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)

Masterful

What an excellent translation and what an eloquent, elegant, sensual performance. The journey through hell and paradise is stunning because of the fine and rich adaptation into English, and because of the deeply felt reading by Edoardo Ballerinj. Thank you Clive James and Grazie Edoardo!

what a trip!!

read this in 1990, pre-internet. now it is so easy to cross reference all those celebrities. excellent journey, ends abruptly as it should in paradise

Narrator

Best narrator of all times for the Divine comedy he narrate the art of war.

Extrodinary Recitation

Most people know of Dante’s Inferno and have no clue what it is. Because I am devout I consider the full comedy essential spiritual reading. But since print is difficult I listen
This is poetry and so magnificently recited. Thank you, great sirs

BRILLIANT NARRATION

What did you love best about The Divine Comedy?

One has to bear in mind that this was written 700 years ago in another language, and represents a long-gone world view quite foreign to our own. This is the second time I have attempted Dante. The first time was not a great success. This time is better, due to Clive James and his narrator. In the context of this long poem, the voice of Edoardo Ballerina is quite marvelous; not American, not Italian, certainly not English, but a rounded voice with a distinctive accent unlike any other, and perfect articulation, perfect for this task. I cannot judge the quality of a translation, but what Clive James has written sounds effortlessly right as it comes out of the narrator's mouth. Dante's work is second only to Shakespeare, but accessing it is not easy due to its age and strangeness. Clive James has pulled off a great triumph, and Edorardo Ballerini has brought it to life in a way I doubt any other narrator could have.

Good, but

Inferno and purgatory were wonderful. Very entertaining. That being said heaven was not. It was very wordy and stuffy for lack of a better word

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?

Narration made this perfect

The narrator was absolutely amazing and I don't think I would've ever read this if not for that. The story is great, although I did find I had to rewind a lot more in this than other books as I listen primarily when I drive, and the divine comedy is not that easy to follow when you're not focused on it. I think this book, and the Jim Dale Harry Potter books are what got me addicted to audio books and podcasts. Although I will say Steven Weber in IT is pretty great too, especially in scenes of distress.

An excellent translation

There are many outstanding reviews about this version, which was why I chose it over other options. As this is my first experience of "The Divine Comedy" from cover to cover, I am unable to speak with any authority on comparison to other translations. I can say that Ballerini provided an enjoyable performance, and Clive James provided a translation that was both accessible, yet sounded authentic. Certainly worth a read through.