The Divine Comedy

By: Clive James - translator, Dante Alighieri

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Renowned poet and critic Clive James presents the crowning achievement of his career: a monumental translation into English verse of Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and this translation - decades in the making - gives us the entire epic as a single, coherent and compulsively listenable lyric poem. Written in the early 14th century and completed in 1321, the year of Dante’s death, The Divine Comedy is perhaps the greatest work of epic poetry ever composed.

Divided into three books - Hell, Purgatory and Heaven - the poem’s allegorical vision of the afterlife portrays the poet’s spiritual crisis in terms of his own contemporary history, in a text of such vivid life and variety that modern readers will find themselves astounded in a hundred different ways. And indeed the structure of this massive single song is divided into a hundred songs, or cantos, each of which is a separate poetic miracle. But unifying them all is the impetus of the Italian verse: a verbal energy that Clive James has now brought into English.

For its range of emotion alone, Clive James’s poetic rendering of The Divine Comedy would be without precedent. But it is also singled out by its sheer readability. The result is the epic as a page-turner, a work that will influence the way we read Dante in English for generations to come.

The Divine Comedy is performed by Edoardo Ballerini (2013 Audie Award winner, Best Solo Narration - Male), who had this to say about the book and his experience narrating it: "There are literary classics, and then then are those few books that serve as the cultural foundation for all of western civilization. Dante's Divine Comedy is one of those rarified titles. Being asked to narrate such a monumental work was an honor, and one of the highlights of my career, across film, TV, stage and audio. It was a humbling experience, and I only hope this recording inspires listeners to experience this profoundly beautiful work of art in a new, accessible and playful way."

©2013 Clive James (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Narrator Edoardo Ballerini takes Clive James's translation of Dante's classic and breathes fresh life into it.... One particular benefit of Ballerini's performance is that his pronunciation of the very little untranslated Italian vocabulary is spot-on, giving listeners the feeling that their experience is both authentic and impressive." ( AudioFile)

I love this!

The narrator is awesome!! The best ive heard yet! Makes me want to look up books only narrated by him!

A midpoint between the ancient world and now

I'm passably generally knowledgeable enough to get a good part of this (there are countless references to history, Medieval theology, Ancient literature ...). I'm a longtime fan of poetry. I'm no expert on any of this. It is very interesting to get into the mind of a very bright, perceptive thinker of those times, and in a graceful turn of thought.
It strikes me that many friends of mine are biased (I will say excessively) toward their little modern periscopes of things, and have a sort of dismissive elitism. I'm not bashful to point out that many past figures steeped in what my contemporaries would call "superstition" yet lived and achieved greatly, often far beyond the exploits of my supposedly more enlightened fellows today. Of course, many of the old tales are pretty embellished, so who knows exactly? But there are nods here to a pretty sophisticated sense of evolution, and some pretty fancy physics here, alongside all sorts of fanciful metaphysics. Dante was a great fan of many great thinkers, and the path is strewn everywhere with props to them.
This work is a great respite and "channel-change" from my typical fare -- economics, business history and such. A couple of hours of new business tech, and my mind begins to frost over, and needs some poetry. I will be interested now to tackle the Aeneid, the author of which is a star character here. I think it may be more purely epically colorful and undiluted by, shall I call it, the maudlin character and prissiness of the late Medieval moralizings here?

Iconic book everyone should check it out

Dante is an iconic story. I really hope I do not see what was described in this book. I hope I'm on the other side of hell. Great read or listen. I have now done both.

Beautiful language

I enjoyed just listening to it. The reading was musical although the content was not my favorite.

Brilliant!

I try very hard not to write a review till I've listened to the whole thing. But I have to make an exception for this one. So far I've listened to The Inferno; but since I've already read the translation itself in its entirety, I'm going to stick my neck out.

This is brilliant. I'm in Heaven, so to speak. Clive James has created an unusual but consistently effective translation: rather than trying to reproduce Dante's terza rima, he plays to his own strengths by translating into quatrains, a verse form at which he is particularly adept. The result is a subtle but ever-present drumbeat of rhyme. There are better versions of individual passages in other translations, but I've never read one where the whole thing hangs together and flows together so smoothly.

James also adds clarifying phrases here and there throughout the translation to reduce the need for footnotes. (A good thing: the printed book doesn't have any.)

These clarifying phrases are not as extensive as those in the Audiobook Contractors version, read by Grover Gardner; but they serve the purpose, and they make it possible to listen without constantly feeling the need to look things up.

The result is a translation that demands to be read aloud. Edoardo Ballerini does a terrific job with the narration, capturing the Pilgrim's sense of wonder and letting the poetry unfold in its own effortless way. Ballerini is one of those narrators who conveys dialogue by suggestion rather than outright imitation of different voices. But the voices are there anyway, partly because of Dante's skill and partly because Clive James does such a good job conveying them. When passion is called for, Ballerini gives voice to passion; likewise when the speaker is giving voice to shame, anger, or pride.

Get it. Listen to it. Enjoy it. Learn from it. Treasure it.

Caveat: I've read the Comedy several times, in several different translations, with several different sets of footnotes. I couldn't claim to be a master of the allusions in the poem, but I'm comfortable with them. (When the wind is southerly I can tell a Guelf from a Ghibelline.) As such, it's hard for me to imagine the viewpoint of someone coming to this material for the first time. I THINK this would be anyone's ideal introduction to Dante, and I hope first time listeners will tackle this version and leave their reactions.

For myself, all I can say is that it will be a cold day in Hell (so to speak) before I re-read, or re-listen, to this masterpiece in any other format. There is no question in my mind that this is hands down the best audiobook version of Dante's masterpiece available.

A brilliantly executed translation!

This translation is different than many (most?) others, in that while not a direct word-for-word translation of Dante's terza rima form, it manages to do something that makes for a superior audiobook experience: it incorporates the necessary footnotes into the story. Thus, the listener can follow the narrative line without recourse to a printed text. I found this book to be marvelous, with only the occasional distraction due to mispronounced names or untranslated Latin phrases. This is one of the best purchases I've made!

all its cracked up to be

This is my first time reading Dante. No doubt why it's a classic. Amazing work of poetry and storytelling. Fun to imagine yourself in 14th cen. Florence and how this book might have seemed like SNL

Inferno > Purgatory > Paradise

An important work that has historical significance. I'm not a Christian but I still found the story intriguing. Of the three parts the inferno was the easiest to listen to but purgatory and paradise both have good sections as well. I loved the narration, even at parts where I couldn't quite understand what was happening I still enjoyed listening.

Inferno best, paradise second, purgatory worst.

Inferno best, paradise second, purgatory worst. Hard to follow at times, but thought provoking at others. A mixed bag.

Awesome but dense

This is an awesome book but the content is so dense that I would recommend this may be one you want to read instead of listen to.