These things are always hard, choosing between manner and matter , Your email address will not be published. He's seeking absolution, redemption and certainty. English, he says, is a "rhyme-poor" language compared with Dante's Italian. 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. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. I think Hollander is the most poetic. That link is to the hardcover that contains all three works, but even though that one is in my bookcase I never read it. Mentre che luno spirto questo disse, I'm going to third the choice of John Ciardi. Mandelbaum: seen as the scholarly translation and is used in many university classes on The Divine Comedy but some consider it dry and unpoetic. Dante and The Divine Comedy: He took us on a tour of Hell The Autumn of the Middle Ages: Chaucer and Dante Dante Alighieri's great work tells the tale of the author's trail through hell each and every circle of it purgatory and heaven. We'll go over the different features and what to look for when you're shopping. The poem's imaginative vision of the afterlife is . In the very first line it is noticed when Dante writes Cos discesi del cerchio primario(34), Rogers translates it to From the first circle we descended down(17), which is a more faithful translation than Dayman writing So I plunged downwards from that upper ring(35), which is a more communicative way of translating. September 25, 2019 She is beloved for her sweeping Wolf Hall trilogy, for which she won two Booker Prizes. Many have translated the work, and there are many ways to go about translating Dante. To redeem, copy and paste the code during the checkout process. Translations that attempt to maintain any type of rhyme scheme often sound forced and usually compromise the meaning of the text. 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. A major consideration is the topic of rhyme. I felt the necessity for understanding, for redemption, if you will, and I think some of that went into my reading and my writing. T. S. Eliot called such poetry the most beautiful ever writtenand yet so few of us have ever read it. The other day I was at a bookstore trying to pick a translation of. Comparison Between Two Inferno (Canto V) Translations: Rogers and Provide Feedback Form. ", "I can say this much for sure, for certain, right here on the air," James continues. She may have only translated the Inferno Im not certain on that. What's the Best Way to Read the Divine Comedy If You Don't Know Italian with disabilities are encouraged to direct suggestions, comments, or complaints concerning any The Divine Comedy | Dante, Poem, Summary, & Facts | Britannica So deeply did the other mourn, that I "All this shall be made known to you when we stand, And he said to me: "When we have stopped along, And he responded, "These things will be made. The Divine Comedy, Part 1: Hell (Penguin Classics) In other words: treat the poem as Dante the character treated his journey, something to be undertaken step by step. And the challenge for the translator is to reproduce Dante's fascination with theology, which for him was just as exciting as all that action that he left behind in 'Hell.' These lines have the virtue of being faithful to the original content, and then the next line continues with a rhyme (The keening sound . The Divine Comedy in translation - Welcome to My Magick Theatre The Divine Comedy, translated by John D. Sinclair: This was recommended by a fellow reader on Twitter and I am so glad I bought the complete set. Sinclair's is a prose translation from the thirties. What, for us, would really be paradise? Report Accessibility Barrier or "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. Too bad it doesn't look like there are any recordings of the show. In her own time she was better known for her hydrangeas. Dante was transformed by his grief and vowed to write in Beatrices honor a poem unlike any ever written. I also prefer Mark Musas version. 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. 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/ Long translations from the Divine Comedyare provided following the original Italian verse, and where necessary in the analysis the Italian is referenced. With pity swooned, and fell like a dead corpse. Rogers maintains a more faithful translation throughout the canto than Dayman. The Divine Comedy in translation (what to look for, comparison of Any other translations you'd like to recommend are fine with me. Individuals with disabilities are Oddly enough, and at least in the United States, we seem to know more about Dante the manhis exile, his political struggles, his eternal love for Beatricethan his poetry. . For example, he translates Dantes beautifully compact Paradiso 2.7. The following version appears to be in Terza Rima: La Divina Commedia / The Divine Comedy - A Translation into English in Iambic Pentameter, Terza Rima Form. Despite her prettiness, her sweetness, and her eloquence, she is like every other sinner in hell: its never their fault, always someone elses. The latest has been undertaken by a writer who is perhaps best known for his pointed and funny criticisms of culture. from the straight pathway to this tangled ground. encouraged to direct suggestions, comments, or complaints concerning any accessibility issues 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 . By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our, http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/09/03/070903crbo_books_acocella, Dante; (Translators) Jean & Robert Hollander. . Dante Alighieri (12651321), Italys greatest poet, was born in Florence and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. Such extreme faithfulness can make the language of the translation feel unnaturalas though the source were shaping the translation into its own alien image. Mandelbaum is writing in blank verse (although here the first and third lines rhyme, that is not indicative of the whole), so youre faced with a choice: Do you trust the efforts, strained at times, of the translator who remains loyal to the form, or opt for a more natural-sounding version? In which I had abandoned the true way. Best English Translations of The Divine Comedy? : r/books - Reddit or complete the Report Accessibility Barrier or 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. Ultimately, its great to read a few and decide which version you like best, each has strengths and weaknesses. This format allows freedom to communicate the work without rhyme, yet maintains a metrical structure. Report Accessibility Barrier or Rutgers is an equal access/equal opportunity institution. The others are in three line verses like the original. And its hard enough to read Dante without throwing in the additional challenge of 19th-century poetic diction. 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. Hear Dante's Inferno Read Aloud by Influential Poet & Translator John Privacy Policy, Photo-illustration from Sandro Botticelli's portrait of Dante by Stephanie Bastek (Wikimedia Commons), Hilary Mantel, one of Britains most revered novelists, died last year at the age of 70. This topic is not marked as primarily about any work, author or other topic. As of 2021, Dante's magnum opus has been translated into English . Again, it might come down to your trust in a translators skill in keeping up the rhyme pattern. It's also a poetry translation, as opposed to prose translations. So in order to get Dante, a translator has to be both a poet and a scholar, attuned to the poets vertiginous literary experimentalism as well as his superhuman grasp of cultural and intellectual history. Start earning points for buying books! I heard somebody say: "Watch where you step! 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. 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. Creator of Dante Explorer Missing is Dantes dico or I mean which is crucial to the meaning of him clarifying what he has already said. Rutgers is an equal access/equal opportunity institution. | ISBN 9780679433132 PDF Dante and Islam: a Study of The Eastern Influences in The - Iupui This page allows you to compare five passages from seven verse translations side by side. "If you're going to do it in English, you need, I think, another approach, and I used quatrains. It has become perhaps the world's most cited allegorical epic about life, death, goodness, evil, damnation and reward. 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. Fifteen translations of Dante compared | Boisterous beholding And then there are all those characters! 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 . I found it easy to use. . Both versions are vibrant and deal adroitly with some enigmatic aspects of the original text. 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. Phi Beta Kappa Which in the very thought renews the fear. New Jersey, Report Accessibility Barrier or 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. Out of the Fire. 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. accessibility issues with Rutgers web sites to accessibility@rutgers.edu As a young man, Dante tried to woo a beautiful and devout Florentine girl of his own age. That's why we've put together this ultimate guide to help you make a decision. Required fields are marked *. By Paul Bruckman . Daymans translation reads When that we read so true-hearted/ Kissing the smile so coveted before,/ And he who wrotethat day we read no more which is a more romantic way of writing the story, and it feels to be more in the spirit of the source text. Both translations by Rogers and Dayman, are kept in poem style. New Jersey. 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). The Italian language the Italians speak today is largely Dante's invention. Individuals But Hugos attack suggests the particular challenge in reading Dante, whose writing can seem remote and impenetrable to modern tastes. Liveright Publishing Your email address will not be published. For more information about the Divine Comedy, view our Divine Comedy Page Enjoy! ", James' wife, Prudence Shaw, played a central role in the translation project. The first translation was written by Charles Rogers in 1782. 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. I don't remember ever reading Mandelbaum but I believe my daughter used both Mandelbaum and Hollander in College and she preferred the Hollander. These breathtaking lines conclude Dantes Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line epic written in 1321 on the state of the soul after death. 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. Buy. Rutgers is an equal access/equal opportunity institution. For what it's worth, here's an excerpt from a New Yorker review of Paradiso: Noticeably missing in Rogerss version is Dantes comio morisse which had to be dropped to stay within the meter however was able to be kept Nortons prose-style translation along with the repetition of falling in the final line. The Divine Comedy. Provide Feedback Form, Rutgers, The State University of And lo and behold, that's what we were doing. These breathtaking lines conclude Dante's Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line epic written in 1321 on the state of the soul after death. Dayman kept the terza rima, but in doing so he had to be more free with his translation. I just went for the most heavily annotated versions of Purgatorio and Paradiso. That interlocking pattern continues throughout the cantos and is one of the works most distinctive aspects. Lit Genius - Comparison of Divine Comedy Translations | Genius Shortly thereafter, Beatrice died. The surprising historybehind the worlds most famous collection of folk tales. like a wheel in perfect motion, 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. Such an adoption would have given a modern reader a similar feel Dantes meter gives Italian readers. Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel. A sinner, in the manner of a brake, So that he three of them tormented thus. A little less structured than the original (although differences in the languages are responsible for that) It's a recent translation, so you don't run into the archaic usages you'd find in Longfellow. He produced one of the first complete, and in many respects still the best, English translations of The Divine Comedy in 1867. In conclusion, Nortons translation may have radically dropped the poetic format of The Divine Comedy, however writing in prose allowed him to stay more faithful with the content in the work whereas Rogerss translation is better suited if the reader would like to experience reading Dantes work as a poem, that being said even the structure used by Norton alludes many times to poetic verse. Norton (Health!). I heard a voice cry: "Watch which way you turn: I heard this said to me: "Watch how you pass; I heard a voice cry out, "Watch where you step! Charles Singletons translation for his understanding of textual nuance and its outstanding notes is strongly recommended. 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