divine comedy translation comparison

I think Hollander is the most poetic. 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. Individuals Liveright Publishing Longfellow succeeded in capturing the original brilliance of Dantes lines with a close, sometimes awkwardly literal translation that allows the Tuscan to shine through the English, as though this foreign veneer were merely a protective layer added over the still-visible source. Posted on July 5, 2021 July 4, 2021 by Carrie-Anne. But they are incorporeal shades, lacking the one thing that made their passionate earthly love possible: a physical being. ed. He wrote in an intensely idiomatic, rhyme-rich Tuscan with a surging terza rima meter that gives the poem its galloping energya unique rhythm thats difficult to reproduce in rhyme-poor English separated from Dantes local vernacular by centuries. A former U.S. Senate chief of staff makes the humanities accessible. Mind you, I haven't read any other translations for comparison (plus, I'm still in the middle of. This provides the reader with the sounds of the original as well as Musa's translation, which captures the meaning but reads with a different spirit. with Rutgers web sites to accessibility@rutgers.edu or complete the Report Accessibility Barrier or And then there are all those characters! 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. These breathtaking lines conclude Dante's Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line epic written in 1321 on the state of the soul after death. The translators scored as follows: Longfellow, Singleton (27) Sinclair (26) Mandelbaum (25) Simone, Sisson (23) Hollander, Kirkpatrick (22) Lombardo (21) But Clive James is also a novelist, humorist, essayist, memoirist, and radio and television host who has been called his own one-man renaissance. 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 clicking Sign Up, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and understand that Penguin Random House collects certain categories of personal information for the purposes listed in that policy, discloses, sells, or shares certain personal information and retains personal information in accordance with the policy. Breaking the code of The Divine Comedy with patient reverence. I've also heard great thngs about Merwin and Pinsky but they've only done the Purgatorio and Inferno respectively. The latest has been undertaken by a writer who is perhaps best known for his pointed and funny criticisms of culture. "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." 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. 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. This nineteenth-century blank-verse version by Longfellow sounds surprisingly modern: For the straightforward pathway had been lost. The hinder foot still firmer. 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? With pity swooned, and fell like a dead corpse. My favorite version is by Mark Musa (written in blank verse). I also enjoy Anthony Esolens translation (blank verse with some rhyme). accessibility issues with Rutgers web sites to accessibility@rutgers.edu Rutgers is an equal access/equal opportunity institution. Missing is Dantes dico or I mean which is crucial to the meaning of him clarifying what he has already said. SUBSCRIBE FOR HUMANITIES MAGAZINE PRINT EDITION Browse all issuesSign up for HUMANITIES Magazine newsletter. NEH had funded many Dante-related projects, including 17summer seminars for schoolteachersto study theDivine Comedywith scholars through the University of Vermont. A major consideration is the topic of rhyme. As a young man, Dante tried to woo a beautiful and devout Florentine girl of his own age. Dante Alighieri (12651321), Italys greatest poet, was born in Florence and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. Hardcover, 527 pages. Too bad it doesn't look like there are any recordings of the show. As Victor Hugo wrote about The Divine Comedys blessed realms, The human eye was not made to look upon so much light, and when the poem becomes happy, it becomes boring.. encouraged to direct suggestions, comments, or complaints concerning any accessibility issues io venni men cos com io morisse. The others are in three line verses like the original. 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 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. 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. 1994), was edited by Giorgio Petrocchi. Provide Feedback Form. 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. 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. Theyre easily the most accessible and enjoyable of the translations Ive seen. Since childhood they had exchanged in passing the one word their families would allowSalute! She is beloved for her sweeping Wolf Hall trilogy, for which she won two Booker Prizes. This is where youll see your current point status and your earned rewards. As the day stands when the Sun begins to glow. 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. 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. The Divine Comedy. 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 . When I reconciled myself to that, I was off and running. Provide Feedback Form, Rutgers, The State University of It shows that translation loss remains inevitable, whether it be in rhyme, ambiguous meaning, or simply losing the melody of the target language. It's also a poetry translation, as opposed to prose translations. .. Divine Comedy Comparisons. Francesca, by citing the poem and the Sweet New Style, is saying: it wasnt my fault, blame it on love. The Divine Comedy is a 14th century poem that has never lost its edge. 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. 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. (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. 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. Both translations by Rogers and Dayman, are kept in poem style. Only a dense cage of leaf, tree, and twig. Mandelbaum: seen as the scholarly translation and is used in many university classes on The Divine Comedy but some consider it dry and unpoetic. T. S. Eliot called such poetry the most beautiful ever writtenand yet so few of us have ever read it. I felt the necessity for understanding, for redemption, if you will, and I think some of that went into my reading and my writing. 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." And he said to me: "The whole shall be made known; And he: "All this will be made plain to you. 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 deeply did the other mourn, that I . For what it's worth, here's an excerpt from a New Yorker review of Paradiso: Out of the two I've read (Charles Sisson. The surprising historybehind the worlds most famous collection of folk tales. 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? I heard somebody say: "Watch where you step! 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. "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. Again, it might come down to your trust in a translators skill in keeping up the rhyme pattern. Mentre che luno spirto questo disse, Which I still am. T. S. Eliot called such poetry the most beautiful ever writtenand yet so few of us have ever read it. Prose translations are great for communicating the story and its nuances, however any poetical structure is lost. Steve Moyer is managing editor of Humanities. Unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine. 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. Rutgers is an equal access/equal opportunity institution. Of what we call our life, I looked up and saw no sky. Three passages are from the Inferno, one from Purgatory, and the last from Paradise. The best translation I've found -- end to end -- is by John Ciardi. Despite her prettiness, her sweetness, and her eloquence, she is like every other sinner in hell: its never their fault, always someone elses. by the love that moves the sun and the other stars. Shortly thereafter, Beatrice died. And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week. 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. Here are Clive Jamess first lines: At the mid-point of the path through life, I found. 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. We are experiencing technical difficulties. now my will and my desire were turned, A third choice is a translation written in blank verse (iambic pentameter). Which in the very thought renews the fear. . 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. A tough call. 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. As of 2021, Dante's magnum opus has been translated into English . 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. for I had lost the path that does not stray. | 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). Canto V is when Dante has descended into the second circle of hell. I just saw the great discussion about the Iliad and I thought I'd ask my question about. Want to know what people are actually reading right now? He's seeking a knowledge that his life has been worthwhile. lamor che move l sole e laltre stelle. encouraged to direct suggestions, comments, or complaints concerning any accessibility issues Compare limitless combinations of the poem, translations, and commentaries; Filter over 300,000 lines of text; Perform up to four individual searches simultaneously; Browse 700 years' worth of commentaries; Read the poem with facing-page translation Any other translations you'd like to recommend are fine with me. Copyright 2021 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. Pinsky does leave you hanging after the Inferno, though. 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. They never confess their guilt, the one thing necessary for redemption from sin. They also both have good notes (a necessity). It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and one of the greatest works of world literature. About the Author. 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. You dont need to know the background, backstory, allusions, sources. But Longfellows English can sound flowery to our contemporary ears. The Divine Comedy is the most well-known piece in Italian literature. Also, Anthony Esolen has an interesting article published: Esolen, Anthony. 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 content of Dantes writing presents an even bigger problem. Allen Mandelbaums translation goes like this: When I had journeyed half of our lifes way. Long translations from the Divine Comedyare provided following the original Italian verse, and where necessary in the analysis the Italian is referenced. Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel. That interlocking pattern continues throughout the cantos and is one of the works most distinctive aspects. It may also soften the oft repeated and harsh judgmenttraduttore, traditoreor translator, traitor.. Because Dayman chose to maintain the terza rima, he had to form sentences with the same meaning in order to get the rhyme at the end of the line, maintaining the style, but losing faithfulness to the source text. Nichols, Hollander and Sinclair are the best translations I have come across, They all combine accuracy with poetry and readability. I also prefer Mark Musas version. I agreebut Dante is the opposite. The Divine Comedy is a 14th century poem that has never lost its edge. How? What is a good translation of Milton's Paradise Lost? 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'. Famed translators Pevear and Volokhonsky reach another milestone. Rogers Body & Soul Uplifted: Dantes Magnificent Vision of Resurrection of like a wheel in perfect motion, 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. 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.' Inferno, Canto I. Oct 19, 2015 at 21:03 . The first translation was written by Charles Rogers in 1782. It brings together literary and theological expression, pagan and Christian, that came before it while also containing the DNA of the modern. Please try again later. Dante's Inferno -The Webpage of Author David Lafferty. Phi Beta Kappa The Divine Comedy is the most well-known piece in Italian literature. Rutgers is an equal access/equal opportunity institution. 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.

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