The Inferno

By: Dante, Robert Hollander - translator, Jean Hollander - translator

Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman

Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's Summary

The epic grandeur of Dante's masterpiece has inspired readers and listeners for 700 years and has entered the human imagination. But the further we move from the late medieval world of Dante, the more a rich understanding and enjoyment of the poem depends on knowledgeable guidance. Robert Hollander, a renowned scholar and master teacher of Dante, and Jean Hollander, an accomplished poet, have written a beautifully accurate and clear verse translation of the first volume of Dante's epic poem, the Divine Comedy. Featuring the original Italian text opposite the translation, this edition also offers an extensive and accessible introduction and generous commentaries that draw on centuries of scholarship as well as Robert Hollander's own decades of teaching and research. The Hollander translation is the new standard in English of this essential work of world literature.

©2017 Translation copyright 2017 by Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander (P)2017 Random House Audio

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Critic Reviews

"A distinguished act of poetry and scholarship in one and the same breath, the Hollander Dante, among the strong translations of the poet, deserves to take its own honored place." (Robert Fagles)

"This new version of the Inferno wonderfully captures the concision, directness, and pungency of Dante's style. Like a mirror, it reflects with clarity and precision the Italian original. Each canto's set of copious, authoritative notes complements the facing-page Italian and English translation. A grand achievement." (Richard Lansing, professor of Italian and comparative literature, Brandeis University)

"English-speaking lovers of Dante are doubly in the Hollanders' debt: first, for this splendidly lucid and eminently readable version of Dante's Hell, and second, for the provocative, elegantly-written commentary, which judiciously synthesizes a lifetime of deeply engaged, wide ranging scholarship, as well as the past six centuries of commentary on the poem. No student of Dante would want to be without it." (John Ahern, Antolini Professor of Italian literature, Vassar College)

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