Paradiso

One of the greatest living Italian-to-English translators, Durling has at last completed his rendition of the third and final volume of Dante's masterful literary epic, The Divine Comedy. As with the two preceding volumes, Durling's precise and powerful translation of Paradiso appears alongside the original Italian text recounting Dante's journey through heaven with the beautiful Beatrice. The end of each canto contains thorough yet succinct notes by Durling and Ronald Martinez that acquaint the reader with Dante's medieval world and his reference points. Thus the volume will appeal to the general reader as well as lovers and students of Italian literature, language, and history. While English-language translations of the Commedia abound, the accuracy and lyrical verve of Durling's translations have earned him a place as one of the all time greats.

Robert M. Durling is Professor Emeritus of English and Italian Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Ronald L. Martinez is Professor of Italian at Brown University. Their works together include Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio and Time and the Crystal: Studies in Dante's "Rime petrose."

Praise for Durling's Inferno and Purgatorio
'This new edition of Inferno is distinctly user-friendly....Serious students-in or out of the classroom-who...examine the original poem alongside a readable and reliable prose translation will find this edition excellently suited to their needs.'-The Christian Science Monitor
'A useful volume for students and first-time visitors to Dante's cosmos.'-Publishers Weekly
'In this new translation, Durling tries to be as concrete as possible, producing a version that is more fluent and accurate than the versions of Mandelbaum and Musa.... Highly recommended.'-Library Journal
'Like the Inferno edition that preceded it, the Durling-Martinez Purgatorio, with its beautiful translation and superb apparatus of notes, is simply the best edition of Dante's second canticle in English. No other version offers anything close to what we find gathered here in one volume.'-Robert Harrison, Professor of Italian, Stanford University
"As Durling and Martinez complete their monumental three-volume presentation of Dante's masterpiece, we can sense their triumph and elation, despite their characteristic modesty. This, after all, is the volume with which they can demonstrate the fullness and consistency of Dante's great project, its final approach to what they describe in one footnote as 'a pitch of intensity unique in all literature.' The scholarship, as always, is graceful, comprehensive, and acute, and it surrounds a translation that is so carefully considered and fully realized as to be, at times, quite breathtaking." --David Young, translator of The Poetry of Petrarch
"Durling and Martinez deliver Paradiso in elegant English prose faithful to Dante's Italian. The general introduction and succinct notes to each canto enable an informed reading of a frequently daunting text, while the longer 'Additional Notes, ' bibliography, and indices will more than satisfy the most exigent critic. M