Do I have a good translation of 'The Divine Comedy'?

[manuscj]

I recently checked out The Divine Comedy (penguin classic) translated by Mark Musa, and I was wondering if anyone knows anything about this translation? or what translation is the best? This is my first time reading the book and I intend to buy a copy when I'm done, but I want to make sure that the Mark Musa translation does the work justice.

[actioncando]

Musa's translation was the one assigned to me for my Dante class in college. I don't know if it's the most pleasant sounding translation but it does come with helpful (necessary) notes and is clear and easy to understand.

[Poetaster]

Mark Musa's translation is a good one. I like it a lot. I own a few translations of Dante, and I think (personally) it's the best.

[stlukesguild]

I quite like Pinsky's Inferno. Ciardi's Comedia remains my favorite for rhymed poetic translation... perhaps the most "beautiful" English translation. My "go to" translation, at present, having read 8 or so different translations, is that of Robert & Jean Hollander which beyond being a very fine (and accurate) prose translation, is certainly the best in terms of annotations.

[Adonais]

I quite like Pinsky's Inferno. Ciardi's Comedia remains my favorite for rhymed poetic translation... perhaps the most "beautiful" English translation. My "go to" translation, at present, having read 8 or so different translations, is that of Robert & Jean Hollander which beyond being a very fine (and accurate) prose translation, is certainly the best in terms of annotations.

Hollander's is a loose verse translation, not prose. It's also the one I read and I enjoyed it very much. Perhaps a bit dry and over-accurate for some, but I think I prefer that over the translator trying to "improve" Dante by beautifying the text in translation.

I read Mark Musa's translation of the Vita Nuova and had no complaints.

[stlukesguild]

Some time back we had a member who was majoring in Renaissance Literature... especially Italian. She strongly recommended Musa's Vita Nuova. I have a copy but have yet to read it... perhaps because I so admire Dante Rossetti's classic rendering.

[mortalterror]

I like the Dorothy L. Sayers translation best. Ciardi has a good translation but it feels more like Ciardi than Dante to me. I'd go with Longfellow before Ciardi.

[Goodman Brown]

Wow the one I read was Ciardi didn't know better My daughter recommended it because as she put it was the easiest one to read ,, She's a Lit Major so I went with that ,, I'll have to see others,,,,,,

[Allen Mahan]

Ive been reading the Mandelbaum translation for 6 months (with the help of Audible...which uses the Musa translation lol)!

[KingNikolai1]

I read the Mandelbaum translation in the Dante class I took in college. We powered through the Divine Comedy over the course of a semester. To be honest, I probably would not have made it all the way through Paradiso without that class. Inferno and Purgatorio were great, however, despite my interest in Christian theology, Paradiso was a pain.