What's the best translation for the Divine Comedy?

By acornzenith

I feel like there are a bunch of solid options in English, but none of them are perfect. Sayers and Reynolds are trying to do Dante’s terza rima pretty directly. When it works, it’s amazing, but when it doesn’t it’s… really awkward. Musa reads smoothly and feels clear, and sometimes there’s this quiet kind of beauty, but for me the lines don’t stick around in my head. Ciardi is probably the most “popular” pick—really poetic—but he’s not as strict with the Dante structure as I’d like. To me it feels like he’s moving too fast. Pinsky is interesting in a way that’s also a little maddening. He’s willing to bend things, including with terza rima, and I just don’t gel with it. He’s only done *Inferno*, too. Same general deal with Merwin (as far as I know he only did *Purgatorio*). The Hollanders basically get the job done and it’s pretty balanced. Their style has enough “music,” but I also suspect some of that comes from reshaping Sinclair/Singleton’s prose into verse more than anything. Their notes are insanely detailed though—kind of overwhelming—which is why I end up using them. Durling/Martinez are good if you want more straightforward prose, and they’ve got detailed notes as well. The Hollanders and Durling/Martinez editions feel more for people who want to dig deep academically, not just read casually. Singleton (older) is honestly great prose—I still think it’s my favorite. It’s a revision of Sinclair, and it comes as a bunch of volumes for each cantica, plus notes and commentary. Princeton also just put out a single-volume bilingual one with nice artwork. Esolen has some really great moments, but also some weaker ones. Still, overall it’s a good translation and I’d describe it as pretty “muscular.” Kirkpatrick is good and sometimes makes Dante sound like a huge English writer—almost Shakespeare/Milton-ish. But then he gets a little too showy, and some of the wording is… a choice. Like those four-letter-word gestures that come off a bit jarring. Clive James is eccentric, and the quatrains thing bothers me since Dante’s using tercets for a reason. Mary Jo Bang is even more eccentric than that—still, she’ll hit you with some lines that really grab you. Cary is super old but still readable to a degree, and Longfellow is still a wonderful early American option if you can handle the 1800s language. Nichols is beautiful. I get this sense of it being sort of a hybrid between Mandelbaum and Musa. And yeah—also interesting that not all the translators were poets, but a lot of the poet-translators seem to catch things other people might miss. Mandelbaum’s *Divine Comedy* is very good too. He doesn’t stick to terza rima in a strict way all the time, but when it’s natural he uses it, and overall he really does Dante well. To me he’s one of the best of the bunch. One more thing: Michael Palma just published his whole *Commedia* in 2024, and I’m going through it now. So far I’m impressed—apparently he’s mostly managed terza rima in English. From what I’ve seen, the major English attempts at fully doing terza rima are basically Sayers and Pinsky. Others like Ciardi kind of do a “fake” terza rima setup (rhyme in the right places but with the middle line different), and even the ones that nail some moments still feel uneven overall. I’m really hoping Palma actually pulls it off. Anyway—hope this helps. You don’t have to find “the one” right away. If you end up loving Dante, it’s totally fair to read/re-read through a couple translations and see what clicks for you. Happy reading :)