Clive James's translation of The Divine Comedy is a remarkable achievement: not a scowling marble Dante of sublime set pieces but a living, breathing poet shifting restlessly through a dizzying succession of moods, perceptions and passions. Under James's uncanny touch, seven long centuries drop away, and the great poem is startlingly fresh and new. -- Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University, author of The Swerve
This is the translation that many of us had abandoned all hope of finding. Clive James's version is the only one that conveys Dante's variety, depth, subtlety, vigor, wit, clarity, mystery and awe in rhymed English stanzas that convey the music of Dante's triple rhymes. This book lets Dante's genius shine through as it never did before in English verse, and is a reminder that James's poetry has always been his finest work. -- Edward Mendelson, Columbia University
A vigorous, poetic paraphrase of the Comedy. -- Library Journal
Daring... Deciding that Dante's terza rima is too strained in English, he uses robust, rollicking quatrains... James' revitalizing translation allows this endlessly analyzed, epic, archetypal 'journey to salvation' to once again stride, whirl, blaze, and sing. Anyone heretofore reluctant to pick up The Divine Comedy will discover that James' bold, earthy, rhythmic and rhyming, all-the-way live English translation fulsomely and brilliantly liberates the profound humanity of Dante's timeless masterpiece. -- Booklist
Do we really need yet another translation of Dante's world-famous journey through the three parts of the Catholic afterlife? We might, if the translator is both as eminent, and as skillful, as Clive James... It is a wonder to see the light cast by the whole. -- Publishers Weekly
Seeking to preserve Dante's 'infinitely variable rhythmic pulse,' James makes an inspired metrical choice... The greatest virtue of James's translation is his gift for infusing poetry in the least likely places... James's austere volume achieves something remarkable: It lets Dante's poetry shine in all its brilliance. -- Joseph Luzzi - New York Times Book Review
James gives us something sublime: a new way of reading a classic work. James' version is not merely a mirrored word, but a transfigured word. As such, it will no doubt enter the essential Dante canon, and remain there for years to come. -- Earl Pike - Cleveland Plain Dealer
A translation for readers who are culturally engaged, willing to follow lengthy narratives, and curious about free will and the soul. A Dante for fans of Mad Men? -- Camila Domonoske - NPR.org
Hugely enjoyable... James allows us a valuable new glimpse into a supremely imaginative mind at work when thought and faith remained indivisible-before God, too, was forced from Paradise. -- Tom Bissell - Harper's
Perfect for the Don Drapers in your life. -- Megan O'Grady - Vogue.com
An extraordinary verse-rendering-the fruit of many years' work-of Dante's The Divine Comedy...he [James] has not only tackled this Everest of translation, but has scrambled to the summit in triumph. -- Robert McCrum - The Guardian
As with [Seamus] Heaney, the telling choices in his diction are discreet in themselves, but overwhelming in their impact-.James has translated the meaning along with the words, so that his Divine Comedy is, for the twenty-first century English speaker, something very close to reading Dante in 1317. -- Deirdre Serjeantson - Dublin Review of Books
The poem flows magnificently...the speeches are magnificent .... As for the later books, I know of no English versions that come near James's...easily the best introduction to Dante for the general reader. -- Peter Goldsworthy - The Australian
James's Divine Comedy... is an impassioned, impressive, sometimes dazzling piece of work.... James has written a remarkable contemporary version of Dante-stately, colloquial, full of movement and fire and light.... [It] is a remarkable tour de force-brave, sparkling, encyclopedic and with a tremendous forward momentum as it traverses the vast space of life and death and eternity. -- Peter Craven - Sydney Morning Herald
An outstanding achievement.... He restores the sense of drama, the colours and the music of Dante's vision..... Clive James has now given us a translation worthy of this and any other time, and a great piece of literature in its own right. -- Robert Fox - London Evening Standard