List of English translations of the Divine Comedy explained

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri is an epic poem in Italian written between 1308 and 1321 that describes its author's journey through the Christian afterlife. The three cantiche of the poem, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, describe Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, respectively. The poem is considered one of the greatest works of world literature and helped establish Dante's Tuscan dialect as the standard form of the Italian language. It has been translated over 400 times into at least 52 different languages.

Though English poets Geoffrey Chaucer and John Milton referenced and partially translated Dante's works in the 14th and 17th centuries, respectively, it took until the early 19th century for the first full English translation of the Divine Comedy to be published. This was over 300 years after the first Latin (1416), Spanish (1515), and French (1500s) translations had been completed. By 1906, Dante scholar Paget Toynbee calculated that the Divine Comedy had been touched upon by over 250 translators and sixty years later bibliographer Gilbert F. Cunningham observed that the frequency of English Dante translations was increasing with time., the Divine Comedy has been translated into English more times than it has been translated into any other language.

List of translations

A complete listing and criticism of all English translations of at least one of the three cantiche (parts) was made by Cunningham in 1966. The table below summarises Cunningham's data with additions between 1966 and the present, many of which are taken from the Dante Society of America's yearly North American bibliography^[1] and 's international bibliography.^[2] Many more translations of individual lines or cantos exist, but these are too numerous for the scope of this list.

scope=col	Published !	scope=col	Translator !	scope=col	Nationality	scope=col	Publisher(s)!	scope=col	Parts translated !	scope=col	Form!	Notes
scope=row	1782	Charles Rogers	United Kingdom	J. Nichols	Inferno		First translation of a full cantica into English. Initially published anonymously
scope=row	1785–1802		United Kingdom	C. Dilly	Comedy i.e. all three parts	Rhymed 6-line stanzas	First full translation of the Divine Comedy in English
scope=row	1805–1814		United Kingdom	James Carpenter	Comedy	Blank verse	Volume 20 in the Harvard Classics series. Reprinted by Bohn's Library in 1850 and Chandos Classics in 1871Described by The Cambridge Companion to Dante as the first "powerful, accurate, and poetically moving" translation. Became a bestseller and was required in schools
scope=row	1807	Nathaniel Howard	United Kingdom	John Murray	Inferno	Blank verse
scope=row	1812		United Kingdom	T. Cadell and W. Davies	Inferno	Blank verse
scope=row	1833–1840		United Kingdom	Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman	Comedy	Rhymed 6-line stanzas
scope=row	1843–1865	John Dayman	United Kingdom	Longmans, Green, and Co.	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1843–1893		United States	De Vries, Ibarra and Company Houghton, Mifflin and Company	Comedy (incomplete)	Quatrains and irregular rhyme
scope=row	1849	John Aitken Carlyle	United Kingdom	Chapman and Hall	Inferno		First British prose translation of Inferno. Reprinted by J.M. Dent and Sons and edited by for their Temple Classics line in 1900
scope=row	1850	Patrick Bannerman	United Kingdom	William Blackwood and Sons	Comedy	Irregular rhyme
scope=row	1851–1854	Charles Bagot Cayley	United Kingdom	Longmans, Brown, Green, and Longmans	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1852	E. O'Donnell	United Kingdom	Thomas Richardson and Son	Comedy	Prose	First British prose translation of the whole Divine Comedy.
scope=row	1854	Thomas Brooksbank	United Kingdom	John W. Parker and Son	Inferno	Terza rima
scope=row	1854	Sir William Frederick Pollock	United Kingdom	Chapman and Hall	Comedy	Blank tercets
scope=row	1859	Bruce Whyte	United Kingdom	Wright & Co.; Simpkin, Marshall, & Co	Inferno	Irregular rhyme
scope=row	1859–1866	John Wesley Thomas	United Kingdom	Henry G. Bohn	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1862	William Patrick Wilkie	United Kingdom	Edmonston and Douglas	Inferno	Blank tercets
scope=row	1862–1863	Claudia Hamilton Ramsay	United Kingdom	Tinsley Brothers	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1865		United Kingdom	Macmillan and Co.	Inferno	Blank tercets
scope=row	1865–1870		United Kingdom	Smith, Elder & Co.	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1867		United States		Comedy	Blank tercets	First complete translation by an American author. Highly praised upon publication^[3] and remains one of the most commonly reprinted translations in both the United States and the United Kingdom
scope=row	1867–1868	David Johnston	United Kingdom	Self-published	Comedy	Blank tercets	Never placed on sale; the author sent copies directly to libraries and friends
scope=row	1877	Charles Tomlinson	United Kingdom	S.W. Partridge and Co.	Inferno	Terza rima
scope=row	1880–1892		United Kingdom	Macmillan and Co.	Comedy	Prose
scope=row	1881		United Kingdom	C. Kegan Paul & Co.	Inferno	Terza rima
scope=row	1883		United Kingdom	George Bell & Sons	Purgatorio	Prose
scope=row	1884	James Romanes Sibbald	United Kingdom	David Douglas	Inferno	Terza rima
scope=row	1885	James Innes Minchin	United Kingdom	Longmans, Green, and Co.	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1886–1887	Edward Hayes Plumptre	United Kingdom	Wm. Isbister Limited	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1887	Frederick Kneller Haselfoot Haselfoot	United Kingdom	Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1888	John Augustine Wilstach	United States	Houghton, Mifflin and Company	Comedy	Rhymed stanzas
scope=row	1889–1900	William Warren Vernon	United Kingdom	Macmillan & Co.	Comedy	Prose
scope=row	1891–1892		United States	Houghton, Mifflin and Company	Comedy	Prose	First American prose translation of the whole Divine Comedy. Revised in 1902
scope=row	1892–1915	Charles Lancelot Shadwell	United Kingdom	Macmillan & Co.	Purgatorio and Paradiso	Marvellian stanzas
scope=row	1893	George Musgrave	United Kingdom	Swan Sonnenschein & Co.	Inferno
scope=row	1893	Edward Sullivan	United Kingdom	Elliot Stock	Inferno	Prose
scope=row	1895	Robert Urquhart	United Kingdom	Privately printed	Inferno	Terza rima	Bibliographer Gilbert F. Cunningham inferred that "Macmillan [& Co.] arranged for the production of the book, but decided not to publish it"
scope=row	1898	Eugene Jacob Lee-Hamilton	United Kingdom	Grant Richards	Inferno	Hendecasyllabic blank tercets
scope=row	1899	Philip Henry Wicksteed	United Kingdom	J.M. Dent & Sons	Paradiso	Prose	Edited by Herman Oelsner for Temple Classics
scope=row	1899	Arthur Compton Auchmuty	United Kingdom	Williams and Norgate	Purgatorio	Octosyllabic terza rima
scope=row	1899–1901	Samuel Home	United Kingdom	Woodall, Minshall, and Co.	Purgatorio (incomplete: I–XXXI only)	Hendecasyllabic blank tercets
scope=row	1901	Thomas Okey	United Kingdom	J.M. Dent & Sons	Purgatorio	Prose	Edited by Herman Oelsner for Temple Classics
scope=row	1901		United Kingdom	Truslove, Hanson & Combe	Inferno	Prose
scope=row	1902		United Kingdom	G. H. Tyndall	Comedy	Blank tercets
scope=row	1903–1909	Edward Wilberforce	United Kingdom	Macmillan and Co.	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1903–1911	Sir Samuel Walker Griffith	United Kingdom	Powell and Co.	Comedy	Hendecasyllabic blank tercets
scope=row	1904	Caroline C. Potter	United Kingdom	Digby, Long & Co.	Purgatorio and Paradiso	Rhymed quatrains
scope=row	1904		United Kingdom	Clarendon Press	Comedy	Prose
scope=row	1904	Marvin Richardson Vincent	United States	Charles Scribner's Sons	Inferno	Blank verse
scope=row	1905	Charles Gordon Wright	United Kingdom	Methuen & Co.	Purgatorio	Prose
scope=row	1908	Frances Isabella Fraser	United Kingdom	S.W. Simms	Paradiso	Blank tercets
scope=row	1910	Agnes Louisa Money	United Kingdom	George Allen & Sons	Purgatorio	Blank tercets
scope=row	1911	Charles Edwin Wheeler	United Kingdom	J.M. Dent & Sons	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1914	Edith Mary Shaw	United Kingdom	Constable and Company	Comedy	Blank verse
scope=row	1915	Edward Joshua Edwardes	United Kingdom	Women's Printing Society	Inferno	Blank tercets
scope=row	1915	Sir Samuel Griffith	Australia	Oxford University Press	Comedy	Unrhymed hendecasyllabic verse	First translation by an Australian author
scope=row	1915	Henry Johnson	United States	Yale University Press Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press	Comedy	Blank tercets
scope=row	1918–1921	Courtney Langdon	United States	Harvard University Press	Comedy	Blank verse
scope=row	1920	Eleanor Vinton Murray	United States	Self-published	Inferno	Terza rima
scope=row	1921	Melville Best Anderson	United States	World Book Company Yonkers-on-Hydon; George G. Harrap & Co.	Comedy	Terza rima	Reprinted in Oxford World's Classics with an introduction from Paget Toynbee in 1932
scope=row	1922	Henry John Hooper	United Kingdom	George Routledge and Sons	Inferno	Amphibrachic tetrameter
scope=row	1927	David James MacKenzie	United Kingdom	Longmans, Green and Co.	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1928–1931	Albert R. Bandini	United States (born in Italy)	The People's Publishing Co.	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1928–1954	Sydney Fowler Wright	United Kingdom	Fowler Wright Ltd.; Oliver and Boyd	Inferno and Purgatorio	Irregularly rhymed decasyllables
scope=row	1931	Jefferson Butler Fletcher	United States	The Macmillan Company	Comedy	Defective terza rima
scope=row	1931	Lacy Lockert	United States	Princeton University Press	Inferno	Terza rima
scope=row	1932–1935	Geoffrey Langdale Bickersteth	United Kingdom	Cambridge University Press	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1933–1943		United Kingdom	Macmillan and Co.	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1934–1940		United States	The Harbor Press	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1938	Ralph Thomas Bodey	United Kingdom	Harold Cleaver	Comedy	Blank verse
scope=row	1939–1946	John Dickson Sinclair	United Kingdom	The Bodley Head	Comedy	Prose	Republished by Oxford University Press in 1948
scope=row	1948		United States	Pantheon Books	Comedy	Blank verse
scope=row	1948	Patrick Cummins	United States	B. Herder Book Co.	Comedy	Hendecasyllabic terza rima
scope=row	1949–1953		United States	S. F. Vanni	Comedy	Prose
scope=row	1949–1962	Dorothy L. Sayers	United Kingdom	Penguin Books	Comedy	Terza rima	Printed in Penguin Classics. After Sayers' death in 1957, the final cantos of Paradiso were completed by Barbara Reynolds.
scope=row	1952	Thomas Weston Ramsey	United Kingdom	The Hand and Flower Press	Paradiso	Defective terza rima
scope=row	1954	Howard Russell Huse	United States	Rinehart	Comedy	Prose
scope=row	1954–1970		United States	New American Library	Comedy	Defective terza rima	Audio version of Inferno recorded and released by Folkways Records in 1954^[4]
scope=row	1956	Glen Levin Swiggett	United States	University Press of the University of the South	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1958	Mary Prentice Lillie	United States	Grabhorn Press	Comedy	Hendecasyllabic blank tercets
scope=row	1961	Warwick Fielding Chipman	United Kingdom	Oxford University Press	Inferno	Terza rima
scope=row	1962	Clara Stillman Reed	United States	Self-published	Comedy	Prose
scope=row	1965	William F. Ennis	United Kingdom	Il Campo Editore	Comedy	Dodecasyllabic terza rima
scope=row	1965	Aldo Maugeri	Italy	La Sicilia	Inferno	Blank tercets	First English translation of Inferno to be published in Italy.
scope=row	1966	Louis Biancolli	United States	Washington Square Press	Comedy	Blank verse
scope=row	1966	G. W. Greene	United States	Italica	Inferno (incomplete)	Blank verse	Contains only thirty-one of the Inferno's thirty-four cantos; Greene died in 1883 without publishing the work
scope=row	1966	BBC Third Programme	United Kingdom	British Broadcasting Corporation	Inferno		Contains work from twelve translators who presented their translations on the BBC Third Programme^[5]
scope=row	1967–2002		United States	Penguin Books	Comedy	Blank verse	Second Penguin Classics translation
scope=row	1969		United States		Comedy	Blank verse
scope=row	1969	Allan Gilbert	United States	Duke University Press	Inferno	Prose
scope=row	1970–1975		United States	Princeton University Press	Comedy	Prose	Literal prose translation. Published as six volumes, with one volume of translation facing Italian text and one volume of commentary for each cantica
scope=row	1979	Kenneth R. Mackenzie	United Kingdom	The Folio Society	Comedy	Verse	Contains engravings from John Flaxman
scope=row	1980–1984		United States	Bantam Books	Comedy	Blank verse	Mandelbaum was awarded a Gold Medal of Honor from the city of Florence for his translation. Certain editions contain illustrations from Barry Moser.
scope=row	1981		United Kingdom	Oxford World's Classics	Comedy	Free tercets
scope=row	1983	Tom Phillips	United Kingdom	Waddington Graphics	Inferno	Verse	Contains original prints by Phillips
scope=row	1985	Nicholas Kilmer	United States	Branden Publishing Co.	Inferno	Blank verse^[6]
scope=row	1987	James Finn Cotter	United States	Amity House	Comedy	Blank verse
scope=row	1990	Tibor Wlassics	Hungary (published and written in the United States)	In Print Inc.	Inferno	Blank verse
scope=row	1993	James S. Torrens, S.J.	United States	University of Scranton Press University of London Press: University of Toronto Press	Paradiso	Blank verse
scope=row	1994	Steve Ellis	United Kingdom	Chatto & Windus	Inferno	Blank verse
scope=row	1994	Stephen Wentworth Arndt	United States	The Edwin Mellen Press	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1994	Robert Pinsky	United States	Farrar, Straus and Giroux	Inferno	Terza rima
scope=row	1996		United Kingdom	Anvil Press Poetry	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	1996–2007		United States	Oxford University Press	Comedy	Prose
scope=row	1997–1998	Kathryn Lindskoog	United States	Mercer University Press	Comedy	Prose	Advertised as a "retelling" rather than direct translation
scope=row	1998	Elio Zappulla	United States	Random House	Inferno	Blank verse
scope=row	2000	Stanley Appelbaum	United States	Dover Publications	Comedy (partial)	Free verse	Contains a total of thirty-three cantos selected from different cantiche
scope=row	2000	Armand Schwerner	United States	Talisman House	Inferno (incomplete)	Blank verse	Contains only twelve cantos; Schwerner died before he could finish the translation^[7]
scope=row	2000		United States	Knopf	Purgatorio	Blank verse
scope=row	2000	A. S. Kline	United States	Poetry in translation	Comedy	Prose
scope=row	2000–2007	Jean and Robert Hollander	United States	Anchor Books	Comedy	Free verse^[8]	Known for its extensive scholarly notes; the full text is over 600 pages. The Hollanders were given a Gold Florin award from the city of Florence for their translation.^[9]
scope=row	2002		Ireland (published in the United Kingdom)	Granta Books	Inferno	Terza rima	First Irish translation of Inferno.
scope=row	2002–2008		United States	W.W. Norton	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	2002–2004	Anthony M. Esolen	United States	Modern Library Classics	Comedy	Blank verse
scope=row	2005–2012	J. Gordon Nichols	United Kingdom	Alma Books	Comedy	Defective terza rima
scope=row	2006–2007	Robin Kirkpatrick	United Kingdom	Penguin Books	Comedy	Blank verse	Third Penguin Classics translation
scope=row	2007	Frank Salvidio	United States	iUniverse (self-published)	Inferno	Free tercets
scope=row	2007–2017	Tom Simone	United States	Focus-Hackett Publishing	Comedy	Free verse
scope=row	2009–2017		United States	Hackett Classics	Comedy	Blank tercets
scope=row	2010		United States	Northwestern World Classics	Comedy	Terza rima
scope=row	2011	Robert M. Torrance	United States	Xlibris (self-published)	Inferno	Terza rima
scope=row	2013–2021		United States	Graywolf Press	Inferno, Purgatorio (Paradiso in progress as of November 2021)	Free verse	Text of poem contains anachronistic references to figures such as Sigmund Freud, Vladimir Mayakovsky, and Stephen Colbert
scope=row	2013		Australia (written in the United Kingdom)	Picador	Comedy	Quatrains
scope=row	2017	Peter Thornton	United States	Arcade Publishing	Inferno	Blank verse
scope=row	2018–2020		United Kingdom	Canongate Books	Comedy	Prosaic verse	Renders "Ghibelline" and "Guelph" as "Tory" and "Whig" respectively
scope=row	2020–2021		United Kingdom (born in South Africa)	New York Review Books	Purgatorio	Blank verse
2021	Ned Denny	United Kingdom	Carcanet	Comedy	Long, loosely-rhyming couplets in twelve-line, 144-syllable stanzas (an average of nine per canto).	A "poet's version... in the interpretative tradition of Chapman, Dryden and Pope" and titled simply B (After Dante) - with the canticas becoming Blaze, Bathe and Bliss - this is the only translation to recast the Commedia into a wholly original form.
scope=row	2021	Gerald J. Davis	United States	Insignia Publishing	Comedy	Prose
scope=row	2022	J. Simon Harris	United States	Nostra Vita Books	Inferno	Terza rima
scope=row	2022-2023	Joe Carlson	United States	Roman Roads Press	Comedy	Blank Verse

See also

• Divine Comedy in popular culture

References

1. Web site: American Dante Bibliography . 16 October 2022 . Dante Society of America.
2. Web site: Bibliografia Internazionale Dantesca . International Dante Bibliography . 12 November 2022 . For a multilingual list of translations, see
3. Web site: 1 August 1867 . Longfellow's Translation of Dante's Divina Commedia . 12 November 2022 . . en . It is not to Mr. Longfellow’s reputation only that these volumes will add, but to that of American literature. It is no little thing to be able to say, that, in a field in which some of England’s great poets have signally failed, an American poet has signally succeeded ; that what the scholars of the Old World asserted to be impossible, a scholar of the New World has accomplished ; and that the first to tread in this new path has impressed his footprints so deeply therein, that, however numerous his followers may be, they will all unite in hailing him....
4. Web site: The Inferno (Dante Alighieri): The Immortal Drama of a Journey through Hell . 20 June 2022 . folkways.si.edu . en-US.
5. Web site: American Dante Bibliography for 1967 Dante Society . 21 October 2022 . www.dantesociety.org.
6. Book: Hollander, Robert . Divine Comedies for the New Millennium . Translating Dante into English Again and Again . 26 August 2003 . 43–48 . 10.1017/9789048505241.003 . 9789048505241.
7. Web site: American Dante Bibliography for 2000 Dante Society . 21 October 2022 . www.dantesociety.org.
8. Parks . Tim . Tim Parks . 8 January 2001 . Hell and Back . The New Yorker . en-US . 12 July 2022.
9. Web site: Hollander to be honored in Italy . 10 September 2022 . Princeton University . en.

^[10]

Bibliography

• Acocella . Joan . Joan Acocella . 27 May 2013 . What the Hell . . subscription . 12 November 2022.
• Barbarese . J. T. . 2009 . Four Translations of Dante's "Inferno" . The Sewanee Review . 117 . 4 . 647–655 . 0037-3052 . 40542670.
• Book: Bloom, Harold . 1994 . Harcourt Brace . 0-15-195747-9 . 1st . New York . 29637737 . Harold Bloom.
• Book: Chaucer, Geoffrey . The Riverside Chaucer . . 2008 . 9-78-019955209-2 . Benson . Larry D. . enm . Geoffrey Chaucer.
• Cooper . Roslyn Pesman . 1989-10-01 . Sir Samuel Griffith, Dante and the Italian Presence in Nineteenth-Century Australian Literary Culture . Australian Literary Studies . 14 . 2 . 199–215 . subscription.
• Book: Cunningham, Gilbert F. . 1966 . Oliver and Boyd . Edinburgh; London . English . 278692745.
  • Cunningham . G. F. . 1954 . Divine Comedy in English: a critical bibliography of Dante['s] translation, 1782–1954 ]. Edinburgh Research Archive . en . Freely available manuscript of the above text
• Web site: Delmolino . Grace . 2017 . Dante Alighieri: A Chronology. . Digital Dante.
• News: Grimes . William . 5 November 2011 . Allen Mandelbaum, Translator of 'Divine Comedy,' Dies at 85 . en-US . The New York Times . live . subscription . 2022-09-10 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220130225026/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/arts/allen-mandelbaum-translator-of-divine-comedy-dies-at-85.html . 2022-01-30 .
• Web site: Hainsworth . Peter . 11 May 2018 . Coming to our senses in a corpse-hued wood . limited . TLS.
• Harrison . Fred C. . 1966 . G. W. Greene and Dante . Italica . 43 . 1 . 38–42 . 10.2307/477019 . 0021-3020 . 477019.
• Holekamp . Elizabeth Lambert . Dante into French: The Earliest Complete Translation of the Divine Comedy (Italy) . May 1985 . PhD . Indiana University . 979-8-205-68776-8 . .
• Book: Jacoff, Rachel . Cambridge University Press . 1993 . 0-521-41748-1 . Cambridge . 25964332.
• Web site: Johnson . Emily . 11 November 2021 . "This Is About Living": Translating Dante with Mary Jo Bang . 12 November 2022 . Columbia University School of the Arts.
• Book: Lepschy, Anna Laura . 1977 . Hutchinson . Giulio C. Lepschy . 0-09-128020-6 . London . 3995259 . Anna Laura Lepschy.
• Book: Milton, John . Of Reformation . Thomas Underhill . 1641 . London (?) . John Milton.
• Web site: Tavoni . Mirko . 7 June 2022 . The Divine Comedy in other languages (first part) . New Italian Books.
• Book: Toynbee, Paget Jackson . Dante Studies . 1921 . Clarendon Press . en . 1989748 . Paget Toynbee.
• "Per Un Dante Latino": The Latin Translations of the Divine Comedy in Nineteenth-Century Italy . Johns Hopkins University . 26 October 2016 . PhD . en-US . Michele . Zanobini.

Further reading

• Dante Alighieri: Divine Comedy. Ugolinomania - Early English Translations of the Ugolino Episode from Chaucer to Jennings containing translations from Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1340s–1400), Jonathan Richardson (1665–1745), Thomas Gray (1716–1771), Giuseppe Marc'Antonio Baretti (1719–1789), Joseph Warton (1722–1800), Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748–1825), Thomas Warton (1728–1790), Charles Rogers (1711–1784), Henry Boyd (c. 1750–1832) and Henry Constantine Jennings (1731–1819).
• "Dante in English" from The Cambridge Companion to Dante (1993)
• American Dante Bibliography from the Dante Society of America

External links

• Translations: Rogers, Cary, Howard, Dayman, Carlyle, Bannerman, Whyte, Longfellow, Norton, Griffith, Mandelbaum, Hollander and Hollander (Poem; Commentary)
• Dante Poliglatta