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About Inferno
Product Description Translated by Anthony EsolenIllustrations by Gustave Doré A groundbreaking bilingual edition of Dante’s masterpiece that includes a substantive Introduction, extensive notes, and appendixes that reproduce Dante’s key sources and influences. Review “Professor Esolen’s translation of Dante’s Inferno is the best one I have seen. . . . And his endnotes and other additions provoke answers to almost any question that could arise about the work.” —A. Kent Hieatt, translator of The Canterbury Tales “Crisp and clear, Esolen’s version avoids two modern temptations: a slavish literalness to the Italian or a taking of liberties in the attempt to make this greatest of medieval poems esthetically modern. . . . In addition to his scholarly tact, Esolen is simply one of the most vigorous English translators of Dante ever.”— Crisis magazine “Esolen’s new translation follows Dante through all his spectacular range, commanding where he is commanding, wrestling, as he does, with the density and darkness in language and in the soul. This Inferno gives us Dante’s vivid drama and his verbal inventiveness. It is living writing.” —James Richardson, professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University “Opening the book we stand face to face with the poet, and when his voice ceases we may marvel if he has not sung to us in his own Tuscan."—William Dean Howells, The Nation From the Inside Flap A groundbreaking bilingual edition of Dante?s masterpiece that includes a substantive Introduction, extensive notes, and appendixes that reproduce Dante?s key sources and influences. From the Back Cover A groundbreaking bilingual edition of Dante’s masterpiece that includes a substantive Introduction, extensive notes, and appendixes that reproduce Dante’s key sources and influences. About the Author Anthony Esolen is a published poet and professor of English at Providence College who has written extensively on Renaissance and medieval literature. His translations include the three volumes of The Divine Comedy— Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise—Lucretius’s De rerum natura, and Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura, che la diritta via era smarrita. Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura4 esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte che nel pensier rinova la paura! Tant' è amara che poco è più morte;7 ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai, dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte. Io non so ben ridir com' i' v'intrai,10 tant' era pien di sonno a quel punto che la verace via abbandonai. Ma poi ch'i' fui al piè d'un colle giunto,13 là dove terminava quella valle che m'avea di paura il cor compunto, guardai in alto e vidi le sue spalle16 vestite già de' raggi del pianeta che mena dritto altrui per ogne calle. Allor fu la paura un poco queta,19 che nel lago del cor m'era durata la notte ch'i' passai con tanta pieta. E come quei che con lena affannata,22 uscito fuor del pelago a la riva, si volge a l'acqua perigliosa e guata, Canto One Lost in a dark wood and threatened by three beasts, Dante is rescued by Virgil, who proposes a journey to the other world. Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself in a dark wilderness, for I had wandered from the straight and true. How hard a thing it is to tell about,4 that wilderness so savage, dense, and harsh, even to think of it renews my fear! It is so bitter, death is hardly more-7 but to reveal the good that came to me, I shall relate the other things I saw. How I had entered, I can't bring to mind,10 I was so full of sleep just at that point when I first left the way of truth behind. But when I reached the foot of a high hill,13 right where the valley opened to its end- the valley that had pierced my heart with fear- I raised my eyes and s
