The Inferno (Signet Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Dante Alighieri
Creators: Archibald T. Macallister, John Ciardi
Publisher: Signet Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $5.95
Buy Used: $0.70
You Save: $5.25 (88%)
New (54) Used (126) Collectible (5) from $0.70
Rating:  106 reviews
Sales Rank: 14451
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.2 x 1
ISBN: 0451527984
Dewey Decimal Number: 851.1
EAN: 9780451527981
Publication Date: June 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: much older 1960 printing of Ciardi translation, previous owners name inside, no other marks, heavy edge wear
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Product Description
Considered to be one of the greatest literary works of all time- equal only to those of Shakespeare-Dante's immortal drama of a journey through Hell is the first volume of his Divine Comedy. The remaining canticles, The Purgatorio and The Paradiso, will be published this summer in quick succession.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 101 more reviews...
 Journey to deep down under April 7, 2000
Shirley Li (USA)
27 out of 28 found this review helpful
Don't read Dante for his fame, don't judge The Inferno for its subject. Instead, savor Dante's overpowering language that is cleverly winded around one of life's most daunting matter-Hell. Pervaded with vivid and often gruesome imageries, Inferno captures the very essence of suffering through Dante's unqiue understanding of religion with a blend of paganism and christianity. Also it's a thrilling ride down the underworld to be met by history's greatest souls. The notes before every Canto is crucially helpful in helping readers keeping up with ancient historical references. And feeling yourself penetrating the Nine Circles of Hell in the company of Dante and Vergil, you will surely catch a rare taste of the living value as Vergil guides curious eyes down a path where judgment befalls every single flaw of human nature. Perhaps, just perhaps you will attain a better sense of your existence once matched against the standards of Nine Circles designed for different sins. I call that a gripping journey.
The Cream of The Crop December 16, 2002
Vijay Singh
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
First let me say that i am 13 years old; however, my favorite thing to do is to sit down with a good book and read for a good 2 to 5 hours. I have read books like For Whom The Bell Tolls and To Kill A Mockingbird. I heard about the inferno from one of my teachers who said that I should read it when I get to college or to my seinor year in high school. Well I didn't want to wait that long so I came to this site and purchased this book. It changed my life, never before have I read anything like it. When I finished this book I went and read other translations of it. However, this one was by far the best. It captured every aspect of Dante's genious writing and put it into american coming the closest to the real version as possible. Notes also help to decipher and understand Dante's masterpiece. I would recommend this book to anyone who can read.
Beautiful prose version of Dante's extraordinary poem December 26, 1997
cbrowne@alternatives.ca (Montreal, Canada)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I feel so enthusiastic about this book that I want to tell everybody about it. This translation is unrhymed; it is in prose; and it follow's Dante's syntax and meaning closely. If you know a little Italian, you can use the text (it is a bilingual edition) as a crib to read Dante in the original, which is a tremendously moving experience. Dante's Hell is full of striking characters who still feel the passions they experienced during their life in history; only now their identity is even more sharply defined because they are living in eternity. The narrator travelling through Hell, guided by Virgil, is filled with fear, pity and anguish. Dante's writing is extraordinarily beautiful and supple.
Intro to Inferno August 22, 2007
Lynn Hoffman, author:The New Short Course in Wine
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Translators, according to the Italian proverb are traitors.
There is no way around it, something is always lost in the
leap from one language to another. You can consult a modern
'adaptation' of Shakespeare to get the feel of what has to
be surrendered. In the end, a preference for one translation
over another is a matter of what you're most willing to lose.
John Ciardi decided to keep the original rhyme scheme: 'aba'
in which the poem is divided into groups of three lines of
which the first and third rhyme. In Italian, this is fairly
easy, in English a great deal more difficult.
So in order to keep the feel of the tercets (as they're called)
Ciardi sometimes had to stray a bit from the literal
meaning. Nothing vital is lost, but the specialist will
surely find some points to dispute.
For the rest of us, this is a first-rate view into a world
we can barely otherwise imagine. Ciardi's notes and glosses
on the cantos are breezy, illuminating and approachable.
There are other, more correct translations- Mandelbaum's
is first among them -that might be better for the specialist
or the student of the Italian Language. I notice, however,
that when I want to spend a pleasant few moments in the
Poet's company-and especially for the Inferno- that this
is the translation I usually reach for.
--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the novel bang BANG. ISBN 9781601640005
Good translation of a masterful classic. August 22, 2000
ankh fire (USA)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I was very pleased with this edition of Inferno, Dante's controversial verse of man's sins. First, the translation was smooth and stayed true to the essence of the story, even though any translation can lose some of the quality of the words. However, there are also facing pages of the original Italian as well. With a short summary of each Canto and a few powerful pencil sketches scattered here and there, this is a very well put together edition. The notes are in the back of the book, which I prefer, so as they don't detract from the story while reading it. There's also a map of Hell and of the Universe according to Dante. Altogether, this is a very informative edition and one of my favorites.
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