[John Isbell]

Hi Nigel,

Dante ends the Vita nuova, somewhat oddly, with a statement that he has had a wonderful vision, and that now he studies quanto posso to make his art equal to what he saw. Ten years later, he writes the Commedia. What had changed? Well, he invented terza rima, which is like a chain preventing any addition or subtraction to his entire 100-canto text (unlike say Homer). Any translation not in terza rima is, for me, instantly moot by that token. In terza rima, you have, to my knowledge, Dorothy Sayers and Geoffrey Bickersteth, the latter available in bilingual text again, it seems, after many years and to my ear, considerably underrated by the critics. It's easily my favorite English Commedia, and I'd say it's worth a look.
But really, you might wait for Andrew F's take.

Regards,
John