This Norton Critical Edition of Dante's masterpiece is based on Michael Palma's verse translation, which is acclaimed for its elegant rendering of Dante's triple-rhyme scheme into contemporary English. Richard Wilbur praises Palma's translation as "accurate as to sense, fully rhymed, and easy, as a rule, in its movement through the tercets. Readers will find it admirably clear and readable." The text is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations.

This Norton Critical Edition of Dante's masterpiece is based on Michael Palma's verse translation, which is acclaimed for its elegant rendering of Dante's triple-rhyme scheme into contemporary English. Richard Wilbur praises Palma's translation as "accurate as to sense, fully rhymed, and easy, as a rule, in its movement through the tercets. Readers will find it admirably clear and readable." The text is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations.

Also included in this edition are an illuminating introduction by Giuseppe Mazzotta, a Translator's Note, The Plan of Dante's Hell, and six maps and illustrations.

"Criticism" provides twelve interpretations by, among others, John Freccero, Robert M. Durling, Alison Cornish, Teodolinda Barolini, Giuseppe Mazzotta, and Robert Hollander.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

Introduction

Translator's Note

The Plan of Dante's Hell

Map: Italy, around 1300

The Text of Inferno

Backgrounds and Contexts

DANTE IN HIS OWN VOICE

Dante Alighieri · [Love and the gracious heart]

  [The tower of Babel]

  [On knowledge; literature; government]

  [On nobility and government]

SOURCES AND INFLUENCES

Virgil · From the Aeneid

Augustine · From The Confessions

Bertran de Born · I take great pleasure in the joyous

  season of spring

Guido Guinizelli · Love returns always to a noble heart

Guido Cavalcanti · A lady bids me

Boniface VIII · The One Holy, i.e., Church

Criticism

John Freccero · Dante's Prologue Scene

Renato Poggioli · Tragedy or Romance? A Reading of the

  Paolo and Francesca Episode in Dante's Inferno

Giuseppe Mazzotta · A Pattern of Order: Inferno VII

  and Paradiso VII

John Freccero · Medusa: The Letter and the Spirit

Robert M. Durling · Canto X: Farinata and Cavalcante

Marc Cogan · The Poetic Application of the Structure

  of Hell

Leo Spitzer · Speech and Language in Inferno XIII

Alison Cornish · The Harvest of Reading:

  Inferno 20, 24, 26

Peter S. Hawkins · Descendit ad Inferos

Teodolinda Barolini · Transition: How Cantos Begin

  and End

GiuseppeMazzotta · Canto XXVI--Ulysses:

  Persuasion versus Prophecy

Robert Hollander · Inferno XXXIII, 37-74:

  Ugolino's Importunity

Dante Alighieri: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography