The Inferno - Dante, Robert Hollander & Jean Hollander

The Inferno

By Dante, Robert Hollander & Jean Hollander

  • Release Date: 2000-12-26
  • Genre: Poetry
5 Score: 5 (From 17 Ratings)

Description

The epic grandeur of Dante’s masterpiece has inspired readers for 700 years, and has entered the human imagination. But the further we move from the late medieval world of Dante, the more a rich understanding and enjoyment of the poem depends on knowledgeable guidance. Robert Hollander, a renowned scholar and master teacher of Dante, and Jean Hollander, an accomplished poet, have written a beautifully accurate and clear verse translation of the first volume of Dante’s epic poem, the Divine Comedy. Featuring the original Italian text opposite the translation, this edition also offers an extensive and accessible introduction and generous commentaries that draw on centuries of scholarship as well as Robert Hollander’s own decades of teaching and research. The Hollander translation is the new standard in English of this essential work of world literature.

Reviews

  • One of the great translations, but...

    5
    By Panegyrist
    The two Hollanders, Jean an established poet, and Robert a scholar of Italian literature and Dante, make for a powerful team in translating the Inferno. They preserve, to a far greater degree than most, not only the sense of the text but details of imagery that are often lost. My criticisms of the book are purely technical. I miss the the ability and ease of side by side Italian and English. While tools are there to quickly switch back and forth (just click on the line number), it still is much less functional than a simple side by side presentation. I also find the use of large printed arrows in place of footnote numbers to be visually intrusive, and while numbering may be superfluous in iBook's hypertext scheme, its absence makes teaching use needlessly difficult - though this is true of both print and etext editions.

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