Here's an opening, introductory episode for the podcast WALKING WITH DANTE.
Hi, I'm Mark Scarbrough. This is my passion project: To take Dante's Comedy slowly, passage by passage. I've taught it many times. But I always felt rushed. I wanted to take this masterpiece at my speed. So here I go.
I'm going to be using my own rough English translations of the medieval Florentine in this podcast. You can find them at markscarbrough.com or walkingwithdante.com. There's a header there that's called "walking with Dante"--click that and you'll see the translations.
But let me say: There are far better translations than mine out there. If you want to go over the top, get yourself one like Robert and Jean Hollander's or Stanley Lombardo's that offers a facing-page translation of the text: the medieval Florentine on one side, the English on the other. These will be more certain than mine--although mine will do as a great introduction to this magnificent poem.