Letter: Journey to the centre of a vicious circle

Sir: In reviewing Steve Ellis's new translation of Dante's Hell in the context of past translations, Ian Thomson omits John Ciardi's excellent translation, both colloquial and appropriately metred, which has long been a staple of humanities courses in US universities.

That's not surprising, I suppose, in view of the fact that the masterful versions of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey by Richmond Lattimore and Robert Fitzgerald have been similarly ignored by British reviewers. Apparently American translators of literary classics don't count. Such chauvinism may well deprive British readers of some worthy works.

Yours sincerely,

FOREST HANSEN

Alvechurch, Worcestershire

27 February