Courtney Langdon was born in 1861 in Rome, but moved to the United States with his family in 1873. He devoted his studies to focusing on Italian literature and went on to teach as a professor of modern languages at Brown University, leading a class on the Divine Comedy. He wrote a volume of war sonnets, published in 1917, before completing his full translation of The Comedy which was completed in 1921 (Brown University Portrait Collection). This translation is classified as “bilingual”, as it includes the original Italian and the translated English text on pages next to each other. In his preface, Langdon gives a brief history of some of the most popular pre-existing Divine Comedy translations—very notably mentioning Longfellow—and how this led him to crafting this translation.
Langdon’s translation is written in blank verse, meaning it does not have a reliable rhyme scheme as the other poetic translations do. Although the rhyming aspect is missing, Langdon is able to maintain the style of poetry while being able to include additional information that may not fit into a more strict written format. Due to this, Langdon states that his translation is more clear than Dante’s original text as, although the limits of the rhyming scheme may “never have led him to say what he did not wish to say, they often forced him to say it less clearly”(Langdon XV). It appears to be Langdon’s hope that he can not only provide an accurate English translation, but also a text that is easier to parse overall.
Beginning with Inferno, Langdon seems to have made the decision to portray the forests and even individual trees Dante interacts with as wild, rough, and gnarly. In the first canto, instead of focusing heavily on the state of Dante’s life as other translations do, Langdon draws more on the forest to provide a not-so-subtle metaphor for the difficulties he is experiencing. Langdon lets the forest speak for itself, remarking on its “gloomy” nature and stating that “so bitter ‘t is that death is little worse” (Inferno 3). While the woods are described in a similar manner in other translations, the connection to Dante’s life is more implied than directly apparent. The freeform nature of Langdon’s chosen verse allows him to manipulate the words and draw upon literary devices without sacrificing the poetic structure.
At times, Langdon’s translation appears to be more blunt than the other translations, but I believe this to be intentional. For instance, in Purgatorio Canto 22, the tree that calls out to Dante and Statius gives them a slightly different warning in each translation. Although all dialogues are intimidating, Langdon’s translation is the only one in which the tree explicitly confirms death will befall them if they choose to eat any of its fruits. The message is simple yet effective: “of this food there will be for you a dearth” (Purgatorio 265). This is not to say that the other translations are incorrect, but they are less clear with their message.
Despite the amount of personal choice allowed by blank verse—or perhaps because of it—Langdon is inconsistent regarding when he chooses to translate the latin portions of the text. In Paradiso canto 23, “Oh Queen of Heaven” is written in English (Paradiso 273), however later in canto 32 “Ave Maria” remains in Latin (Paradiso 379). It appears that Langdon chose what to translate (or not translate) based on his assumptions of the terms that are most commonly known in the English-speaking world.
The style of blank verse is clearly what sets Langdon’s translation apart from the other translations the most. If Langdon had limited himself to a rhyme scheme the result would likely have been very similar to Wilstach’s translation. Langdon’s structure reads very similarly to that of Wilstach’s, but as he suggests, at times certainly is less muddled. However, at the same time it does not possess the same natural metre that is present in the translations that follow rhyme. The added presence of the Italian text makes this a good translation for those who are at the very least somewhat familiar with the language as it can be used to help understand the language in either direction or muse upon the accuracy of the translation. It appears to be a very useful translation for those interested in the content of the cantos and The Comedy as a whole, especially if simultaneously doing work with the original verse.
Works Cited
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno. Translated by Courtney Langdon, vol. 1, Cambridge Harvard University Press, 1918.
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Paradiso. Translated by Courtney Langdon, vol. 3, Cambridge Harvard University Press, 1921.
Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Purgatorio. Translated by Courtney Langdon, vol. 2, Cambridge Harvard University Press, 1920.
Brown University Portrait Collection, library.brown.edu/cds/portraits/display.php?idno=161. Accessed 13 June 2025.