Dayman kept the terza rima, but in doing so he had to be more free with his translation. He did most of the translation work before becoming seriously ill, "but I could feel the end of my life coming. I agree, Dorothy Leigh Sayers translations are done wonderfully. Also included are forty-two drawings selected from Botticellis marvelous late-fifteenth-century series of illustrations.Translated in this edition by Allen Mandelbaum, The Divine Comedybegins in a shadowed forest on Good Friday in the year 1300. Dante asks her why such a courteous and well-spoken creature as shea highborn lady who had fallen for Paolo innocently enough one day when they were alone together readingcould find herself among the damned. His metered language often seems more natural than Sayers and more in keeping with the diction of Dante, which favored solid vocabulary and straight-forward syntax. Individuals with disabilities are Dantes The Divine Comedy is one of Italian Literatures most frequently translated texts, it has literally been being translated for over hundreds of years. Hardcover, 527 pages. But they are incorporeal shades, lacking the one thing that made their passionate earthly love possible: a physical being. Provide Feedback Form. | Want to know what people are actually reading right now? I just went for the most heavily annotated versions of Purgatorio and Paradiso. Report scam, HUMANITIES, Winter 2017, Volume 38, Number 1, The National Endowment for the Humanities, State and Jurisdictional Humanities Councils, HUMANITIES: The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities, SUBSCRIBE FOR HUMANITIES MAGAZINE PRINT EDITION, Sign up for HUMANITIES Magazine newsletter, How the Grimm Brothers Saved the Fairy Tale, Chronicling America: History American Newspapers. Pinsky does leave you hanging after the Inferno, though. For centuries, readers have been isolating greatest hits from The Divine Comedy and swooning over its most memorable characters: muse Beatrice, stalwart guide Virgil, tragic lovers Paolo and Francesca, unbearably eloquent Ulysses, cannibalistic Ugolino. SUBSCRIBE FOR HUMANITIES MAGAZINE PRINT EDITION Browse all issuesSign up for HUMANITIES Magazine newsletter. He's seeking absolution, redemption and certainty. For more information about the Divine Comedy, view our Divine Comedy Page Enjoy! English, he says, is a "rhyme-poor" language compared with Dante's Italian. I couldn't have done it when I was younger. So whats the contemporary reader to dohow best to approach Dante 750 years after his birth? Shortly thereafter, Beatrice died. With six eyes did he weep, and down three chins. That's why we've put together this ultimate guide to help you make a decision. The Pinsky is usually (maybe exclusively) sold parallel to the original, so you'll get a sense of that as you go along. And thats the miracle of Dante: somehow his writing still makes sense seven centuries after it was conceived, so long as we manage to read slowly, between, behind, and around what he called his versi strani, strange verses. Rodgers translation reads When, reading that her captivating smile/ Was by the Lover she adored kissd;/ But from that day we never read int more, which is awkward to read for a modern day English speaker. Dorothy Sayers and John Ciardis are two reliable translations for me; Mandlebaum also works, though it is not my favorite. When Dante wrote the poem we call "The Divine Comedy," he called it simply the "Commedia": a story, beginning in sorrow and ending in joy, of one man's journey from hell . I wondered how else one could say Midway through our life, I found myself in a dark wood; the right way was lost., Both James and Bang are poets. lamor che move l sole e laltre stelle. ", He calls the quatrains a "nice, easily flowing rhythmic grid on which to mount the individual moments. "But I'm determined to get this message across, because I really had to face this for decade after decade as I thought about how to translate it." Part of the problem lies in the difficulty that Dante poses for English translation. "Back in 1964, when we first knew each other in Florence, before we were married, there was a romantic scene by which she took me through the actual great love affair between Paolo and Francesca in Canto Five of 'Hell,' and showed me how the verse worked in Italian, because her Italian of course was perfect already and mine was rudimentary," he remembers. Then one day, the young woman, Beatrice, in reaction to rumors of the poets increasingly worldly ways, refrained from the greeting, causing anguish in the young Dante. And lo and behold, that's what we were doing. Posted on July 5, 2021 July 4, 2021 by Carrie-Anne. 1994), was edited by Giorgio Petrocchi. I'm going to be reading The Divine Comedy soonactually, re-reading Inferno and re-starting Purgatorio and finally getting to La Paradiso.I've opted to go with the Robert and Jean Hollander translation. for I had lost the path that does not stray. While Rogers does not maintain a rhyme scheme, nor Dantes famous hendecasyllable structure per se, he does opt for using a classical English poetic meter, the iambic pentameter. New Jersey. A customizable, digital workspace for scholarly analysis of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. The standard critical Italian edition of the poem, La commedia secondo l'antica vulgata (1966-67; rev. My preference for a rhyming attempt wins out over Mary Jo Bangs exuberant rendering, but only by a smidgen. Excellent notes, too! accessibility issues with Rutgers web sites to accessibility@rutgers.edu These breathtaking lines conclude Dantes Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line epic written in 1321 on the state of the soul after death. Yes, it was the right time. I also read from the same passage in Mark Musa and Longfellow to compare, as well as thirteen versions of the famous opening twelve lines.Index of Dantean posts: https://carrieannebrownian.wordpress.com/index-of-dantean-posts/Where to find my book and author pages:https://carrieannebrownian.wordpress.com/where-to-find-my-books-and-author-pages/Handy index of my posts by topic: https://carrieannebrownian.wordpress.com/index-of-posts-by-topic/My main blog: https://carrieannebrownian.wordpress.comMy names blog: https://onomasticsoutsidethebox.wordpress.comMy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ursulasoddsandsods/ It also comes with the Italian text. The Books Alexis Patterson Is Loving Right Now, 27 Childrens & YA Books Written by Asian Authors, Browse All Our Lists, Essays, and Interviews. So deeply did the other mourn, that I The content of Dantes writing presents an even bigger problem. While it is true that Rogerss translation is more faithful from a structural standpoint there are some instances in which such an adherence forces other content-related translation loss which is not present in Nortons. To redeem, copy and paste the code during the checkout process. As a one-time admirer of the troubadour poets, Dante was well versed, pardon the pun, in the intricate forms then in practice, such as the sestina, but his paean to Beatrice called for something new and even more demanding, a flexible and muscular form he invented precisely for the new undertaking, theterza rima. She is beloved for her sweeping. That link is to the hardcover that contains all three works, but even though that one is in my bookcase I never read it. Hollander: a more contemporary translation of The Divine Comedy that I've heard great things about but it can get pricey with each section in a separate book. .) that keeps the pattern going forward, naturally to the ear. I wasn't aware of Benigni's TuttoDante -- sounds very interesting. His translation of the Divine Comedy (especially Inferno and Purgatorio) is one of my favorite translations of anything. Which leadeth others right by every road. But Longfellows English can sound flowery to our contemporary ears. Having been a bookseller for more than a decade, I know that one of the most frequently asked questions from readers is, Which translation should I read of DantesDivine Comedy? with disabilities are encouraged to direct suggestions, comments, or complaints concerning any Not only are constant rhymes difficult to translate, but Dante also uses rich and ambiguous language in his poems. Talking about a translators approach and methodology can help answer the question. The Divine Comedy is a 14th century poem that has never lost its edge. I wasn't thrilled with either Mellville or Longfellow. or complete the Report Accessibility Barrier or Dante Alighieri's great work tells the tale of the author's trail through hell each and every circle of it purgatory and heaven. Since the poem appeared, and especially in modern times, those readers intrepid enough to take on Dante have tended to focus on the first leg of his journey, through the burning fires of Inferno. This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. Alighieri Dante. A sinner, in the manner of a brake, So that he three of them tormented thus. While the one spirit said this, the other was so weeping that through pity I swooned as if I had been dying, and fell as a dead body falls. Her methodology comes from picking up a book of poems by Caroline Bergvall and reading Via (48 Dante Variations), a found poem, she writes, composed entirely of the first three lines of theInfernoculled from forty-seven translations archived in the British Library as of May 2000). Clive James is both an Officer of the Order of Australia and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. We'll go over the different features and what to look for when you're shopping. This particular translation is characterized by a rather faithful adherence to the the original source texts physical structure. As the day stands when the Sun begins to glow. Copyright 2021 Unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine. Also, Anthony Esolen has an interesting article published: Esolen, Anthony. Provide Feedback Form, Rutgers, The State University of It's also a poetry translation, as opposed to prose translations. The Divine Comedy. It brings together literary and theological expression, pagan and Christian, that came before it while also containing the DNA of the modern. Report Accessibility Barrier or And its a very famous poem, Al cor gentil rempaira sempre amore, Love always returns to the gentle heart, a gorgeous medieval lyric by Guido Guinizelli, one of Dantes poetic mentors in the Sweet New Style, a movement in the late 1200s that nurtured Dantes emerging artistic sensibilities. Available in two English translations as well as the original Italian on the EDSITEment-reviewed Digital Dante site, Dante's The Comedy (or "Divine Comedy") begins with lines that suggest it will be a pilgrimage of a rather different sort than the festive trip to Canterbury: "When I had journeyed half of our life's way, / I found myself . The Divine Comedy has a complex rhyme scheme that suits itself well to the rhyme-rich language of Italian (where, unlike English, many words end in vowels). Last year marked the 750th anniversary of Dantes birth in 1265, and as expected for a writer so famousEliot claimed Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them; there is no thirdthe solemn commemorations abounded, especially in Italy where many cities have streets and monuments dedicated to their Sommo Poeta, Supreme Poet. Heres Dantes original: Even without an Italian dictionary at hand, most of the words in these lines can be puzzled out by English speakers, except, perhaps smaritta, which means something along the lines of obliterated or just lost from view. An amateur literal translation can go a long way but doesnt sing. Yet Dante has the unenviable fate of having become more known than read: his name is immediately recognizable, his achievements justly acknowledged, but outside the classroom or graduate seminar, only the hardiest of literary enthusiasts pick up his Divine Comedy. Which in the very thought renews the fear. We'll go over the different features and what to look for when you're shopping. Although Roger chose to remain faithful to the source text, some lines were more poetically translated by Dayman. They both occupy singularly definitive places in their respective languages and literatures as well as in world . As a young man, Dante tried to woo a beautiful and devout Florentine girl of his own age. Provide Feedback Form. The Divine Comedy, finished by Dante Alighieri in 1320, is one of the most famous literary works of all time, and its author is considered the father of the Italian language. Many have translated the work, and there are many ways to go about translating Dante. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature. I agreebut Dante is the opposite. By Paul Bruckman . And then there are all those characters! But Clive James is also a novelist, humorist, essayist, memoirist, and radio and television host who has been called his own one-man renaissance. Comment * document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "a8f4a384ba33ac344b9ce9fe46addd00" );document.getElementById("dbe0089594").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa The Divine Comedy is a 14th century poem that has never lost its edge. About the Author. Both versions are vibrant and deal adroitly with some enigmatic aspects of the original text. Rutgers is an equal access/equal opportunity institution. The bottom of hell waits for him who extinguished our lifereferring to her husband, the nasty Gianciotto or John the Lame, who murdered Paolo and her on the spot when he discovered them in flagrante after their fateful reading. By starting with Midway this way of life were bound upon, she remains faithful to the starting point, nel mezzo, while Mandelbaum pushes this to the middle of the first line. that second aureole which shone forth in Thee, That circle which appearedin my poor style, That circling which, as I conceived it, shone, Thou smiledst, on that circling, which in thee. Jorge Luis Borges said that a modern novel requires hundreds of pages for us to get to know a character, while Dante can lay bare a characters soul in 20 or 30 lines. Translations that attempt to maintain any type of rhyme scheme often sound forced and usually compromise the meaning of the text. When, out of nowhere, I heard: "Watch your step! The first translation was written by Charles Rogers in 1782. "That will, of course, be clear to you," he said. View all posts by Dave. The Divine Comedy in translation (what to look for, comparison of opening lines) - YouTube The vlog form of a blog I did in July 2021, discussing translations of The Divine Comedy. (I've studied only other Romance languages, and found it useful) Pinsky and Longfellow are both poets, themselves, so you get some artistry from either one. He remains faithful to the wording, but for reasons of meter he delves into unnatural word order, inverting what Palma has as dark wood to become forest dark. Palma or Longfellow? He's seeking a knowledge that his life has been worthwhile. A former U.S. Senate chief of staff makes the humanities accessible. John Ciardi (1954) ", Clive James is both an Officer of the Order of Australia and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Missing is Dantes dico or I mean which is crucial to the meaning of him clarifying what he has already said. And I was so fascinated with what she told me, about how Dante's verse worked, that the idea never left me, that I should try to make my own poetry as interesting as that. Taking a look at two translations that are 120 years apart can shed light on some of the differences that translators have used when interpreting this famously complex and intricate text. The Divine Comedy has a complex rhyme scheme that suits itself well to the rhyme-rich language of Italian (where, unlike English, many words end in vowels). "Which is that of the three books of the Comedy that's 'Hell,' 'Purgatory' and 'Heaven, 'Hell' is the most fascinating, in the first instance, 'cause it's full of action, it's got a huge three-headed dog, it's got a flying dragon, it's got men turning into snakes and vice versa, it's got centaurs beside a river of blood; you name it, 'Hell' has got it. I believe there are many points on which Dante had disagreed with the Church teachings of his times. Charles Singletons translation for his understanding of textual nuance and its outstanding notes is strongly recommended. laltro pianga; s che di pietade It has become perhaps the world's most cited allegorical epic about life, death, goodness, evil, damnation and reward. Choosing which translation of Dantes Divine Comedy to read is a very subjective and personal decision. Prose translations are great for communicating the story and its nuances, however any poetical structure is lost. Henry Boyd produced one of the early English-language translations of The Divine Comedy; it was published in 1802.Notable translations of the 20th and early 21st centuries include those by John D. Sinclair (1939-48), Dorothy L. Sayers and . Charles Eliot Norton on the other hand wrote his translation in 1902 and decided on a completely different style opting for an almost prose-like version of the text. The Divine Comedy is also a work of literary beauty that is beyond being antiquated by time or diminished by repeated translation. Compare translation samples from the Divine Comedy, specifically Inferno, Canto I: 1-12 blank tercets blank verse defective terza rime free verse prose terza rime Dante Alighieri John Ciardi Robert Durling Anthony M. Esolen Robert and Jean Hollander Robin Kirkpatrick Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Allen Mandelbaum Mark Musa Robert Pinsky Dorothy L . Liveright Publishing s come rota chigualmente mossa, encouraged to direct suggestions, comments, or complaints concerning any accessibility issues They never confess their guilt, the one thing necessary for redemption from sin. From Inferno 1 to Paradiso 33, scores of different literary personaesome real, some invented, some famous, some obscuretake the stage to plead their case or expound on their joy before the autobiographical character Dante as he journeys from hell to heaven. Sayers adds bound upon (not, strictly speaking, in the original), which allows her to make the rhyme in the third line with gone. But Mandelbaum is more faithful to the directness of the original, not stretching the meaning or introducing words to make the rhyme. In comparing translations, you notice quickly if theres an attempt to duplicate Dantes terza rima, in which the first and third lines rhyme, and the second line rhymes with the first line of the following stanza. You can revive it by posting a reply. Clive Jamess 2013Comedyuses quatrains and augmented quatrains as its building blocks, while Mary Jo Bangs 2012 translation of theInfernoin colloquial American English, carries elements of her own style, and is unrhymed. This Canto is most noteworthy because it is the canto where Francesca di Rimini tells the story of how she got to hell with her husbands brother, and lover, Paolo. . On the 750th birthday of Dante Alighiericomposer of the dizzyingly epic medieval poem the Divine ComedyEnglish professor John Kleiner pointed to one way of helping undergraduate students understand the Italian poet's importance: an "obvious comparison" with Shakespeare. Scam Advisory: Recent reports indicate that individuals are posing as the NEH on email and social media. Mind you, I haven't read any other translations for comparison (plus, I'm still in the middle of. September 26, 2019 Nichols, Hollander and Sinclair are the best translations I have come across, They all combine accuracy with poetry and readability. Which never yet a living person left. For the straightforward pathway had been lost. Copyright 2023, Rutgers, The State University of Take, for example, the last few lines of the the fifth Canto, the famous: Dante "There is no young man's version of this translation. I've also heard great thngs about Merwin and Pinsky but they've only done the Purgatorio and Inferno respectively. Three passages are from the Inferno, one from Purgatory, and the last from Paradise. Dante wrote his masterpiece on the move, banned from Florence by political enemies. Provide Feedback Form. T. S. Eliot called such poetry the most beautiful ever writtenand yet so few of us have ever read it. String Comparison Comic short post apocalyptic : Last men on earth killed by a dead man Draw a rectangle with partly invisible . In exile, he paid homage to his true love, Beatrice, and by choosing to write in his Tuscan vernacular instead of Latin, transformed the Italian language. What, for us, would really be paradise? Translations that attempt to maintain any type of rhyme scheme often sound forced and usually compromise the meaning of the text. I'm going to third the choice of John Ciardi. Long translations from the Divine Comedyare provided following the original Italian verse, and where necessary in the analysis the Italian is referenced. With one deft allusion, one lyrical dance amid the ferocious winds in the Circle of the Lustful, Dante delivers a magnificent psychological portrait of Francescas path to damnation. That's the version I read and those bleak covers, Barry Moser ink washes, were ubiquitous in freshmen dorms. Three passages are from the Inferno, one from Purgatory, and the last from Paradise. He produced one of the first complete, and in many respects still the best, English translations of The Divine Comedy in 1867. Joseph Luzzi teaches at Bard and is the author of My Two Italies, a New York Times Book Review Editors Choice, and In a Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing, and the Mysteries of Love. ", James was diagnosed in 2010 with both leukemia and lung disease, and he jokes that both conditions are conspiring to kill him even as he speaks. I also prefer Mark Musas version. In other words: treat the poem as Dante the character treated his journey, something to be undertaken step by step. This topic is currently marked as "dormant"the last message is more than 90 days old. These are the impressions I have of each: Ciardi: uses rhyming three line stanza (ABA) convention and is generally seen as a poetic translation but not necessarily a faithful translation. Report Accessibility Barrier or | Taking a look at two translations that are 120 years apart can shed light on some of the differences that translators have used when interpreting this famously complex and intricate text. A tough call. These things are always hard, choosing between manner and matter , Your email address will not be published. Another example would be in line 7 8, Dico che quando lanima mal nata li vien dinanzi, tutta si confessa, which it s quite fully translated in Nortons, I mean, that when the ill born soul comes there before him, it confesses itself wholly whereas in Rogerss, Wheneer a guilty soul before him comes It all confesses :: (He the proper place). ", And that kind of interest is what most translators lack, James adds. Posted in Books, Dante, Divine Comedy The Divine Comedy in translation. But the miracle of literature is that its insights can somehow remain fresh and relevant centuries after they were written and far from where they first appeared. Both translations by Rogers and Dayman, are kept in poem style. Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel. Born in 1265 in Florence, from which he was banished in 1302, dying in Ravenna in 1321, Dante set the Divine Comedy in the year 1300, when he was thirty-five years old and 'in the middle of our mortal life'. It proceeds on a journey that, in its intense recreation of the depths and the heights of human experience, has become the key with which Western civilization has sought to unlock the mystery of its own identity. So I'm interested in doing a first read of Dante Alighieri's La Divina Commedia and I'm not sure which English translation I should choose. Longfellows English indeed comes across as Italianate: in surrendering to the letter and spirit of Dantes Tuscan, he loses the quirks and perks of his mother tongue. I really loved Robert Pinsky's translation of the Inferno, for readability. Scarce the ascent Began, when, lo! Rogers maintains a more faithful translation throughout the canto than Dayman. This format allows freedom to communicate the work without rhyme, yet maintains a metrical structure. Thus, Longfellow demonstrates the scholarly chops necessary to convey Dantes encyclopedic learning, and the poetic talent needed to reproduce the sound and spiritthe respiro, breathof the original Tuscan. Individuals with disabilities are with Rutgers web sites to accessibility@rutgers.edu or complete the Report Accessibility Barrier or The Best Books to Get Your Finances in Order, Books Based on Your Favorite Taylor Swift Era, Cook a Soul Food Holiday Meal With Rosie Mayes, Aug 01, 1995 Translated by John Dayman, Longmans, Green, 1865. https://archive.org/details/divinecomedydan00daymgoog, Alighieri Dante. I felt the necessity for understanding, for redemption, if you will, and I think some of that went into my reading and my writing. In spite of first impressions favoring Sayers, most readers who choose to make the entire journey from inferno to purgatory and finally paradise ultimately find the Mandelbaum translation more satisfying. In the first place, shes not speaking to Dante in a natural voice; shes alluding to poetry. Just as, there where its Maker shed His blood, As the first rays were trembling in the dawn, As when his earliest shaft of light assails, It was the hour the sun's first rays shine down, As when it strikes its first vibrating rays, Now was the sun so stationed, as when first. I think Hollander is the most poetic. Dante Alighieri's great work tells the . Dante uses a complex rhyme scheme, called the terza rima, which is were there are stanzas of three lines that contain interlocking rhymes at the end of each line; the rhyme pattern follows: ABA-BCB-CDC. . ed. Famed translators Pevear and Volokhonsky reach another milestone. Francesca, by citing the poem and the Sweet New Style, is saying: it wasnt my fault, blame it on love. With pity swooned, and fell like a dead corpse. It may be grossly unfair, I admit, to try to judge merely on the first canto or even the first or second stanza, but decisions made in the first few stanzas determine the shape of the rest of the work. The grading is as follows: 3 = perfectly faithful, 2 = defensible paraphrase (same basic meaning), 1 = dodgy paraphrase, 0 = unforgivable paraphrase (putting words in Dante's mouth). A collection of 100 poems to be exact, one for each canto, some more sublime than others. TheDivine Comedy, finished by Dante Alighieri in 1320, is one of the most famous literary works of all time, and its author is considered the father of the Italian language. This topic is not marked as primarily about any work, author or other topic. So much depends on whats outside his text: the mass of other books, other stories, other issues that lie submerged beneath the actual lines of The Divine Comedy. I was lost. NEH had funded many Dante-related projects, including 17summer seminars for schoolteachersto study theDivine Comedywith scholars through the University of Vermont. a panther, nimble, light, And cover'd with a speckled skin, appear'd, Nor, when it saw me, vanish'd, rather strove To check my onward going; that ofttimes With purpose to retrace my steps I turn'd. The hour was morning's prime, and on his way Aloft the sun ascended with those stars, That with him rose, when Love divine . Lacqua chio prendo gi mai non si corse; The sea I sail has never yet been passed: Emulating Dantes talent for internal rhymes laced with hypnotic sonic patterns, Longfellow expertly repeats the ss to give his line a sinuous, propulsive feel, which is exactly what Dante aims for in his line, as he gestures toward the originality and joy of embarking on the final leg of a divinely sanctioned journey. His translation keeps the nel mezzo element up frontandduplicates the terza rima, continuing the next stanza with, How hard it is to tell of, overlaid . The contemporary reader would do well to follow this ancient practice, for it leads to the most important aspect in approaching Dante: the need to read him closely. now my will and my desire were turned, During one Spirit was relating this, To understand why Dante faints in Inferno 5, you have to realize just how surreal it was for him to hear Francesca cite the poetry of his youth, the words that helped make him poet and that hastened Francescas demise. " It took nearly five hundred years from Dante's death for there to be a translation of all three parts of the poem. gi volgeva il mio disio e l velle, These breathtaking lines conclude Dante's Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line epic written in 1321 on the state of the soul after death. But 'Purgatory' and 'Heaven' have mainly just got theology. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri is an epic poem in Italian written between 1308 and 1321 that describes its author's journey through the Christian afterlife. The translators scored as follows: Longfellow, Singleton (27) Sinclair (26) Mandelbaum (25) Simone, Sisson (23) Hollander, Kirkpatrick (22) Lombardo (21) Your email address will not be published. When translating the Divine Comedy, the translator often has to choose between capturing the original meaning or capturing the poetry, often choosing an intermediate between the two.
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