dante's intentions where with phrases and descriptions. This is not by any means a negative attribute of his efforts. Any speculation is clearly stated, and determined using history, Greek mythology, and Dante's political entanglements at the time of his writings. This is a copy worth collecting. Too bad Random House has discontinued both Pergatorio and Paradisio in hard cover though...hard to find.
Rating:
Summary: Ciardi's translation is truly striking
Review: Ciardi's translation of Dante's Inferno is one of the very best. Its major strength is the intensity and power of its language. Although the translation is now more than fifty years old, it remains fresh, unencumbered by archaisms. Ciardi is a poet and it shows. I found myself more stunned by the horrors of hell in this translation than any other I've seen. Chills ran down my spine as I read about Count Ugolino encased in the ice.
This edition includes a plot summary before each canto, and footnotes telling you which dead Florentine did what after each canto. For the first-time reader, these are truly helpful -- indeed, essential.
Unlike most translators who completely abandon the idea of making Dante rhyme in English, Ciardi preserves a partial rhyme scheme. The first and third lines of each tercet rhyme, while the middle rhyme is dropped. While Ciardi's translation is reasonably faithful to the original, he had to take minor liberties with the text to make it rhyme. The excellent Musa and Hollander translations are more literal and straightforward, and the Hollander version comes in a handy bilingual edition if you want to try your hand at reading Dante's incredible Italian. Still, the best poetic translation of the Inferno in English remains Ciardi's.
Rating:
Summary: Deceivingly not for everybody, but really should be.
Review: Compared to most modern stories about the afterlife, Dante's "Divine Comedy" actually has some punch and originaity to it! The writing is also incredible and you could choke on the symbolism. If you can stand the heat, come on in the kitchen!
Rating:
Summary: A Classic that needs Modernization
Review: No doubt one of the best works of literature known to us. Although influenced by the events of his day, Dante would have made a great writer and thinker in our time. My dream is to write a follow-up to Dante's "Divine Comedy" using events since the time of Dante, and presenting more subjective views of religion and the afterlife. I plan to start this project in the near future and who knows how long before it's completion........could be years. I think this would be a novel idea and I have yet to see any other such modern day works.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic that needs Modernization
Review: There's no doubt about it...Ciardi's is the best translation of the haunting and powerful poem about the medieval view of God's divine plan. Ciardi dumps archaisms and goes for the throat of Dante's poetry and meaning. You'll never touch another translation after you read this!
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