The Divine Comedy: Inferno

This vivid new translation of Dante’s immortal classic, Inferno, opens a new vista and offers a fresh experience of this milestone in human literary genius. Throughout his life, Dante struggled with the question of how to convey the solemn gravity of the Latin classics into the “vulgar” language of his native Italy. At the same time, he was convinced that the vernacular of his time and place had color and vibrancy that the “heady,” more cerebral, classic literature lacked. Writing the Inferno was Dante’s breakthrough moment in wedding these two very different “personalities” of poetic expression. Jason Baxter’s new, pulsing, rhythmic translation is alive with spiritual energy from both these streams. Here we have an Inferno that we feel in our nerves and in our blood, as well as in the heart and head. “If you feel lost in the middle of a dark wood, or if you feel like the world is entering an apocalyptic time, it turns out that Dante got there long before you. Jason Baxter’s new translation is the perfect way into an ever-relevant story.”—PAUL KINGSNORTH, author of Buccmaster Trilogy and Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays “In his new translation of Inferno, Jason Baxter is less concerned with the polished lines of an English poem than with the experiential vividness of Dante’s. For those familiar with other translations, the effect of Baxter’s offering is like bread hot from the oven.”—GLENN ARBERY, President Emeritus and Professor of Literature, Wyoming Catholic College “Jason Baxter’s wonderful introduction evinces his learning; his deft translation will captivate (whether anew, or for the first time) a grateful audience for Dante’s poetry.”—ANN W. ASTELL, University of Notre Dame; author of Eating Beauty: The Eucharist and the Spiritual Arts of the Middle Ages

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