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Dante’s intranslatability paradoxically causes a steady flux of translations, overwhelming in America, much more modest in the Netherlands. However, the tiny Netherlands witnessed a remarkable boom of Dante translations around the year 2000: within a short period seven cantiche were translated by Dutchmen and seven by Americans. This historic moment gave rise to a seminar about these recent translations, and about the traditions of translating Dante in both nations. The American and Dutch Divine Comedies discussed in this volume are important landmarks in a long tradition of making Dante’s work accessible to non-Italian readers in both countries. On this already crowded stage, however, every newcomer inevitably makes statements about how Dante’s masterpiece should be read: as a poem, as a scholarly text or as a scholarly poem? The old polarization between the fearless (at times reckless) ‘poetical ’ translators and the more cautious ‘academic ’ translators is very much alive, and the choice seems one between compromise and confrontation, between caution and courage. RONALD DE ROOY lectures in Italian literature at the University o