divine comedy translation comparison

That link is to the hardcover that contains all three works, but even though that one is in my bookcase I never read it. ", 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. Out of the two I've read (Charles Sisson. Hardcover, 527 pages. These breathtaking lines conclude Dantes Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line epic written in 1321 on the state of the soul after death. Unlike the other author he supposedly shared the world with, Shakespeare, Dante was self-consciously scholarly and intellectual, filling his verses with allusions to ancient, biblical, and contemporary medieval writing, and tackling a range of theological, philosophical, political, and historical issues. "So there we were, actually duplicating the situation in the canto, because the two lovers are reading a book that's what brought them together. Pinsky does leave you hanging after the Inferno, though. I've only read one, but Mark Musa's Penguin classics translation seemed pretty good to me What's the consensus on Allen Mandelbaum's translation? Dante Alighieri (12651321), Italys greatest poet, was born in Florence and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. 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 . In which I had abandoned the true way. 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. The Italian language the Italians speak today is largely Dante's invention. Her creative leap is to begin with the word stopped and end the third line with I was lost, emphasizing the predicament in the original and elaborating the image of the dark wood. September 26, 2019 for I had lost the path that does not stray. 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. with disabilities are encouraged to direct suggestions, comments, or complaints concerning any And he said to me: "The whole shall be made known; And he: "All this will be made plain to you. 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. Thus began Dantes famed journey, one that would take him through the depths of hell. He combined a lot of dialects into the thing we now know as Italian. Rutgers is an equal access/equal opportunity institution. It has become perhaps the world's most cited allegorical epic about life, death, goodness, evil, damnation and reward. Since childhood they had exchanged in passing the one word their families would allowSalute! Im using Allen Mandelbaums translation while writing my Masters thesis. The Divine Comedy. Rather than write a strained couplet to close each book, I wrote a final line in which the stars indeed show up, but not as the last word. Bang is led in another direction, hewing to a definition of translation by Walter Benjamin: A translation, instead of resembling the meaning of the original, must lovingly and in detail incorporate the originals mode of signification, thus making both the original and the translation recognizable as fragments of a greater language., Translator Robert Wechsler observed that the foreign writers work looks like gibberish, or would if we ever saw it. He first met Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice, in 1274; she inspired his most famous poetry, including the Vita Nuova, which More about Dante Alighieri, The English Dante of choice. Hugh KennerExactly what we have waited for these years, a Dante with clarity, eloquence, terror, and profoundly moving depths. Robert Fagles, Princeton UniversityA marvel of fidelity to the original, of sobriety, and truly, of inspired poetry. Henri Peyre, Yale University, Sign up for news about books, authors, and more from Penguin Random House, Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network. The translators scored as follows: Longfellow, Singleton (27) Sinclair (26) Mandelbaum (25) Simone, Sisson (23) Hollander, Kirkpatrick (22) Lombardo (21) In honor of Mantels enormous contributions to literature, dive back into her Tudor world with Penelope Rowlandss essay about one of the key power dynamics Mantel explored: that between Cromwell and Sir Thomas More. 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). She is beloved for her sweeping. He's seeking absolution, redemption and certainty. 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.' You dont need to know the background, backstory, allusions, sources. We'll go over the different features and what to look for when you're shopping. But Clive James is also a novelist, humorist, essayist, memoirist, and radio and television host who has been called his own one-man renaissance. It is technically prose; however he decides to invoke quite a lot of poetic structure throughout the translation, such as, I understood that to such torment are condemned the carnal sinners Postponing the subject (as is done in the originals) is not normally allowed in English prose, thus lending to the fusion-like feeling of this translation. You can opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information anytime. Alighieri Dante. Provide Feedback Form. Provide Feedback Form. Both versions are vibrant and deal adroitly with some enigmatic aspects of the original text. Michael Palmas 2003 translation ofInfernobegins this way: Midway through the journey of our life, I found. I also prefer Mark Musas version. I'm a bit biased in favor of Sayers' translation, as that's the one that introduced me to Dante in the first place. Both translations by Rogers and Dayman, are kept in poem style. I was lost. 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. 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. You can revive it by posting a reply. In the Inferno, it is well known, Dante singled out corrupt leaders and political enemies, but the poem as a whole was actually inspired by unrequited love. 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 can say this much for sure, for certain, right here on the air," James continues. 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/ A third choice is a translation written in blank verse (iambic pentameter). 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? #4 -- we'll just assume that's tongue-in-cheek. 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. I heard it said: "Take heed how thou dost go. My preference for a rhyming attempt wins out over Mary Jo Bangs exuberant rendering, but only by a smidgen. Three passages are from the Inferno, one from Purgatory, and the last from Paradise. Translations that attempt to maintain any type of rhyme scheme often sound forced and usually compromise the meaning of the text. Any translation involves balancing the meaning, feel, and artistry of the work, normally at the expense of at least one of these qualities. James says that in order to achieve that raw poetic thrill, he first had to abandon terza rima, Dante's preferred rhyme scheme, "which is almost impossible to do in English without strain." NEH had funded many Dante-related projects, including 17summer seminars for schoolteachersto study theDivine Comedywith scholars through the University of Vermont. 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? A collection of 100 poems to be exact, one for each canto, some more sublime than others. 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'. the Flesh. Touchstone (2006): 26-32. English, he says, is a "rhyme-poor" language compared with Dante's Italian. Theirs is the one that keeps coming up when looking for a good verse translation. Mandelbaum, will, in fact, interject rhyme if its not forced (as he does with way and stray). Charles Singletons translation for his understanding of textual nuance and its outstanding notes is strongly recommended. John Ciardi (1954) ed. These lines have the virtue of being faithful to the original content, and then the next line continues with a rhyme (The keening sound . by the love that moves the sun and the other stars. In the first place, shes not speaking to Dante in a natural voice; shes alluding to poetry. "There is no young man's version of this translation. The surprising historybehind the worlds most famous collection of folk tales. accessibility issues with Rutgers web sites to accessibility@rutgers.edu Steve Moyer is managing editor of Humanities. 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. Posted in Books, Dante, Divine Comedy The Divine Comedy in translation. Which in the very thought renews the fear. Divine Comedy - Exodus Books Math Curriculum Law & Political Theory Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition Suffering & Hope History of Philosophy God & Reality (Metaphysics) Knowledge (Epistemology) Value & Beauty (Axiology) Being & Existence (Ontology) Introspection vs. Contemplation Phonics & Reading Early Readers But Hugos attack suggests the particular challenge in reading Dante, whose writing can seem remote and impenetrable to modern tastes. "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.

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