Englishing Dante's Purgatorio
 

My essay-review of two new translations of Dante's Purgatorio, with reflections on the challenges of translating Dante and an overview of Divine Comedy translations into English, is up at Plough online.

The title that the editors gave the piece is a little misleading. I originally just gave it the title in this thread.

My overview of translations isn't exhaustive of course, but I touch on quite a few. Interesting for me in doing the piece was that my opinion of some Dante translations changed--including some of what I said in this GT thread from July.

Congratulations, Andrew :)

This is rather fascinating; I've always been interested in translation. I have some modest experience in the field.

Editors, tsk.

I like 'felicitous error' (of course).

Best wishes,
Fliss

Andrew, what’s do you think of John Ciardi’s version?

I enjoyed your essay, Andrew. It was both knowledgeable and readable.

Susan

I enjoyed it as well.

Do you have a favorite Dante translation (Inferno and Purgatorio)? Someone asked me recently which translation to read and I had no idea what to suggest.

Fliss, Allen, Susan, and Roger: thank you.

Allen, in an earlier draft of this I did have a couple of sentences on the Ciardi translation, but I cut them for space. In general I think the Ciardi is OK but not very exciting or energetic. What I find interesting is his use of the “imperfect” terza rima—not rhyming the middle line of each tercet, but rhyming the first with the third—to keep some sense of the rhyme pattern without cramping the language too much.

Roger, as I say in the essay I now take C. H. Sisson’s translation of the whole Divine Comedy for the poetry and Hollander’s for the accuracy, clarity, and notes. For just Inferno and Purgatorio, the Pinsky for the former and the Merwin for the latter are very good.

It's a thoroughly enjoyable article. I think I like it best because it has a clearly articulated opinion, as well as that it's a fascinating subject.

I prefer your original title to the editor's title. The new title, for me, undersells the essay, and that's a shame.

I don't know enough about the various translations to be able to make any intelligent commentary around them, but it's interesting to think about that art of translation (which I've only really come across on here) as previously I never (apart from for Beowulf) considered who was translating what.

I think for the copy of Purgatorio I read as a teenager I just somehow assumed it had hot-wired itself to English as a kind of chance-led thing rather than as a dialogue between translator and text.

And more Merwin to read. Hurray! It's clearly a Merwinish winter, for me at least (I'll enjoy that).

Sarah-Jane

Great review, Andrew. Have you seen the new Arc Publications version by sixteen different poets?

Fantastic review, Andrew! And I thoroughly enjoyed your balanced taking-down of the Bang translation (rarely has a last name so oddly paired/ parroted with its author’s writing). Hilarious and touché but still light-hearted. I’m sure many will value the expansive review as I do for elucidating which translation(s) to choose.

Thanks Sarah-Jane, Gregory, and Siham. I haven't seen the Arc Publications anthology, Gregory. I'd written this review for the most part when I heard about it. I might have made the effort to add it to my essay, but when I saw that Bang's versions were used for five of the cantos I lost interest. Alicia Stallings's translations I do want to see, but that will have to wait for another time since the book is not cheap.