From Library Journal
If a recent spate of new translations is any evidence, Dante remains as popular as ever with the general reading public. Durling's new verse translation of the Inferno joins recent versions by Robert Pinsky (LJ 1/93) and Mark Musa (LJ 3/1/95). While Durling's translation (with Italian on the facing page) does not use Dante's rhyme or line divisions, it captures the metrical rhythm of the original. Similarly, his rendering of Dante's diction is literal and accurate, conveying the tone and feel while remaining accessible. Supplemented with an introduction, useful notes, and appendixes, this version, soon to be joined by Purgatorio and Paradiso, can be recommended to the general reader. In a new reader's guide to the Divine Comedy, Gallagher, a Catholic priest as well as a poet and scholar, presents the Comedy canto by canto in a series of mini-essays that discuss content, themes, characters, major allusions, and religious doctrines, particularly from the perspective of Dante as a Christian. For a more scholarly commentary on Dante's language and sources, one should still consult Charles Singleton's translation (The Divine Comedy, 6 vols., Princeton Univ., 1970-75); nevertheless, Gallagher's thorough, lucid, and accessible guide is a good starting point for the general reader.?Thomas L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
This new blank verse translation of the first ``Canticle'' of Dante's 14th-century masterpiece compares interestingly with some of the recent English versions by American poets, though it suffers particularly by comparison with Allen Mandelbaum's graceful blank verse one. Its aim to provide ``a clear, readable English version . . . that nevertheless retains some of the poetry of the original'' is only imperfectly fulfilled, owing partly to moments of unimaginative informality (``In Germany, where people drink a lot''), though these are intermittently redeemed by simple sublimity (``Night now revealed to us the southern stars,/While bright Polaris dropped beneath the waves./It never rose again from ocean's floor''). Translator Zappulla, an American Dante scholar and teacher, offers helpful historical and biographical information in an Introduction and exhaustive Notes following each of the poem's 34 ``Cantos.'' Readers new to Dante may find his plainspoken version eminently satisfying; those who know the poem well may be disappointed by it. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This splendid verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum provides an entirely fresh experience of Dante's great poem of penance and hope. As Dante ascends the Mount of Purgatory toward the Earthly Paradise and his beloved Beatrice, through "that second kingdom in which the human soul is cleansed of sin," all the passion and suffering, poetry and philosophy are rendered with the immediacy of a poet of our own age. With extensive notes and commentary prepared especially for this edition.

"The English Dante of choice."--Hugh Kenner.

"Exactly what we have waited for these years, a Dante with clarity, eloquence, terror, and profoundly moving depths."--Robert Fagles, Princeton University.

"Tough and supple, tender and violent . . . vigorous, vernacular . . . Mandelbaum's Dante will stand high among modern translations."--The Christian Science Monitor

FROM THE CRITICS

William Dean Howells - The Nation

Here at last that much suffering reader will find Dante's greatness manifest, and not his greatness only, but his grace, his simplicity, and his affection... Opening the book we stand face to face with the poet, and when his voice ceases we may well marvel if he has not sung to us in his own Tuscan.

Harper's Monthly

As a crown to his literary life, Longfellow combines his exquisite scholarship and his poetic skill and experience in the translation of one of the great poems of the world.

North American Review

Longfellow, in rendering the substance of Dante's poem, has succeeded in giving also -- so far as art and genius could give it -- the spirit of Dante's poetry.

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