divine comedy translation comparison

"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. .. Phi Beta Kappa I found it easy to use. So, which translation should you read? 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. This topic is not marked as primarily about any work, author or other topic. Dantes The Divine Comedy is one of Italian Literatures most frequently translated texts, it has literally been being translated for over hundreds of years. This topic is currently marked as "dormant"the last message is more than 90 days old. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. A former U.S. Senate chief of staff makes the humanities accessible. This page allows you to compare five passages from seven verse translations side by side. I was lost. Dante was transformed by his grief and vowed to write in Beatrices honor a poem unlike any ever written. My favorite version is by Mark Musa (written in blank verse). . or complete the Report Accessibility Barrier or (Health!). Only a dense cage of leaf, tree, and twig. Want to know what people are actually reading right now? Comparison Between Two Inferno (Canto V) Translations: Rogers and ", Clive James is both an Officer of the Order of Australia and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. This is where youll see your current point status and your earned rewards. 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. 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. "They're faithful, they're accurate, they're scholarly, but the actual raw poetic thrill of the verse doesn't get through, and that's what I think the translator must try to do if he or she can. 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. Out of the Fire. 1994), was edited by Giorgio Petrocchi. Start earning points for buying books! 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/ Which Translation Should I Read? | Dante's Inferno -The Webpage of 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 . | ISBN 9780679433132 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. 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 heard it said: "Take heed how thou dost go. 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'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? laltro pianga; s che di pietade Any other translations you'd like to recommend are fine with me. September 26, 2019 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? About the Author. 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. 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. The surprising historybehind the worlds most famous collection of folk tales. accessibility issues with Rutgers web sites to [email protected] The translators scored as follows: Longfellow, Singleton (27) Sinclair (26) Mandelbaum (25) Simone, Sisson (23) Hollander, Kirkpatrick (22) Lombardo (21) Dante Alighieri (12651321), Italys greatest poet, was born in Florence and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. At the other end of the spectrum are straight prose (spoken word) translations. I've also heard great thngs about Merwin and Pinsky but they've only done the Purgatorio and Inferno respectively. 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. The others are in three line verses like the original. Unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine. The Divine Comedy is a 14th century poem that has never lost its edge. NEH had funded many Dante-related projects, including 17summer seminars for schoolteachersto study theDivine Comedywith scholars through the University of Vermont. with disabilities are encouraged to direct suggestions, comments, or complaints concerning any What's the Best Way to Read the Divine Comedy If You Don't Know Italian Im using Allen Mandelbaums translation while writing my Masters thesis. Thanks! 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. I agreebut Dante is the opposite. "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." Copyright 2023, Rutgers, The State University of 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. 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. The best translation I've found -- end to end -- is by John Ciardi. For example, he translates Dantes beautifully compact Paradiso 2.7. But the musicians performance doesnt look anything like a score; the two couldnt be any more different. 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. 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. How? The Divine Comedy is a fulcrum in Western history. Translations that attempt to maintain any type of rhyme scheme often sound forced and usually compromise the meaning of the text. Missing is Dantes dico or I mean which is crucial to the meaning of him clarifying what he has already said. 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. 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 Please try again later. The Divine Comedy in translation (what to look for, comparison of Individuals with disabilities are These lines have the virtue of being faithful to the original content, and then the next line continues with a rhyme (The keening sound . "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. 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. 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. New Jersey. And lo and behold, that's what we were doing. During one Spirit was relating this, This format allows freedom to communicate the work without rhyme, yet maintains a metrical structure. Divine Comedy translation samples 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. 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. 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. The Divine Comedy, Part 1: Hell (Penguin Classics) But long before rehabilitating Thomas Cromwells reputation, Mantel was unparalleled in her crystalline dissections of power, whether between girls at the University of London or Dantonists in the French Revolution. Inferno, Canto I. Provide Feedback Form. Talking about a translators approach and methodology can help answer the question. - user66974. 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. T. S. Eliot called such poetry the most beautiful ever writtenand yet so few of us have ever read it. Rutgers is an equal access/equal opportunity institution. . In the first place, shes not speaking to Dante in a natural voice; shes alluding to poetry. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri: 9780679433132 Its not easy to break the code of The Divine Comedy, a work steeped in a medieval Christian vision that can cause readers like Victor Hugo to avert their eyes from its more celestial passages. A major consideration is the topic of rhyme. This is why one of the few truly successful English translations comes from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a professor of Italian at Harvard and an acclaimed poet. Divine Comedy - Wikipedia We are experiencing technical difficulties. A sinner, in the manner of a brake, So that he three of them tormented thus. 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. . We'll go over the different features and what to look for when you're shopping. Individuals At every mouth he with his teeth was crunching 55. Part of the problem lies in the difficulty that Dante poses for English translation. Dante and The Divine Comedy: He took us on a tour of Hell Any translation involves balancing the meaning, feel, and artistry of the work, normally at the expense of at least one of these qualities. But Clive James is also a novelist, humorist, essayist, memoirist, and radio and television host who has been called his own one-man renaissance. Choosing which translation of Dantes Divine Comedy to read is a very subjective and personal decision. Such an adoption would have given a modern reader a similar feel Dantes meter gives Italian readers. 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. Just like a musical score to someone who cant read music. Mandelbaum: seen as the scholarly translation and is used in many university classes on The Divine Comedy but some consider it dry and unpoetic. Clive James is both an Officer of the Order of Australia and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. 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. Thus began Dantes famed journey, one that would take him through the depths of hell. It also comes with the Italian text. Provide Feedback Form, Rutgers, The State University of 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). The verse. Excellent notes, too! For more information about the Divine Comedy, view our Divine Comedy Page Enjoy! And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week. 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. The first translation was written by Charles Rogers in 1782. It shows that translation loss remains inevitable, whether it be in rhyme, ambiguous meaning, or simply losing the melody of the target language. I just saw the great discussion about the Iliad and I thought I'd ask my question about. What is a good translation of Milton's Paradise Lost? The Pinsky is usually (maybe exclusively) sold parallel to the original, so you'll get a sense of that as you go along. What, for us, would really be paradise? Copyright 2023, Rutgers, The State University of purchase. Theirs is the one that keeps coming up when looking for a good verse translation. 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. [1] The three cantiche [i] of the poem, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, describe hell, purgatory, and heaven respectively. In which I had abandoned the true way. Which I still am. I also enjoy Anthony Esolens translation (blank verse with some rhyme). Fifteen translations of Dante compared | Boisterous beholding Again, it might come down to your trust in a translators skill in keeping up the rhyme pattern. The Divine Comedy | Dante, Poem, Summary, & Facts | Britannica These breathtaking lines conclude Dante's Divine Comedy, a 14,000-line epic written in 1321 on the state of the soul after death. Which leadeth others right by every road. Book of the week: The Divine Comedy, By Dante, translated by Clive It has become perhaps the world's most cited allegorical epic about life, death, goodness, evil, damnation and reward. It's nice to compare, and if you're interested in learning the language, it's a great way to get some personally meaningful immersion. 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. Best Translation of Divine Comedy - online literature 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. Long translations from the Divine Comedyare provided following the original Italian verse, and where necessary in the analysis the Italian is referenced. Copyright 2021 Here are Clive Jamess first lines: At the mid-point of the path through life, I found. "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. The Italian language the Italians speak today is largely Dante's invention. By clicking SIGN UP,I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random Houses, certain categories of personal information, discloses, sells, or shares certain personal information. Allen Mandelbaums translation goes like this: When I had journeyed half of our lifes way. Dante Alighieri's great work tells the tale of the author's trail through hell each and every circle of it purgatory and heaven. ". Mandelbaum, will, in fact, interject rhyme if its not forced (as he does with way and stray). Lit Genius - Comparison of Divine Comedy Translations | Genius Individuals | by the love that moves the sun and the other stars. The translation is so similar, the result is a palimpsest, two works, one on top of the other, an original and a performance, difficult to tell apart. Seeing translation in this light, may help decide which Dante to read. To redeem, copy and paste the code during the checkout process. In her own time she was better known for her hydrangeas. 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. Take, for example, the last few lines of the the fifth Canto, the famous: Dante Alighieri Dante. Famed translators Pevear and Volokhonsky reach another milestone. There are a lot of different Best Dante Divine Comedy Translation in the market, and it can be tough to decide which one is right for you. Although Roger chose to remain faithful to the source text, some lines were more poetically translated by Dayman. | Right now I'm choosing between Ciardi, Mandelbaum and Hollander. I couldn't have done it when I was younger. Nichols, Hollander and Sinclair are the best translations I have come across, They all combine accuracy with poetry and readability. A Comparison of Charles Rogers's (1782) and Charles Eliot Norton's