Inferno: A New Verse Translation

Inferno: A New Verse Translation by Zappulla, Elio. Hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780679442806.

"As poetry, Mr. Zappullas English Dante is successful--. The power of Dantes descriptive poetry should be apparent, and that is perhaps the highest compliment one can pay a translator."--Washington Times In this new rendition of a timeless classic, Italian scholar Elio Zappulla captures the majesty and enduring power of the Inferno, the first of the three canticles of Dantes The Divine Comedy, unarguably one of the masterpieces of world literature. Rendering Dantes terza rima into lyrical blank verse, Zappullas translation makes accessible to the modern reader the journey of the famed Florentine poet Dante through the nine circles of hell. With Virgil at his side, the great poet descends through horrific landscapes of the damned--dark forests, boiling muck, and burning plains filled with unspeakable punishment, lamentation, and terror--depicted with gruesome detail unmatched in all literature. Richly annotated, this translation takes even the first-time reader on a truth-seeking journey whose imaginative and psychological discoveries make clear why this work persists at the heart of Western culture. "If Dantes Inferno is a cautionary tale of the history of human depravity, it is also an amazingly complex narrative, treating timeless ethical themes, medieval philosophy and religion, tendentious political issues and deeply personal events."--San Diego Union-Tribune From the Trade Paperback edition.