Paradise

December 15, 2004
Recounting Dante's passage through the outer reaches of the universe, the Paradiso is the most remote canticle of the Divine Comedy . Dante himself admitted that he was trying to describe the indescribable, evoking various images of light, and the highly abstract and often technical themes require a knowledge of medieval cosmology. As such, this canticle presents the greatest challenge for translators. With this installment, Esolen, (English, Providence Coll.), who has done fine translations of Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata and Lucretius's De rerum natura, marks the completion of his new translation of the Divine Comedy . Noteworthy features include the Italian on facing pages and helpful notes on the theological, philosophical, and historical references. Yet while Esolen's version is accurate and attempts to capture Dante's form, the results are at times awkward and difficult to read. For Dante's poetry, John Ciardi's and Allen Mandelbaum's remain the translations of first choice.--T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah

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