The Divine Comedy is one of the seminal works of Western literature, debated and parsed by readers and scholars almost as much as the Bible. Though The Inferno is the more famous of the trilogy, all of them work together in a beautiful whole. And though this book does just that, and even include's Dante's earlier work, La Vita Nuova, the translator's choice of a more literal translation, makes the language of this biting and, sometimes, comical work rather stale.

To his credit, the editor & translator, Mark Musa, does give a good explanation for why he translated Dante they way he did and his introduction to this book is very good. Also, the translation of the sonnets in La Vita Nuova caught they young, love-stricken Dante's mood very well. However, the literal translation of The Divine Comedy felt rather flavorless. Perhaps, I would enjoy it more with a better, less literal translation.