divine comedy translation comparison

The critic Walter Benjamin wrote that a great translation calls our attention to a works original language even when we dont speak that foreign tongue. 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. Phi Beta Kappa New Jersey. The surprising historybehind the worlds most famous collection of folk tales. NEH had funded many Dante-related projects, including 17summer seminars for schoolteachersto study theDivine Comedywith scholars through the University of Vermont. 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. Three passages are from the Inferno, one from Purgatory, and the last from Paradise. Which Dante Translation Is Best? - Plough Provide Feedback Form, Rutgers, The State University of 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. 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. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature. They also both have good notes (a necessity). 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. These breathtaking lines conclude Dante's Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line epic written in 1321 on the state of the soul after death. For what it's worth, here's an excerpt from a New Yorker review of Paradiso: Dantes The Divine Comedy is one of Italian Literatures most frequently translated texts, it has literally been being translated for over hundreds of years. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri: 9780679433132 Submit your nominations for the 2024 NEH Jefferson Lecturer, NEH Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities nominations. Buy. 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. 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. 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. Dante's Inferno -The Webpage of Author David Lafferty. For example, he translates Dantes beautifully compact Paradiso 2.7. I heard somebody say: "Watch where you step! Nichols, Hollander and Sinclair are the best translations I have come across, They all combine accuracy with poetry and readability. .. Unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine. Yes, it was the right time. Rogers It shows that translation loss remains inevitable, whether it be in rhyme, ambiguous meaning, or simply losing the melody of the target language. The Divine Comedy is a fulcrum in Western history. The Divine Comedy is a 14th century poem that has never lost its edge. The Divine Comedy (Italian: Divina Commedia; Italian pronunciation: [divina kommdja]) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun c. 1308 and completed around 1321, shortly before the author's death. The Divine Comedy, after all, is a poem, and its meanings are contained as much in sound as in "sense." Verse translations require more courage, and more thinking, because they are generally . How? Choosing which translation of Dantes Divine Comedy to read is a very subjective and personal decision. The Divine Comedy is the most well-known piece in Italian literature. 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? The translators scored as follows: Longfellow, Singleton (27) Sinclair (26) Mandelbaum (25) Simone, Sisson (23) Hollander, Kirkpatrick (22) Lombardo (21) 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. Dayman kept the terza rima, but in doing so he had to be more free with his translation. List of Top Ten Best Dantes Divine Comedy Translation Top Picks 2023 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 . 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. Report Accessibility Barrier or 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. 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. It's very beautiful. In comparing these two translations, the Sayers version seems to win out in two waysit matches Dante in form and, to a degree, in content. 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. The other day I was at a bookstore trying to pick a translation of. ", Clive James is both an Officer of the Order of Australia and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. 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." The Books Alexis Patterson Is Loving Right Now, 27 Childrens & YA Books Written by Asian Authors, Browse All Our Lists, Essays, and Interviews. "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. You can opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information anytime. Exodus Books - Divine Comedy Comparisons Since childhood they had exchanged in passing the one word their families would allowSalute! It calls upon the reader to ask: What would be our personal hell? Hilary Mantel, one of Britains most revered novelists, died last year at the age of 70. "There is no young man's version of this translation. 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. That there have been a lot of translations of the Comedy can be seen by glancing at the Wikipedia page "English translations of Dante's Divine Comedy. Dante's The Divine Comedy is one of Italian Literature's most frequently translated texts, it has literally been being translated for over hundreds of years. lamor che move l sole e laltre stelle. It's also a poetry translation, as opposed to prose translations. by the love that moves the sun and the other stars. Francesca, by citing the poem and the Sweet New Style, is saying: it wasnt my fault, blame it on love. Comparison Between Two Inferno (Canto V) Translations: Rogers and It also comes with the Italian text. September 26, 2019 A major consideration is the topic of rhyme. But 'Purgatory' and 'Heaven' have mainly just got theology. 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. A tough call. Hence their eternal torment, with Paolo in a silent stream of tears, Francesca pouring out an ocean of self-defense. Dante was transformed by his grief and vowed to write in Beatrices honor a poem unlike any ever written. Famed translators Pevear and Volokhonsky reach another milestone. Dante wrote his masterpiece on the move, banned from Florence by political enemies. Provide Feedback Form. With six eyes did he weep, and down three chins. Sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa Even though The doctrine of Papal infallibility was defined dogmatically in the First Vatican Council . 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. The Divine Comedy | Dante, Poem, Summary, & Facts | Britannica Here are Clive Jamess first lines: At the mid-point of the path through life, I found. But Clive James is also a novelist, humorist, essayist, memoirist, and radio and television host who has been called his own one-man renaissance. The Divine Comedy is the most well-known piece in Italian literature. Best Translation of The Divine Comedy? - LibraryThing I found it easy to use. The Italian language the Italians speak today is largely Dante's invention. I just went for the most heavily annotated versions of Purgatorio and Paradiso. The Divine Comedy. 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. The setting allows him to utilise the past symbolically, exploit the present politically, and anticipate the future in . The Divine Comedy is also a work of literary beauty that is beyond being antiquated by time or diminished by repeated translation. It can be overwhelming to see so many versions all lined up, spine to spine, along a shelf in a literary bookstore, or to scroll through pages and pages of different editions online. [1] The three cantiche [i] of the poem, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, describe hell, purgatory, and heaven respectively. By Liliana Leuzzi | Dante's Commedia. In truth, some of the most sublime moments in The Divine Comedy, indeed in all of literature, occur after Dante makes his way out of the Infernos desolation. ", And that kind of interest is what most translators lack, James adds. Did Dante's Divine Comedy describe or define Christian views on the 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. Scam Advisory: Recent reports indicate that individuals are posing as the NEH on email and social media. When he hears Francescas words, Dante faintscaddi come corpo morto cade, I fell as a dead body falls. A friend of mine once said of Shakespeare that everything you need to read him is right there on the surface, in the language of his plays. But they are incorporeal shades, lacking the one thing that made their passionate earthly love possible: a physical being. by Dante Alighieri and Clive James. 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. Allen Mandelbaums translation goes like this: When I had journeyed half of our lifes way. 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). These things are always hard, choosing between manner and matter , Your email address will not be published. His translation of the Divine Comedy (especially Inferno and Purgatorio) is one of my favorite translations of anything. It has become perhaps the world's most cited allegorical epic about life, death, goodness, evil, damnation and reward. 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 . Dante's Beauty Rendered In English In A Divine 'Comedy' - NPR the Flesh. Touchstone (2006): 26-32. 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. Start earning points for buying books! These two lovers, condemned to an eternity in the Circle of the Lustful, pose a heart-wrenching questionone, as I wrote in my In a Dark Wood, that those of us who have lost our earthly loves know all too well: how do you love somebody without a body? And its hard enough to read Dante without throwing in the additional challenge of 19th-century poetic diction. 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 . PDF Dante and Islam: a Study of The Eastern Influences in The - Iupui Dante Alighieri's great work tells the . 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. Breaking the code of The Divine Comedy with patient reverence. We'll go over the different features and what to look for when you're shopping. A New Translation of Dante's 'Paradiso' - Books - New York Times Rutgers is an equal access/equal opportunity institution. That link is to the hardcover that contains all three works, but even though that one is in my bookcase I never read it. "I think I always wanted to translate Dante, but I always knew there was a problem," James tells NPR's Scott Simon. Divine Comedy - Exodus Books Mandelbaums astonishingly Dantean translation, which captures so much of the life of the original, renders whole for us the masterpiece of that genius whom our greatest poets have recognized as a central model for all poets. 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. New Jersey, Report Accessibility Barrier or Many have translated the work, and there are many ways to go about translating Dante. (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. 5 That's why we've put together this ultimate guide to help you make a decision. The Autumn of the Middle Ages: Chaucer and Dante ", He calls the quatrains a "nice, easily flowing rhythmic grid on which to mount the individual moments. James writes in the introduction to hisComedy, I wanted the rhyming words close enough together to be noticed. His devotion to language leads him in one direction, aiming even to end each book of theComedywith a couplet whose final word is stars, as Dante did. I really loved Robert Pinsky's translation of the Inferno, for readability. The Divine Comedy. with disabilities are encouraged to direct suggestions, comments, or complaints concerning any The latest has been undertaken by a writer who is perhaps best known for his pointed and funny criticisms of culture. Divine Comedy Comparisons. 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. But the musicians performance doesnt look anything like a score; the two couldnt be any more different. 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. And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week. 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. 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. Inferno, Canto I by Dante Alighieri - Academy of American Poets Part of the problem lies in the difficulty that Dante poses for English translation. Inferno, Canto I. | Best English Translations of The Divine Comedy? : r/books - Reddit Provide Feedback Form. As a young man, Dante tried to woo a beautiful and devout Florentine girl of his own age. A sinner, in the manner of a brake, So that he three of them tormented thus. 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. By Sergio M. Brattich | Dante's Commedia. 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! 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 night, which I had passed so piteously. I could feel that there was a closure on its way, and I was examining my life, and I wasn't particularly satisfied with what I saw when I examined it. Translated by John Dayman, Longmans, Green, 1865. https://archive.org/details/divinecomedydan00daymgoog, Alighieri Dante. Three passages are from the Inferno, one from Purgatory, and the last from Paradise. Steve Moyer is managing editor of Humanities. I wasn't aware of Benigni's TuttoDante -- sounds very interesting. Albert Russell Ascoli received an NEH summer stipend andfellowshipto do research that resulted in his 2008Dante and the Making of a Modern Author, and a grant to the University of Virginia helped expand teaching resources of theThe World of Dantewebsite. "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. 1994), was edited by Giorgio Petrocchi. like a wheel in perfect motion, 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. The Divine Comedy, Part 1: Hell (Penguin Classics) Paperback - June 30, 1950 by Dante Alighieri (Author), Dorothy L. Sayers (Translator, Introduction) 105 ratings See all formats and editions Paperback $16.00 Other new, used and collectible from $1.43 The first volume of Dante's Divine Comedy A customizable, digital workspace for scholarly analysis of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. with Rutgers web sites to accessibility@rutgers.edu or complete the Report Accessibility Barrier or 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). Provide Feedback Form. hide caption. And then there are all those characters! . Posted in Books, Dante, Divine Comedy The Divine Comedy in translation. Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel. He did most of the translation work before becoming seriously ill, "but I could feel the end of my life coming. My preference for a rhyming attempt wins out over Mary Jo Bangs exuberant rendering, but only by a smidgen. #4 -- we'll just assume that's tongue-in-cheek. Your email address will not be published. You can revive it by posting a reply. Both versions are vibrant and deal adroitly with some enigmatic aspects of the original text.

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