English translations of Dante's Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligheri was translated into French and Spanish and other European languages well before it was first translated into English. In fact the first English translation was only completed in 1802, almost 500 years after Dante wrote his Italian original. The lack of English translations before this is due in part to Dante's Catholic views being distateful, or at least uninteresting, to Protestant English audiences, who viewed such a Catholic theology, mixed with references to classical mythos, as heretical.
Since 1802, however, the Divine Comedy has been translated into English more times than it has into any other language, and new English translations continue to be published regularly, so that today English is the language with the most translations by far. A complete listing and criticism of all English translations of at least one of the three books (cantiche; singular: cantica) up until 1966 was made by Cunningham.[1] The table below summarises Cunningham's data with (incomplete) additions between 1966 and the present. Many more translations of individual cantos from the three cantiche exist, but these are too numerous to allow the compilation of a comprehensive list.
| Publication date | Name | Nationality | Parts translated | Form | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1782 | Charles Rogers | UK | Inferno | blank verse | First translation of a full cantica into English |
| 1785-1802 | Henry Boyd | UK | Comedy | rhymed 6-line stanzas | First full translation of the Comedy in English. |
| 1805-1814 | Henry Francis Cary | UK | Comedy | blank verse | Available online. Volume 20 in the Harvard Classics series. |
| 1807 | Nathaniel Howard | UK | Inferno | blank verse | |
| 1812 | Joseph Hume | UK | Inferno | blank verse | one of the two 'worst' translations according to Cunningham |
| 1833-1840 | Ichabod Charles Wright | UK | Comedy | rhymed 6-line stanzas | |
| 1843-1865 | John Dayman | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1843-1867 | Thomas William Parsons | USA | Inferno | quatrains and irregular rhyme | |
| 1875-1893 | Thomas William Parsons | USA | Comedy (incomplete) | quatrains and irregular rhyme | |
| 1849 | John Aitken Carlyle | UK | Inferno | prose | |
| 1850 | Patrick Bannerman | UK | Comedy | irregular rhyme | one of the two 'worst' translations according to Cunningham |
| 1851-1854 | Charles Bagot Cayley | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1852 | E. O'Donnell | UK | Comedy | prose | |
| 1854 | Thomas Brooksbank | UK | Inferno | terza rima | |
| 1854 | Sir William Frederick Pollock | UK | Comedy | blank terzine | |
| 1859 | Bruce Whyte | UK | Inferno | irregular rhyme | |
| 1859-1866 | John Wesley Thomas | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1862 | William Patrick Wilkie | UK | Inferno | blank terzine | |
| 1862-1863 | Claudia Hamilton Ramsay | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1865 | William Michael Rossetti | UK | Inferno | blank terzine | |
| 1867 | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | USA | Comedy | blank terzine | First complete American translation. Available online. This translation inspired Matthew Pearl's 2003 murder mystery novel The Dante Club. |
| 1865-1870 | James Ford | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1867-1868 | David Johnston | UK | Comedy | blank terzine | |
| 1877 | Charles Tomlinson | UK | Inferno | terza rima | |
| 1880-1892 | Arthur John Butler | UK | Comedy | prose | |
| 1881 | Warburton Pike | UK | Inferno | terza rima | |
| 1883 | William Stratford Dugdale | UK | Purgatorio | prose | |
| 1884 | James Romanes Sibbald | UK | Inferno | terza rima | |
| 1885 | James Innes Minchin | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1886-1887 | Edward Hayes Plumptre | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1887 | Frederick Kneeller Haselfoot Haselfoot | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1888 | John Augustine Wilstach | USA | Comedy | rhymed stanzas | |
| 1889-1900 | William Warren Vernon | UK | Comedy | prose | |
| 1891-1892 | Charles Eliot Norton | USA | Comedy | prose | Translation used by Great Books of the Western World. Available online at Project Gutenberg. |
| 1892-1915 | Charles Lancelot Shadwell | UK | Purgatorio & Paradiso | Marvellian stanzas | |
| 1893 | Sir Edward Sullivan | UK | Inferno | prose | |
| 1893 | George Musgrave | UK | Inferno | Spenserian stanzas | |
| 1895 | Robert Urquhart | UK | Inferno | terza rima | |
| 1898 | Eugene Jacob Lee-Hamilton | UK | Inferno | hendecasyllabic blank terzine | |
| 1899 | Philip Henry Wicksteed | UK | Paradiso | prose | |
| 1899 | Arthur Compton Auchmuty | UK | Purgatorio | octosyllabic terza rima | |
| 1899-1901 | Samuel Home | UK | Purgatorio (incomplete: I-XXXI only) | hendecasyllabic blank terzine | |
| 1901 | Thomas Oakey | UK | Purgatorio | prose | |
| 1901 | John Carpenter Garnier | UK | Inferno | prose | |
| 1902 | Edward Clarke Lowe | UK | Comedy | blank terzine | |
| 1903-1909 | Edward Wilberforce | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1903-1911 | Sir Samuel Walker Griffith | UK | Comedy | hendecasyllabic blank terzine | |
| 1904 | Caroline C. Potter | UK | Purgatorio & Paradiso | rhymed quatrains | |
| 1904 | Henry Fanshawe Tozer | UK | Comedy | prose | |
| 1904 | Marvin Richardson Vincent | USA | Inferno | blank verse | |
| 1905 | Charles Gordon Wright | UK | Purgatorio | prose | |
| 1908 | Frances Isabella Fraser | UK | Paradiso | blank terzine | |
| 1910 | Anges Louisa Money | UK | Purgatorio | blank terzine | |
| 1911 | Charles Edwin Wheeler | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1914 | Edith Mary Shaw | UK | Comedy | blank verse | |
| 1915 | Edward Joshua Edwardes | UK | Inferno | blank terzine | |
| 1915 | Henry Johnson | USA | Comedy | blank terzine | |
| 1918-1921 | Courtney Langdon | USA | Comedy | blank terzine | |
| 1920 | Eleanor Vinton Murray | USA | Inferno | terza rima | |
| 1921 | Melville Best Anderson | USA | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1922 | Henry John Hooper | UK | Inferno | unrhymed amphiambics | |
| 1927 | David James MacKenzie | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1928-1954 | Sydney Fowler Wright | UK | Inferno & Purgatorio | irregularly rhymed decasyllables | |
| 1928-1931 | Albert R. Bandini | USA (born in Italy) | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1931 | Lacy Lockert | USA | Inferno | terza rima | |
| 1931 | Jefferson Butler Fletcher | USA | Comedy | defective terza rima | |
| 1932-1935 | Geoffrey Langdale Bickersteth | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1933-1943 | Laurence Binyon | UK | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1934-1940 | Louis How | USA | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1938 | Ralph Thomas Bodey | UK | Comedy | blank verse | |
| 1939-1946 | John Dickson Sinclair | UK | Comedy | prose | |
| 1948-1954 | Thomas Goddard Bergin | USA | Comedy | blank verse | |
| 1948 | Lawrence Grant White | USA | Comedy | blank verse | |
| 1948 | Patrick Cummins | USA | Comedy | hendecasyllabic terza rima | |
| 1949-1962 | Dorothy Leigh Sayers | UK | Comedy | terza rima | Penguin Classics edition. After Sayers' death in 1957, Paradiso XXI-XXXIII completed by Barbara Reynolds. |
| 1949-1953 | Harry Morgan Ayres | USA | Comedy | prose | |
| 1952 | Thomas Weston Ramsey | UK | Paradiso | defective terza rima | |
| 1954 | Howard Russell Huse | USA | Comedy | prose | |
| 1954-1970 | John Ciardi | USA | Comedy | defective terza rima | Inferno recorded and released by Folkways Records in 1954. |
| 1956 | Glen Levin Swiggett | USA | Comedy | terza rima | |
| 1958 | Mary Prentice Lillie | USA | Comedy | hendecasyllabic blank terzine | |
| 1961 | Warwick Fielding Chipman | UK | Inferno | terza rima | |
| 1962 | Clara Stillman Reed | USA | Comedy | prose | |
| 1965 | Aldo Maugeri | Italy | Inferno | blank terzine | |
| 1965 | William F. Ennis | UK | Comedy | dodecasyllabic terza rima | |
| Warning: data incomplete after 1966. | |||||
| 1970-1991 | Charles S. Singleton | USA | Comedy | prose | Literal prose version with extensive commentary; 6 vols. |
| 1981 | C. H. Sisson | UK | Comedy | ? | Oxford World's Classics |
| 1980-1984 | Allen Mandelbaum | USA | Comedy | blank verse | Available online. |
| 1967-2002 | Mark Musa | USA | Comedy | blank verse | An alternative Penguin Classics version. |
| 1995 | Robert Pinsky | USA | Inferno | terza rima | |
| 2000-2007 | Robert and Jean Hollander | USA | Comedy | blank verse | Online as part of the Princeton Dante Project. |
| 2000 | W. S. Merwin | USA | Purgatorio | ? | |
| 2002-2004 | Anthony M. Esolen | USA | Comedy | blank verse | Modern Library Classics. |
| 2006-2007 | Robin Kirkpatrick | ? | Comedy | ? | A third Penguin Classics version, replacing Musa's |
| 1996-2007 | Robert M. Durling | USA | Comedy | prose | Oxford University Press |
| 2010 | Burton Raffel | USA | Comedy | ? | Northwestern World Classics |
| 2012 | J. Gordon Nichols | UK | Comedy | ? | Alma Classics |
| 2013 | Clive James | Australia/UK | Comedy | quatrains | Picador |
| 2013 | Mary Jo Bang | USA | Inferno | ? | Graywolf Press[2] |
References
- ↑ Gilbert F. Cunningham, "The Divine comedy in English: a critical biography 1782-1966". 2 vols., Barnes & Noble, NY; esp. v.2 pp.5-9
- ↑ https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/inferno-0
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