Dante's "The Divine Comedy" translations: Which is better?

I have two copies (Ebook) of Dante's The Divine Comedy. One translated by Longfellow, and the other by Henry F. Cary (from The Harvard Classics).

Does anyone have an opinion of which is the better translation of the two? Or, what is the "best" translation out there?

Want to read this, but want to read the best translation I can.

Thanks in advance for your opinions.

Bill Masom

Personally, I loved the Robert Pinsky translation. More modern and accessible, but still poetic. It comes in a parallel edition, so you get the Italian right along with it. You can't do that with an e-reader, just yet. Longfellow is Longfellow, of course, but I hate Longfellow, so ask someone else about that.

I haven't bumped into the Cary version, but if Harvard's other translations are any indicator, it's likely to be academically correct, and a little clunky.

karhne,

Thanks for the input. You said you have never ran into the Cary version, if you care to see it, follow this link: (should have added it to the first message, sorry)

http://www.bartleby.com/20/

That will take you to bartlby.com, which has all the Harvard Classics readable online (not downloadable, but readable)

Would love to hear your opinion of it.

Bill Masom

If you can get a book that has the Italian-to-English side-by-side translation, that would be ideal. Pinsky was a good translator, but has so far only worked on the first third of the Comedy, as far as I know. Reading only a third of the work seems a waste of Dante's talent.

From the two you have, while I am only familiar with Cary off-hand while studying the process of translating the Inferno, Longfellow just came across as more literal in his translation - which is good or bad depending on what type of translation you want. Bear in mind that medieval Italian does not literally translate beautifully to English. Longfellow was strict in choosing Romantic words over Saxon, which has left some of his intended modern audience somewhat upset (though I personally have little qualms with his choice; this translation is still readable if a bit tedious at times).

So between Longfellow and Cary, compare these two lines from the Inferno:

Longfellow: "There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud Resounded through the air without a star, Whence I at the beginning wept thereat."

Cary: "Here sighs, with lamentations and loud moans Resounded through the air pierced by no star, That e'en I wept at entering."

Which one sounded more pleasant to your ears?

I personally have stuck with Longfellow for the time being, as I grew up with him and am used to the style, but I have heard that John Ciardi's translation - used by the older Penguin edition and Signet classics) retains a more poetic form - so, if you want rhyme, he's probably your way to go.

Phocion, most people who begin Dante only read the Inferno. Perhaps that can be attributed to sludging through Longfellow. I would tend to argue that by choosing the vocabulary he did, Longfellow comes across as far more high-brow and unattainable than Dante ever intended. Dante did, after all, choose to write in the vernacular (which equates to Saxon derivatives, in English), when he was perfectly capable of writing in Latin (that pinnacle of human utterance, which the archangels and even God, Himself, might sometimes deign to speak.) So, I'm afraid I have very large qualms with his choice.

If we're going to declare biases, I tend toward sacrificing the exact, literal meaning, rather than the spirit of the text. I replace my classical pejoratives with modern equivalents, and feel no guilt. Why bother translating in the first place, if you're just sending 'em running to a different dictionary?

Never mind. If you wind up doing much work in linguistics, you'll spend hours and hours bickering about that.

I'm a little skeptical of either line being a literal translation, and they can't both be. Longfellow has a compound subject (Sighs, complaints and..ahem... ululations) whereas Cary's subject is only sighs, which are accompanied by Lamentations and Loud moans which lift out of the sentence entirely. There is also a significant difference between Longfellow's "whence" and Cary's "that". I question the choice of the word "air" and point out that in one the stars do not pierce and in the other, they simply are not there. Cary's "e'en", which is heartbreaking--that even a man who knows he will eventually leave, is reduced to tears--doesn't appear in Longfellow, at all.

My gut feeling--I may be wrong, and I'm too lazy to dig out the original--is that sighs (or sighs, complaints and ululations, as the case may be) may not be Dante's choice of a subject.

You're right that Longfellow's scansion is somewhat more regular (and classically correct.) However, I like Cary's pathos enough to throw scansion to the four winds.

Things do not come across as literal translations. Either they are, or they aren't. If they are, they're usually heavily footnoted so the scholar can defend his choices.

I'd recommend John Ciardi for ease of reading and understanding or Robert & Jean Hollander for poetry and the beauty of their translation. Not thrilled by Melville's attempt.

Longfellow has issues, but with all the possibilities he's reliable. And at his best, Longfellow was very, very good. His language and themes often seem dated, because we don't respond to the Victorian world view; but he was universally regarded in the English-speaking world as one of its best poets--on a par with Tennyson. (His friend James Russell Lowell was only slightly less famous.) If I don't have a reason to prefer another, I usually go with him.

The Robert Durling translation of Purgatorio is excellent--it's the only volume of his I've read. I'm looking forward to reading all three from the top.

Lots of bilingual editions are available. Remember that Italian has undergone changes in the past 700 years as English has. I haven't found one with Dante's original.

I'm just starting the Mandelbaum translation with Botticelli illustrations.

>7 issaichizen: Mandelbaum is not bad. I have a Moser illustrated edition.

I read the Divine Comedy in a literature class recently, and my professor had us use the Allen Mandelbaum translation in class and spoke highly of it. We used the Everyman Library edition.

I have to speak up for the Mark Musa translation under the Penguin label. It is an excellent translation, very readable (out loud as well), and he has very extensive notes on the text, both tied to lines, and an introduction to each Canto. I have taught several versions, but keep coming back to this one.

The oldish Laurence Binyon translation holds up pretty well, I think. It was the one included in _The Portable Dante_ but I think it's been supplanted by the Musa. I enjoyed the Mandelbaum, but the Binyon is the one I've kept around.