Translations

Do you have the chart for Homer too?

Fagles for Aeneid
Lattimore for Homer
Kirkpatrick for Dante

Fagles for straightforward
Pope for dank verse

Iliad/Odyssey, Lattimore
Aeneid, Fitzgerald

EVERYTHING is inferior. Fagles is terrible.

I've got the Samuel Butler translation, and it was a bother to think to myself every time I read the name "Jove" to think Jupiter/Zeus and Juno as Hera, etc. Trying to keep track of characters with different names is just one step farther away from enjoying the book fully.

No reason not to go with the Mandelbaum Everyman unless you're looking for a poetic version, than Ciardi.

i agree with this 100%. i read dante in various translations, and the one i enjoyed most was mandelbaum's, even over the ones that are more "renowned" than his. ciardi's is good for its poetic voice, and a handful of key quotes are translated with a little more flair and gravitas in ciardi, but i think the best overall translation for most readers is mandelbaum's.

I took the coward's approach and purchased Mandelbaum's translations as well as the Oxford one by Sisson's, which I feel lies halfway between the pair in terms of fidelity and license. I could be wrong though - I'm not an expert and I'm only just now through Inferno and moving into Purgatorio. Both of these anons sum up my feelings on Ciardi/Mandelbaum - it's different things for different people. Both of them have sections which really shine, and I feel better for having read them both.

>sisson's
fuck my spelling

Lattimore for the Homers, maybe Fagles for the Virgil (not sure), Durling, Singleton, Bickersteth, Musa, Hollander, or Binyon for Dante.