Notes and Questions on Dante's Divine Comedy (Ciardi translation)

As with the other great works of world literature, many translations have been made into English from the original Italian of Dante's Divine Comedy. Dante's title was originally simply Comedy (Commedia), for the reason suggested in Canto I, lines 105-116, as well as later passages: the work has a happy ending, with Dante the pilgrim moving in the three canticles (main subdivisions) from Inferno (Hell), through Purgatorio (Purgatory), to, finally, Paradiso (Heaven). (A happier ending, particularly for medieval Christianity, than Heaven would be difficult to imagine.) The work has much numerological symbolism (usually based on the number three, with typological symbolism of or allusion to the Trinity), ably discussed in the NAWME introduction and notes, as well as the introductions and notes to most translations. The work -- a combination of allegory (a set or system of correspondences, where one thing represents something else), epic, and poetry -- was immediately recognized as so outstanding that, along with its content, it became known as the Divine Comedy.

Following are most of the translations of either Inferno (I) or the whole Divine Comedy (C) into English, arranged by first date of publication; bilingual editions (Italian & English) are indicated by (B); translations into prose are indicated by (P), into unrhymed verse by (BV), into rhymed verse by (V), into modified terza rima by (MTR), into strict terza rima by (TR) , into unrhymed tercets by (BV3):
 
 

Translator's Name	Date	Translator's Name	Date	Translator's Name	Date	Translator's Name
Rogers, Charles	1782 (I) (BV)	Wilstach, John A.	1888	Bickersteth, Geoffrey L.	1932 (Par.), 1955 (C) (TR)
Boyd, [Rev.] Henry	1785 (I); 1802 (C) (V)	Norton, Charles Eliot	1891 (I); 1892 (C) (P)	Binyon, Laurence	1933 (I); 1943 (C) (TR)	Cotter, James	1987
Cary, Henry F[rancis]	1805-05 (I) (BV); 1814 (C)	Sullivan, Edward	1893 (I) (P)	How, Louis	1934 (I); 1940 (C) (TR)	Halpern, Daniel - ed.	1993 (I)
Howard, Nathaniel	1807 (I) (BV)	Musgrave, George	1893 (V)	Bodey, R[alph] T.	1938 (C) (BV)
Hume, Joseph	1812 (I) (BV)	Urquhart, Robert	1895 (I) (TR)	Clay, Henry F.	1937
Wright, Ichabod C.	1833 (I); 1840 (C) (V)	Lee-Hamilton, Eugene J.	1898 (I) (BV)	Sinclair, John D.	1939 (I); 1946 (C) (P)	Arndt, Stephen W.	1994 (C)
Dayman, John	1843 (I); 1865 (C) (TR)	Auchmuty, Arthur (Purg. only)	1899 (V)	Bergin, Thomas G.	1948 (I); 1954 (C) (BV)
Carlyle, John Aitken. (I); Thomas Okey (Purg.); Philip Wicksteed (Par.)	1849 (I); 1867; 1899 (Par.); 1901 (Purg.)	Garnier, John C.	1901 (I) (P)	White, Lawrence Grant	1948 (C) (BV)	Ellis, Steve	1994 (I)
Bannerman, Patrick	1850 (C) (V)	Lowe, Edward C.	1902 (C) (BV)	Cummins, Patrick	1948 (C) (TR)
Cayley, Charles B.	1851 (I), 1854 (C) (TR)	Wilberforce, Edward	1903 (I); 1909 (C) (TR)	Sayers, Dorothy	1949 (I); 1962 (C) (TR)	Pinsky, Robert	1994 (I)
O'Donnell, E.	1852 (C) (P)	Griffith, Samuel W.	1903 (I); 1909 (C) (BV)	Ayres, Harry M.	1949 (I); 1953 (C) (P)
Brooksbank, Thomas	1854 (I) (TR)	Potter, Caroline C. (Purg & Par. only)	1904 (V)	Ramsey, Thomas W. (Paradiso only)	1952	Dale, Peter	1996 (C)
Pollock, William F.	1854 (C) (BV)	Tozer, Henry F	1904 (C) (P)	Huse, H[oward] R.	1954 (C) (BV)	Durling, Robert M.	1996 (I)
Whyte, Bruce	1859 (I) (V)	Vincent, Marvin R	1904	Ciardi, John	1954 (I);  (C) (MTR)	Lindskoog, Kathryn	1997 (C)
Thomas, John W.	1859 (I), 1866 (C) (TR)	Wright, Charles G. (Purgatorio only)	1905 (P)	Swiggett, Glen L.	1956 (C) (TR)	Zappulla, Elio	1998 (I)
Wilkie, William P.	1862 (I) (BV)	Fraser, Frances Isabella (Par. only)	1908 (BV)	Lillie, Mary Prentice	1958 (C) (BV)	Hollander, Robert & Jean	2000 (I)
Ramsay, Claudia H.	1862 (I); 1863 (C) (TR)	Money, Agnes L. (Purg. only)	1910 (BV)	Warwick, Fielding C.	1961 (I) (TR)	Carson, Ciaran	2002 (I)
Rossetti, William Michael	1865 (I) (BV)	Wheeler, Charles E.	1911 (C) (TR); 1937	Reed, Clara Stillman	1962 (C) (P)	Esolen, Anthony	2002 (I)
		Shaw, Edith M.	1914 (C) (BV)	Maugeri, Aldo	1965 (I) (BV)	Palma, Michael	2002 (I)
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth	1867 (C) (BV)	Edwardes, Edward J.	1915 (I) (BV)	Ennis, William F.	1965 (C) (TR)	Zimmerman, Seth	2003 (I)
Ford, James	1865 (I); 1870 (C) (TR)	Johnson, Henry	1915 (C) (BV)	Biancolli, Louis L.	1966, 1968	Nichols, J[ohn] G[ordon]	2005 (I)
Parsons, Thomas W.	1867 (I) ; 1893 (C)	Langdon, Courtney	1918 (I); 1921 (C) (BV)	Singleton, Charles S	1970; 1989	Kilpatrick, Robin	2006 (I; B)
Johnston, David	1867 (I); 1868 (C) (BV)	Murray Eleanor V.	1920 (I) (TR)	Musa, Mark	1971; 1984	O'Brien, Sean	2006 (I)
Tomlinson, Charles	1877 (I) (TR)	Anderson, Melville B.	1921 (C) (TR); 1933			Simone, Tom	2007 (I)
Pike, Warburton M.	1881 (I) (TR)	Henry J. Hooper	1922 (I) (BV)	.
Dugdale, William S. (Purgatorio only)	1883 (P)	MacKenzie, David J.	1927 (C) (TR)
Sibbald, James R.	1884 (I) (TR)	Wright, Sydney F. (Inf & Purg. only)	1928 (V), 1931, 1954	C.H. Sisson	1980; 1993
Minchin, James I.	1885 (C) (TR)	Bandini, Albert R.	1928 (I); 1931 (C) (TR)	Mandelbaum, Allen	1982
Plumptre, Edward H.	1886) (I); 1887 (C) (TR)	Lockert, Lacy	1931 (I) (TR)	Kilmer, Nicholas	1985
Haselfoot, Frederick K.	1887 (C) (TR)	Fletcher, Jefferson B[utler]	1931 (C); 1942 (MTR)	Phillips, Tom	1985

All students of Dante's Comedy are indebted to the listing and discussions of English translations in Gilbert Cunningham's The Divine Comedy in English: A Critical Bibliography, 1782-1900 (Barnes and Noble, 1965) and The Divine Comedy in English: A Critical Bibliography, 1901-1966 (Oliver and Boyd, 1966). A fact in the historical background easily forgotten by modern readers is that a unified Italy as a country does not come into existence until the nineteenth century. Until then, the land existed as a collection of city-states not unlike the polis of ancient Greek times. Sometimes these city-states got along, but frequently they did not, attacking each other or even forging allegiances with foreign powers for aid in making war on each other (Bologna -- which gave us those wonderful sandwiches and also trash-talk -- would fight with Florence; Naples -- which gave us that wonderful tri-flavored ice cream -- would fight with Venice -- which gave us those wonderful mini-blinds; and so on.) This historical background is crucial to understanding the motives and purposes behind Machiavelli's political treatise The Prince, which will be taken up in one of the units on the Renaissance in World Humanities I.

The following is a map of Dante's Italy:
 
 

In the intellectual, philosophical, or religious background of Dante's Comedy is the idea of spheres: the heavenly spheres of the cosmos, with earth as center, as well as various spheres that make up the Infnerno, the Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Following are various diagrams of these, drawn from various English translations of Dante's Comedy. The first is of all the spheres:

The second graphic illustrates a detail of the earth, hell, purgatory, and some of the spheres:

A more detailed, but somewhat harder to read, diagram fitting Dante's conception of the earth, with Jerusalem and Mount Purgatory at opposite ends of the earth, as part of Dante the pilgrim's journey, with all the spheres may be seen by clicking on the following link.

For yet another diagram, which includes the idea of a rose/floral dimension of Paradise or Heaven, click the following link.

For a view of the hemispheres of land and water in the first spheres, and relations to the Ganges (Ga), Straits of Gibraltar (Gi), Greece (Gr), Italy (It), Jerusalem (J), and Purgatory (P), click the following link.

For a simplified view showing the winding course down from the earth hemisphere through the water hemisphere, click the following link.

For a view of the cross section of the narrowing circles of hell, as related to the whole earth and the winding course from Jerusalem through the land hemisphere, through the water hemisphere, to Mount Purgatory, click the following link.

A detailed quarter-view of the narrowing circles of hell/inferno, with Satan encased at the bottom, earth's center, may be seen by clicking the following link.

A side view of the ice cream cone (an appropriate comparison, given the very bottom small concentric circles of hell/inferno) of hell/inferno may be seen by clicking the following link.

Yet another view of the various concentric circles of hell/inferno, with what Satan does to the three worst sinners may be seen by clicking the following link.

A diagram that shows the narrowing concentric circles of the upper area of hell/inferno, the sins of the wolf, may be seen by clicking the following link.

A diagram that shows the concentric circles of the areas of the lion and leopard in hell/inferno, the even worse sins, may be seen by clicking the following link.

The very last circles at the bottom of hell/inferno, with a couple of the residents, may be seen by clicking the following link.

A side view of the descent path of the first seven circles of hell/inferno may be seen by clicking the following link.

A side view of the eighth circle of hell/inferno, with its pockets (called "bolgia" in the Italian, and in some English translations), may be seen by clicking the following link.

A quarter, top view, of the eighth circle of hell/inferno, with its various concentric circles may be seen by clicking the following link.

A cross section of the ninth circle, with its various concentric circles and central residents, may be seen by clicking the following link.

The translation used in NAWME is one that rapidly became a classic and standard (though there is no one classic or standard in the English translations of the work) upon publication of the first part in the mid 1950's by John Ciardi. This translator, whose surname is pronounced CHAHR-dee, is an outstanding modern American poet, whose selected and collected poems were issued in the 1980's, as well as an outstanding scholar and literary analyst, whose columns for the Saturday Review magazine were required reading on literary matters, and whose textbook How a Poem Means (1960) remains a perceptive and valuable introduction to literary analysis. Dante's original Italian is in a verse form termed terza rima, which is explained in the NAWME introduction to the work. English translators have used a variety of approaches to the original: prose, continuous blank verse, blank verse in tercets (three-line stanzas), rhymed verse in three-line stanzas, terza rima rhymed verse, or a loose terza rima, with variations. Which form does Ciardi choose, as explained in the NAWME introduction?

Dante's work has both medieval aspects and transitional aspects that will provide a bridge from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. The work's medieval aspects include a Christian otherwordliness (e.g., heavy emphasis on symbolism, including numerological symbolism; wild, fantastic creatures and events); systematism (including encyclopedism and fine gradations), and a divided attitude toward the Greco-Roman Classical tradition (either considered pagan, and misguided, or allegorized to be forced into a Judeo-Christian context). Transitional aspects of the late Middle Ages leading to the Renaissance include nationalism (e.g., the use of the vernacular language -- Italian -- rather than the international and church language of Latin); a growing Humanism (e.g., the sympathy -- not disapproved of by Vergil or Dante the author -- of Dante the pilgrim with some of the sinners; or the emphasis on the individual, as Dante the author emphasizes various details of his own autobiography in the character of Dante the pilgrim); and a new realism in art and literature. Sometimes these components of the work are in conflict with each other.

Professor Walter Evans of Augusta State University has pointed out several connections among the literature (L), music (M), and art (A) of this period and unit in the Humanities course: (1) Trinity symbolism pervasive (L: Divine Comedy's units, as explained in the NAWME introduction; M: triple rhythm, triple repetitions in the Ordinary of the Mass of the Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei; A: church doors, levels of cathedral, altarpieces); (2) Hierarchical symbolism, emphasizing verticality (L: Divine Comedy; Chaucer's ordering of pilgrims gets looser; M: higher tones more spiritual; A: Gothic spires and lines, fingers and faces pointing upwards, Christ elevated, including on the cross); (3) Divine pattern tightly integrating each detail (everything matters, every human act and thought) (L: Divine Comedy; more spontaneity and freedom with Chaucer's details; M: Mating text and notes of plainchant; Divine Office, Ordinary and Proper, development of neumes; A: Cathedrals); (4) Pilgrimage theme (L: Dante and Chaucer; M: pilgrimage songs; emotional journey through settings of the mass; music transports listener to God; A: cathedral: from secular progressively to sacred in space (horizontal and vertical); major churches on pilgrimage routes); (5) Increased ornamentation (L: Divine Comedy elaborate and vivid detail; M: Plainchant evolving from syllabic, through neumatic, to mellismatic; A: Gothic churches having far more decoration on the exterior than Romanesque churches); (6) Otherwordliness (transcending ordinary physical reality; overwhelming sensuality of the church experience as mind-altering, transformative) (L: Dante; in Chaucer, the more worldly dominates; M: artificiality of plainchant; psychological effects; transformation of popular music; A: sculpture distorted; distorted "reality" of paintings; overwhelming artificiality of cathedrals).

Dante and Music

In their standard textbook of music history, A History of Western Music, 4th ed. (Norton, 1988), Donald Grout and Claude Palisca point out in Chapter 3, "The Beginnings of Polyphony and the music of the Thirteenth Century": "The structure of the motet, with its motley concourse of love songs, dance tunes, popular refrains, and sacred hymns, all held together in a rigid formal mold based on plainsong, is analogous to the structure of Dante's Divine Comedy, which likewise encompasses and organizes a universe of secular and sacred ideas within a rigid theological framework"(p. 133).

The influence of Dante's Comedy in serious, Classical, art, or concert music has included the Dante Symphony (Eine Symphonie zu Dantes "Divina Commedia") (1857) and the Dante Sonata (Apres une lecture du Dante) (1849) by the great composer Franz Liszt (1811-1886), some of whose work is discussed in the music textbook for Humanities 2001 and Humanities 2002, and covered in World Humanities II. Liszt is famous for "program music" (see the discussion of this in the course music textbook), which these pieces exemplify. The principal lovers of Canto 5 of Dante's Comedy, Paolo and Francesca, have evoked several musical compositions based on the material of Canto 5, with Francesca's name (Francesca da Rimini) featured in the title: a symphonic fantasy by Tchaikovsky (1876; based partly on an illustration of Dante by the artist Gustav Doré); a four-act opera by Zandonai, libretto by T. Ricordi (1902); a symphonic poem by H. Hadley (1905); and an opera in prologue, two scenes, and epilogue by Rachmaninov to libretto by M. Tchaikovsky (1906).

An analogue in popular music that explains the symbolism of one of the three allegorical-symbolic beasts Dante the pilgrim encounters in Canto 1 is Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf."

Dante and Art

Some literary analysts have noted a correspondence between the medieval cathedral and the two great encyclopedic literary works of the Middle Ages, Dante's Comedy and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: for example, their massive articulated structure harmonized into a whole, plus a religious purpose or aim.

As pointed out in the great 34-volume Grove Dictionary of Art: "artists of exceptional ability and reputation have contributed to the vast body of illustrations [of Dante's Comedy] . . . in manuscript illumination, woodcuts, engraves, monumental paintings, and sculpture. Outstanding examples by Luca Signorelli, Sandro Botticelli, William Blake, Eugene Delacroix, Gustave Doré, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Auguste Rodin all testify to the enduring appeal of Dante's poem." The Grove Dictionary goes on to point out Dante's influence on Michelangelo, including "the figures of Charon and Minos in the Sistine Chapel frescoes of the Last Judgement . . . modeled on their counterparts in . . . Inferno iii.84 and v.4."

A reproduction in black and white of one of Delacroix's paintings (noted for their color, as well as expression of the Romantic period in art) based on Dante's Comedy -- Bark [= small Boat] of Dante -- should be studied in the music textbook for World Humanities, in the first several pages of Part V "The Romantic Period," among the several reproductions of paintings preceding Part V, Chapter 1, of the textbook.

Canto 1

1. How do details given by Dante of the "wood" he finds himself in allude to Psalm 23, and with what typological symbolism?

2. (a) How do details of Dante's description of each of the three animals he encounters (lines 33-60; 90-95; 102-04) suggest what they symbolize, and thus provide the basis for all the annotators of Dante's Comedy? (b) Inferno/Hell is arranged in the opposite order (sins of the wolf on top, lion in the middle, leopard at the bottom) that Dante the pilgrim encounters the animals (leopard, lion, wolf). What is Dante suggesting about himself and others by reversing the order, considering that it is the wolf which is the ultimate discouragement to Dante the pilgrim? (c) What personal notes does Dante inject in Canto 1, and how do these personal notes indicate the era of the late Middle Ages in transition to the Renaissance and humanism?

3. What is the multiple significance of the closing couplet of Canto 1 that refers to Dante following where Virgil led?

Canto 2

1. What epic convention is Dante following in lines 7-9?

2. How does Dante's sense of humility or unworthiness to take this epic journey and the journey to the underworld (e.g., lines 9-12 and ff.) compare or contrast with Odysseus' or Aeneas' sense of self? How might Christianity be differentiated from the Classical tradition here?

3. (a) As explained by Vergil the character, how does the message relay system from the "top" to Dante compare and contrast with the message relay systems shown in Homer's Odyssey (divine communication to Odysseus) or Vergil's Aeneid (divine communication to Aeneas)? (b) How are the Middle Ages and Christianity differentiated from the Classical tradition here?