Editing Divine Comedy (section)

== Criticism and textual history ==
[[File:Sandro Botticelli - Inferno, Canto XVIII (detail) - WGA02855.jpg|thumb|A detail from one of [[Sandro Botticelli]]'s illustrations for ''Inferno'', Canto XVIII, 1480s. Silverpoint on parchment, completed in pen and ink.]]

Critical reception of the ''Divine Comedy'' has varied considerably prior to its universal renown today. Although recognised as a [[masterpiece]] in the centuries immediately following its publication,<ref>[[Chaucer]] wrote in the [https://web.archive.org/web/20080412004255/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/c/chaucer/canterbury/daniel/chapter13.html Monk's Tale], "Redeth the grete poete of Ytaille /
That highte Dant, for he kan al devyse /
Fro point to point; nat o word wol he faille".</ref> the work largely fell into obscurity during the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]], with some notable exceptions: [[Vittorio Alfieri]]; [[Antoine de Rivarol]], who translated the ''Inferno'' into French; and [[Giambattista Vico]], who in the ''Scienza nuova'' and in the ''Giudizio su Dante'' inaugurated what would later become the romantic reappraisal of Dante, juxtaposing him to Homer.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Auerbach |first=Erich |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R_HofoKY87gC&dq=Vico++Dante&pg=PA101 |title=Dante, Poet of the Secular World |date=1961 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |translator-last1=Manheim |translator-first1=Ralph |isbn=0-226-03205-1 |location=Chicago |oclc=2016697 |access-date=19 March 2023 |archive-date=6 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230906175917/https://books.google.com/books?id=R_HofoKY87gC&dq=Vico++Dante&pg=PA101 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The ''Comedy'' was "rediscovered" in the English-speaking world by [[William Blake]]&nbsp;– who illustrated several passages of the epic&nbsp;– and the [[Romanticism|Romantic]] writers of the 19th century. Later authors such as [[T. S. Eliot]], [[Ezra Pound]], [[Samuel Beckett]], [[C. S. Lewis]] and [[James Joyce]] have drawn on it for inspiration. The poet [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]] was its first American translator,<ref>Irmscher, Christoph. ''Longfellow Redux''. University of Illinois, 2008: 11. {{ISBN|978-0-252-03063-5}}.</ref> and modern poets, including [[Seamus Heaney]],<ref>Seamus Heaney, "Envies and Identifications: Dante and the Modern Poet." The Poet's Dante: Twentieth-Century Responses. Ed. Peter S. Hawkins and [[Rachel Jacoff]]. New York: Farrar, 2001. pp. 239–258.</ref> [[Robert Pinsky]], [[John Ciardi]], [[W. S. Merwin]], and [[Stanley Lombardo]], have also produced translations of all or parts of the book. In Russia, beyond [[Alexander Pushkin]]'s translation of a few tercets,<ref>Isenberg, Charles. "Dante in Russia." In: Lansing (ed.), ''The Dante Encyclopedia'', pp. 276–278.</ref> [[Osip Mandelstam]]'s late poetry has been said to bear the mark of a "tormented meditation" on the ''Comedy''.<ref>Glazova, Marina (November 1984). "[https://doi.org/10.1007%2FBF00832140 Mandel'štam and Dante: The Divine Comedy in Mandel'štam's Poetry of the 1930s] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221129165500/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00832140 |date=29 November 2022 }}". ''Studies in Soviet Thought''. '''28''' (4).</ref> In 1934, Mandelstam gave a modern reading of the poem in his labyrinthine "Conversation on Dante".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Fenton |first=James |author-link=James Fenton |date=2005-07-16 |title=Hell set to music |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jul/16/classics.dantealighieri |access-date=2024-03-21 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077 |archive-date=29 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221129165440/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jul/16/classics.dantealighieri |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Erich Auerbach]] said Dante was the first writer to depict human beings as the products of a specific time, place and circumstance, as opposed to mythic archetypes or a collection of vices and virtues, concluding that this, along with the fully imagined world of the ''Divine Comedy'', suggests that the ''Divine Comedy'' inaugurated [[literary realism]] and self-portraiture in modern fiction.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Auerbach |first=Erich |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EcvDtEWzHugC |title=Dante: Poet of the Secular World |date=16 January 2007 |publisher=New York Review of Books |isbn=978-1-59017-219-3 |pages=viii–ix |language=en}}</ref> In T. S. Eliot's estimation, "Dante and [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] divide the world between them. There is no third."<ref>T. S. Eliot (1950) "Dante." ''Selected Essays'', pp.&nbsp;199–237. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.</ref> For [[Jorge Luis Borges]] the ''Divine Comedy'' was "the best book literature has achieved".<ref>Jorge Luis Borges, "Selected Non-Fictions". Ed. Eliot Weinberger. Trans. [[Esther Allen]] et al. New York: Viking, 1999. p. 303.</ref>

The ''Comedy'' is considered one originator of the [[encyclopedic novel]] across multiple formulations of the concept.<ref>Clark, Hillary A. "Encyclopedic Discourse". ''Sub-stance'' 21.1 (1992): 95–110.</ref> Mendelson's coinage of the term contrasted Dante's initial ostracism with his later importance to Italian national identity, comparing this to the culture-building function of later encyclopedic authors like Shakespeare, [[Cervantes]], or [[Herman Melville|Melville]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mendelson |first1=Edward |title=Encyclopedic Narrative: From Dante to Pynchon |journal=MLN |date=December 1976 |volume=91 |issue=6 |pages=1267–1275 |doi=10.2307/2907136|jstor=2907136 }}</ref>

=== English translations ===
{{Main|List of English translations of the Divine Comedy}}

The ''Divine Comedy'' has been translated into English more times than any other language, and new English translations of the ''Divine Comedy'' continue to be published regularly. Notable English translations of the complete poem include the following.<ref>A comprehensive listing and criticism, covering the period 1782–1966, of English translations of at least one of the three ''cantiche'' is given by Gilbert F. Cunningham, ''The Divine Comedy in English: A Critical Bibliography'', 2 vols. (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1965–1967), esp. vol.&nbsp;2, pp.&nbsp;5–9.</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Year !! Translator(s) !! Notes
|-
|1805–1814 || [[Henry Francis Cary]] || An older translation, widely available [https://web.archive.org/web/19990420170609/http://www.divinecomedy.org/divine_comedy.html online].
|-
|1867 || [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]] || Unrhymed terzines. The first U.S. translation, raising American interest in the poem. It is still widely available, including [[s:The Divine Comedy|online]].
|-
|1891–1892 || [[Charles Eliot Norton]] || Prose translation used by [[Great Books of the Western World]]. Available online in three parts ([[gutenberg:1995|Hell]], [[gutenberg:1996|Purgatory]], [[gutenberg:1997|Paradise]]) at [[Project Gutenberg]].
|-
|1933–1943 || [[Laurence Binyon]] || ''[[Terza rima]]''. Translated with assistance from [[Ezra Pound]]. Used in ''The Portable Dante'' (Viking, 1947).
|-
|1949–1962 || [[Dorothy L. Sayers]] || Translated for [[Penguin Classics]], intended for a wider audience, and completed by [[Barbara Reynolds]] after Sayers's death.
|-
|1969 || [[Thomas G. Bergin]] || Cast in [[blank verse]] with illustrations by [[Leonard Baskin]].<ref>Dante Alighieri. Bergin, Thomas G. trans. ''Divine Comedy''. Grossman Publishers; 1st edition (1969) .</ref>
|-
|1954–1970 || [[John Ciardi]] || His ''Inferno'' was recorded and released by [[Folkways Records]] in 1954.
|-
|1970–1991 || [[Charles S. Singleton]] || Literal prose version with extensive commentary; 6 vols.
|-
|1981 || [[C. H. Sisson]] || Available in [[Oxford World's Classics]].
|-
|1980–1984 || [[Allen Mandelbaum]] || Available online at [http://www.worldofdante.org/about.html World of Dante] and alongside [[Teodolinda Barolini]]'s commentary at [https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/ Digital Dante].
|-
|1967–2002|| [[Mark Musa]] || An alternative [[Penguin Classics]] version.
|-
|2000–2007|| [[Robert Hollander|Robert]] and Jean Hollander || [https://dante.princeton.edu/ Online] as part of the Princeton Dante Project. Contains extensive scholarly footnotes.
|-
|2002–2004|| [[Anthony M. Esolen]] || [[Modern Library]] Classics edition.
|-
|2006–2007|| Robin Kirkpatrick || A third [[Penguin Classics]] version, replacing Musa's.
|-
|2010|| [[Burton Raffel]] || A Northwestern World Classics version.
|-
|2013|| [[Clive James]] || A poetic version in [[quatrain]]s.
|-
|2018–2021|| [[Alasdair Gray]] || "a verse translation that is modern, lyrical, yet faithful to the original" — the ''New Statesman''
|-
|2013–2025|| [[Mary Jo Bang]] || A colloquial translation using [[free verse]].
|}

A number of other translators, such as [[Robert Pinsky]], have translated the ''Inferno'' only.