Continental European Books

The Divine Comedy (The Inferno, The Purgatorio, and The Paradiso)

Dante Alighieri

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 31 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Solid translation for a schizophrenic work! 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This translation was easy enough to understand although the work itself suffers from a major problem and that is a sharp contrast that exists between exciting moments to ones where the lack of action is utterly unbearable. I suggest you read this version which makes it easier to understand Dante's thinking. Which is something you will want to get a firm grasp on as you enter the later sections which can be laboriously slow.

Three and a Half Years Later... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

...I finally finished this wonderful book (today)! To tell the truth, it was the kind of book I put away for a few weeks or months and then picked it up again, reading a few cantos at a time. As assumed by most, I believe the Inferno may be the best of the three Canticles if only for the descriptive passages, and my memories of first hearing about it in the tenth grade. In fact, that first canto/introduction was what got me to start reading the book. So, as for the story, the Inferno, I feel, was the only canticle that did not really have a dry spot, simply because most of us have heard about the circles of hell in popular culture, so it was nice to read about Dante's interpretation of it all. As for Purgatorio and Paradiso, I felt that they did have some slow sections. The Purgatorio Canticle picked up where the Inferno left off, and so those parts were nice, but as Dante started his journey up the mountain, it was a little dull until he started to observe the punishments of those who sinned, but were ultimately destined for Heaven. The same thing happens in Paradiso; it starts off well, then takes somewhat of a dive, until there are some interesting "guest appearances." I will not go into detail, but it was fun to learn about some of these historical figures. But that is the problem with writing about Heaven, is that there really should not be any spheres or levels, but Dante has done so to mirror the other Canticles, which seems like the most balanced way to do it. Aside from this, another high point for me was when he finally meets St Peter, St James, and St John, who, represent Faith, Hope, and Love, respectively. This is kind of like the Gates of Heaven passage, except there are no gates, but there are some very interesting questions that are answered. The cantos on Angels were essentially disappointing, but once they reached the Empyrean in the last four cantos, the Divine Comedy really ended on a high note.

Now, I saved my review of the guides for the end, because they are such a large part of the Comedy. Virgil was a simply amazing guide through both Hell and Purgatory, as he represented Human Reason, and really fit in perfectly, even shooting down Dante when he felt bad for a sinner, or practiced some other fault. That might not make sense as Virgil did not believe in God, but it still works. Beatrice, as Dante's guide in Heaven and representation of Divine Revelation, was also a great choice, if only for her role in his life. After all, I would have done the same if I were writing a similar story. In addition to these two, there is a third and forgotten guide of Dante's, which leads him through the Empyrean and represents the Contemplative Soul; St Bernard. This really came out of nowhere for me, because I thought it was only Virgil and Beatrice, but since he was only around for about four cantos, it is not like I can say I was surprised, in the sense that he is forgotten and that he is there, since Dante always uses the theme of the Trinity. Still, all three guides make the Divine Comedy an even more memorable piece of Literature that has deserved its place in history as a magnificent piece of literature.

***Notes on this Edition***
I really enjoyed all the effort that the translator John Ciardi put into this wonderful work. And I do not mean just putting this book into the English language, but actually maintaining the style in which Dante wrote the book, as this translation also follows the "tercet" pattern that Dante wrote it in. However, as assumed, it becomes a bit tedious, since he keeps the rhyming patterns, meaning that it is not a straight translation and that Ciardi had to take artistic freedoms to make it work. However, he more than compensates for this by writing a brief summary at the beginning of each canto and gives notes at the end to clear up any confusion or any changes. The notes, however was what also made it such a long read, as they take up more time than the actual text, but given that this book was written more than 600 years ago, it is also helpful in understanding everything, since it was sometimes hard to understand the original text, which all of its rhymes and poetry patterns. Still, I feel that this edition was perfect for myself in my first reading of this historical text, which has made me wonder whether I should learn how to read it in the vernacular! It was that great!

T.S. Eliot - "Dante and Shakespeare divide the world between them-there is no third."

Editorial Review:

Dante Alighieri's poetic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, is a moving human drama, an unforgettable visionary journey through the infinite torment of Hell, up the arduous slopes of Purgatory, and on to the glorious realm of Paradise-the sphere of universal harmony and eternal salvation.

The Iliad (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Homer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 141 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

DON'T buy into the Fagles "hype"! 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Although I respect Fagles as a modern translator, I cannot recommend his translations of Homer...I would probably only recommend his translations of Sophocles's 3 Theban Plays.

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey don't sound like Epics anymore under Fagles...they are turned into mild nice sounding children stories! He tones down Homer to the point that I feel that Fagels wants his personality to shine NOT Homer's! I am gravely disappointed by this.

I also find that he not only forces beauty into the text but adds too much of his personal warmth that gets in the way of the texts and creates a vision of Homer's epics that is truly unsound to the original.

Not only that but the font and design of the print is an eye sore, I don't like the choice the publishers and Fagles gave to the works. It doesn't make for easy reading...

Stanley Lombardo's translations are unparalleled in their print layout, design and font...not to say vivid and powerful evocative translation.

I continue to find Richmond Lattimore's facinating translations the most accurate to how the Ancient Greek language sounds to English ears. I would buy Lattimore over Fagles (and Fitzgerald).

And I still think Rieu's famous Prose version of the Iliad from 1950 is hard to beat for it's modernity and readibility.

...Find out for yourself by comparing a few versions but don't be duped into this mysterious "Fagles hype"!

Editorial Review:

This timeless poem-more than 2,700 year old-still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amid devastation and destruction as it moves inexorably to its wrenching, tragic conclusion. Readers of this epic poem will be gripped by the finely tuned translation and enlightening introduction.

Translated by Robert Fagles
Introduction and Notes by Bernard

The Odyssey

Homer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 142 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

DON'T buy into the Fagles "hype"! 1 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Although I respect Fagles as a modern translator, I cannot recommend his translations of Homer...I would probably only recommend his translations of Sophocles's 3 Theban Plays.

Homer's Iliad and Odyssey don't sound like Epics anymore under Fagles...they are turned into mild nice sounding children stories! He tones down Homer to the point that I feel that Fagels wants his personality to shine NOT Homer's! I am gravely disappointed by this.

I also find that he not only forces beauty into the text but adds too much of his personal warmth that gets in the way of the texts and creates a vision of Homer's epics that is truly unsound to the original.

Not only that but the font and design of the print is an eye sore, I don't like the choice the publishers and Fagles gave to the works. It doesn't make for easy reading...

Stanley Lombardo's translations are unparalleled in their print layout, design and font...not to say vivid and powerful evocative translation.

I continue to find Richmond Lattimore's facinating translations the most accurate to how the Ancient Greek language sounds to English ears. I would buy Lattimore over Fagles (and Fitzgerald).

And I still think Rieu's famous Prose version from 1946 is hard to beat for it's modernity and readibility.

...Find out for yourself by comparing a few versions but don't be duped into this mysterious "Fagles hype"!

Editorial Review:

The award-winning translator of Iliad and Oresteia introduces a new translation of Homer's age-old tale of the wanderings of Odysseus during his ten-year voyage back home to Ithaca after the Trojan War as he overcomes both divine and natural forces. 50,000 first printing.

Inferno (Modern Library Classics)

Dante

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 106 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A powerful translation of a masterpiece 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

There have been several excellent translations of Dante in the past few years, all worth reading in their own right. But I retain a special affection for John Ciardi's version, as it's the first one I ever read, at the unprepared & overwhelmed age of 15. I knew of its reputation as a major classic & I was ignorant enough to be unfazed by the prospect of reading it.

Well, to say that I was soon in over my head is an understatement! But Ciardi's fine, lyrical translation, as well as his extensive but always clear notes, enabled me to go on without drowning. And what a journey it was! At the time, I was simply dazzled by the invention & imagery of the work; now that I'm older, I can appreciate its many psychological & spiritual levels. Both the capstone of the Middle Ages & the gateway to the Renaissance, Dante's masterpiece is a stunning exploration of the religious & political world of its time. A lifetime of knowledge went into its creation, and every intricately woven thread of poetry shines like gold, without ever becoming pedantic.

Whether you accept or reject a literal belief in God & Hell, the poem remains an astonishing revelation of & descent into the human psyche, the heart of darkness. Dante's insight that the damned have ultimately chosen their fate remains psychologically true today ... how many people trapped in the private hells of their own lives have placed themselves there, bemoaning their fate while unable to find the courage or strength to escape it?

But that's merely one level of meaning in this magnificent work. A visionary epic of learning, of faith, of poetry, it becomes deeper & richer with every new reading. If you don't know the original language, the next best thing is to read as many translations as possible -- and I still recommend Ciardi's as one of the best. This is an illumination of Hell that can't dim or fade with the years -- most highly recommended!

Editorial Review:

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.

Letters to a Young Poet

Rainer Maria Rilke

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 71 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

This book is fantastic! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This little book though short in lenght packs a condensed form of life wisdom. Some of the insight Rilke writes to his friend are priceless. Rilke penetrates to the essence of a wide range issues from religious to material never preaching but more like asking his friend to truly examine his decisions in life and let no one else make his choices for him. This has to be one of my all time favorite books and it is a quick read as well.

Great, impassioned advice 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This is a short collection of inspiring letters from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke to a young fan and aspiring poet. The letters were written between February 1903 and December 1908, as Rilke moved around Europe. The advice and Rilke gives the young man is inspiring in itself, but what is most moving is the passion with which Rilke writes. This book should be required reading for anyone entering any creative field, writing or otherwise, because Rilke's greatest piece of advice--to create something that comes from inside you and is for you, not something you think someone else will like or will want to buy--is the best artistic advice one can give.

Editorial Review:

A beloved classic of writerly wisdom.

Drawn by some sympathetic note in his poems, young people often wrote to Rilke with their problems and hopes. From 1903 to 1908 Rilke wrote a series of remarkable responses to a young would-be poet, on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. Accompanying the letters is a chronicle of Rilke's life showing what he was experiencing in his own relationship to life and work when he wrote these letters.

The Divine Comedy: Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso (Everyman's Library)

Dante Alighieri

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 55 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent Translation 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

The introduction by a modern poet rambles on and is not worth reading, however the stories by Dante are excellent and have been translated without losing any of the original meaning. Notes in the back make it easy to follow this 400 year old story.

Beautiful Edition 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The Divine Comedy / 0-679-43313-9

This edition of the Divine Comedy is a beautiful addition to any library. The hardcover cloth binding is clean and tight, with a ribbon bookmark. I'm not an expert in translations, but this translation seems very good, true to the source material. The poetic nature of the poem is carefully preserved, with copious endnotes to explain the political, historical, and religious significance of the more obscure passages.

This book probably isn't your choice for an evening of light reading and, unless you're an expert on the subject material, you will probably spend a lot of time flipping to the back to read the end notes, but if you need to read the Divine Comedy for a class, or for edification, this is a good edition to choose. The whole Comedy is included here - Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso - which is a nice inclusion since too many "Divine Comedies" out there only include Inferno, the most famous of the three. I recommend this edition highly.

Editorial Review:

Introduction by Eugenio Montale; Translation by Allen Mandelbaum

The Odyssey (Penguin Classics)

Homer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Stick with Rieu's original... 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

(I'm not sure why amazon has over half of these reviews for Fagels's translation on Rieu's page? I noticed this happening quite a bit on amazon, but anyway...)

I have spent quite a bit of time comparing versions of "The Odyssey", and out of all of them I settled on Rieu's pioneering translation.

It was originally published in 1946 as Penguin's very first book!

He would recite "The Odyssey" from the original Greek to his wife and children during the second world war in London while bombs dropped around them. It was Rieu's wish to start a publishing company that dealt with reviving the classics for common man. Penguin Classics is now the most widely loved, read and utilized editions on the market! What a vision he had!

This edition of The Odyssey was revised by his son in 1991 and reprinted with a better print and layout in 2002. It still carries a type of "joie de vivre" all throughout, a wonderful raciness, and a strength of believablity.

...as good as the revised one is, I actually prefer Rieu's original more because of the humble human language he uses...which has mostly been taken away.

Editorial Review:

If The Iliad is the world's greatest war story, then The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey through life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces is at once the human story and an individual test of moral endurance. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original masterpiece. 9 cassettes.

Iliad and Odyssey boxed set

Homer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A beautiful gift set of Robert Fagles' award-winning translations of Homer

Gripping listeners and readers for more than 2,700 years, The Iliad is the story of the Trojan War and the rage of Achilles. Combining the skills of a poet and scholar, Robert Fagles brings the energy of contemporary language to this enduring heroic epic.

If The Iliad is the world's greatest war story, then The Odyssey is literature's greatest evocation of every man's journey through life. Here again, Fagles has performed the translator's task magnificently, giving us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.

Each volume contains a superb introduction with textual and critical commentary by renowned classicist Bernard Knox.

* Deluxe paperback editions with French flaps and acid-free paper in a handsome slipcase

* Robert Fagles is the recipient of the 1997 PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation and a 1996 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters

* The Iliad was a New York Times Notable Book and won the 1991 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award by The Academy of American Poets, an award from the Translation Center of Columbia University, and the New Jersey Humanities Book Award

* The Odyssey was chosen by Time as one of the ten Best Books of 1996

The Iliad of Homer

Homer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 67 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Invaluable Documents but...an uneasy read. 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I recognize and agree that Lattimore's translations of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" are the MOST TRUE to Homer and Ancient Greek we have ever seen.

Two minor examples: he uses long verse lines (like Homer), maintains Homer's sentence structure and he keeps and repeats all the Epitaphs exactly as they appear in Homer.

Lattimore's choice of words and sentence organization can sometimes seem jumbled and complicated and his manner/style somewhat archaic, it is because Lattimore is showing how Homer "sounds" in English as if you were translating it directly and perfectly from the Greek. That is Lattimore's aim, to render Homer as EXACTLY as possible. For this I am grateful...he has helped many to develop a more scholarly aptitude.

This aside,

I give it 3 stars because I find that his translation is not condusive to reading. Lattimore's 1950's American English is out of date and the story moves excessively slow. I often find Lattimore's Homer stodgy, hard, complicated, and often boring!


My favorites are still Stanley Lombardo's (Prosaic Verse) and E.V. Rieu's (Novel-like Prose) versions. Both full of fire-like Excitement, shimmering Beauty and monumental Drama.

I always recommend having 2 or 3 different versions of Homer on shelf, Lattimore is always on mine...not for reading enjoyment though but only for comparing.

Thanks

Editorial Review:

"Each new generation is bound to produce new translations. [Lattimore] has done better with nobility, as well as with accuracy, than any other modern verse translator. [In] our age we do not often find a fine scholar who is also a genuine poet and who takes the greatest pains over the work of translation."--Hugh Lloyd-Jones, New York Review of Books

The Canterbury Tales (Modern Library)

Geoffrey Chaucer

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Editorial Review:

It would be impossible to overstate the influence of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. A work with one metaphorical foot planted in the Florentine Renaissance literary tradition of Boccaccio’s Decameron and the other in works ranging from John Bunyan, Voltaire, and Mark Twain to the popular entertainments of our own time, The Canterbury Tales stands astride the cultures of Great Britain and America, and much of Europe, like a benign colossus.

Beyond its importance as a cultural touchstone and literary work of unvarnished genius, Chaucer’s unfinished epic poem is also one of the most beloved works in the English language–and for good reason: It is lively, absorbing, perceptive, and outrageously funny–an undisputed classic that has held a special appeal for generations of readers. Chaucer has gathered twenty-nine of literature’s most indelible archetypes–from the exalted Knight to the bawdy Wife to the besotted Miller to the humble Plowman–in a vivid group portrait that captures the full spectrum of late-medieval English society and both informs and expands our discourse on the human condition.

Presented in these pages in a new unabridged translation by the esteemed poet, translator, and scholar Burton Raffel–whose translation of Beowulf has sold more than a million copies–this Modern Library edition also features an Introduction by the well-known and widely influential medievalist and author John Miles Foley that discusses Chaucer’s work as well as to his life and times.

Despite the brilliance of Geoffrey Chaucer’s work, the continual evolution of our language has rendered his words unfamiliar to many of us. Burton Raffel’s magnificent new translation brings Chaucer’s poetry back to life, ensuring that none of the original’s wit, wisdom, or humanity is lost to the modern reader.