Dante - best translation?

[regentrude]

I am preparing for next school year. I talked to DD last night about the books she would be reading, and when I mentioned Dante, she squealed with delight: "The Inferno? Really?" Upon hearing that it's part of the whole Divine Comedy, she got excited and pleaded "May I please read the whole thing?"

 

So, yes, we are nerds. In order to make this as accessible and enjoyable as possible for us: what translation would you recommend?

Also, for the Homeric epics we greatly profited from the TC lectures by Dr. Vandiver. Any resources you can recommend that will help us understand what we read?

 

Thanks!

[Cleopatra]

Well, from one nerd to another ...... ;)

 

My professor recommends the Mark Musa translations but I believe the Dorothy Sayers translations are popular as well. I vaguely remember that Sayers tries to keep the rhyme; the Musa translations don't, but attempt to make it more readable .....???

 

Here are some other resources you might want to look at:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Dantes-Divine-Comedy-Young-People/dp/1881901297

 

http://www.amazon.com/Portable-Dante-Penguin-Classics/dp/0142437549

 

http://www.teach12.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=287 (I purchase this recently but haven't had time to look at it yet)

 

HTH! :001_smile:

[Ester Maria]

Any resources you can recommend that will help us understand what we read?

Yes. Me. :tongue_smilie:

 

I can help you more specifically if you tell me which cantos you wish to focus on (heck, I can even tell you which ones to focus on ;)). Read the whole thing, sure, but pick a few cantos from each canticle to focus on, otherwise your attention will be too dispersed.

 

(I cannot help about the best translation, though, as I only ever read it in original, BUT, if you can find me samples of the same canto translated by different authors, I can tell you approximately which one might be the most faithful translation.)

[Spy Car]

:lurk5:

[regentrude]

Yes. Me. :tongue_smilie:

 

I can help you more specifically if you tell me which cantos you wish to focus on (heck, I can even tell you which ones to focus on ;)).

 

 

Thanks for the offer - yes, please DO tell me.

I have never read Dante and must admit I am a tiny bit intimidated ;-)

[Ester Maria]

INFERNO: I-V, X, XIII, X, XIX, XXVI, XXXIII-XXXIV

 

I and II contextualize the work (getting lost in the wood of sin, three beasts, allusions to Paul and Aeneas - both Christian and classical dimension of the work, Beatrice being moved, etc.), in III Dante enters Inferno (the "welcome" on the gates of Inferno, the concept of gli ignavi - the indifferent who are not even accepted by Inferno because they never stood up for either good or evil in their life, etc.), IV is an hommage to the classical world (1st circle / Limb, the great spirits of antiquity - and not only - which Dante meets), V is one of the most beautiful and poetic cantos in the whole Commedia, studied because of the story of adultery of Paolo and Francesca in 2nd circle, as well as because of Minosse and the Troian characters. Even though only canto I is the prologue to the work, in a more broad sense there is a sort of encompassing unity of cantos I-V, and as they are all important, they are usually studied together. I suggest studying them all.

 

X is important for the political context of Dante's times, as he finds himself with the heretics, but which also carry a political weight on his own personal story (Farinata, Cavalcante, Federico II).

 

XIII is important for Italian history (because of the story of Pier della Vigna and the court of Federico II), so I am not sure it is that relevant to you, BUT, it has interesting examples of contrappasso (the way the characters are punished in Inferno) because it deals with those who committed suicide or spent their fortune unwisely. If you opt to do this canto, be prepared for some brutal imagery.

 

XIX is important for a religious history (and general history) context: it deals with popes and simony.

 

XXVI is a canto I truly suggest in the context of classical education, it is the story of Ulysses told through VERY interesting perspective (the one relying on Roman sources rather than Greek ones and interwoven with Biblical elements). Like Paolo and Francesca, the part with Ulysses is something that most good Italians basically know by heart. It really is beautiful.

 

XXXIII-XXIV are ending cantos. The former also deals with a story which is famosissima in Italy (the opening of that canto is by its popularity along the lines of the opening of I, III, the closing of V and XXVI), the one of conte Ugolino and the ambigous death with his children in the Tower of Hunger; it is also important for a political context, for the invective against Pisa. The last canto is the one with Lucifer, in the icy area of the utmost of Inferno, and with the traitors of Christ and of Caesar (to understand this one needs an understanding of the concept of dual rule, the ecclesiastical and the imperial one), and Dante and Virgilio getting out of Inferno.

 

 

GENERAL NOTES BEFORE READING:

You need to inform yourself on the political situation in Firenze with Dante (guelfi vs. ghibellini, Dante's exile, etc.), on the 'geography' of Inferno (which types of sinners are found where) and in a more general sense on Dante's cosmology, on the principle of contrappasso according to which the souls are punished. Even with a good commentary (and I absolutely suggest one) the work is quite cryptic, but it basically illegible without the basic political and theological background. You often need to know the background because the text assumes a lot of cultural and historical specific knowledge, so a good commentary and checking on who the characters Dante meets were is a must: there is a mix of historical, "old" fictitious (Biblical, Homeric, etc.) and "new" fictitious (specifically Dante's) characters and the three layers intersect a lot.

 

Will write out the scheme for Purgatorio and Paradiso too, if you give me a day or two.

[Kareni]

This older thread has some translation recommendations.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[romeacademy]

I think some of it's personal preference. I used the Ciardi translation when I took a class last fall. There were probably 4 different translations being used, which was interesting when someone read aloud. I personally thought the Longfellow was painful. Ciardi was pretty well footnoted.

 

When I do it again with my dd we will get the Anthony Esolen translation.

[Cleopatra]

Eliana,

 

Wow! Thanks for going to all the trouble to type the various translations. It was very interesting to read through all of them. I agree, Musa was my least favourite. I liked Sayers the best for me but I probably would choose a different translation for my dd (a few more years to go, before I have to decide). In this case, when translations become too much like prose, they lose their poetic beauty (Musa), I think. In any case, I'm off to dig out my Divine Comedy to see what translation(s) I have .... Thanks again!

[pooh bear]

I saw this on Yale Open Courses. Dante in Translation

 

I have not watched it, so I don't know how helpful it will be, but I thought I would pass it on.

[Moira in MA]

Eliana has offered some wonderfully helpful insights...

 

I'd like to add something else. When my dds and I read Inferno a couple of years ago we each used a different translation. I used the Longfellow version (he was the first American to translate the Comedy and I wanted to see how well it had aged), dd1 used Dorothy Sayers' version (she is a big fan of Lord Peter) and dd2 used Mark Musa's (she found it the easiest to read).

 

We often compared passages and found this helpful -- we do this with many of the books we read in translation.

 

HTH

~Moira

[regentrude]

THANK YOU all for the wonderful resources and all the time you took typing things.

I'll have to look at the translations in detail and see which one sounds most appealing (Not being a scholar, I admit that readability and flow of language will be my primary criteria, even at the expense of complete accuracy, because I would like DD to be excited about reading. We used Fitzgerald for Homer and she just loved it. So I'm looking for an equally enjoyable experience.) I think I will get a couple of different translations from the library first and have DD read a bit, then select which one to buy.

I have looked at the Yale lectures and they seem very nice. Listening to the audio does not do them full justice, seeing the professor really enhances the experience (as all my Italian friends, he talks with his HANDS;-)

I am having a hard time containing my enthusiasm... I almost want to skip Beowulf and early Middle Ages and start right away with Dante ;-)

[Ester Maria]

Eliana :001_wub: Thank you for taking time to write all of that out. Wow!

 

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,

ché la diritta via era smarrita.

 

 

S: Midway this way of life we’re bound upon,

I woke to find myself in a dark wood,

Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

 

 

 

(Sayers is obviously attempting to save the metrical aspect, but while doing so, she is compromising the literal text. Our life is a collective statement, rather than a sort of collective "prescription" - bound upon - there is no shade of meaning which would include "waking up" oneself from the lack of consciousness regarding previous acts but, rather, sort of active erring. It is not an issue of one moment of being shocked to be there, if you get what I mean, rather than just stating where he was. The biggest problem, though, is in "where" - che has a function of indicating causality in this case rather than a function of a relative pronoun. He is not lost in the dark wood WHERE the right path is gone, but he is in the dark wood in the first place BECAUSE he had lost the right path. Feel the difference?)

 

P: Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself

In a dark woods, the right road lost.

 

 

(Literally, good. The text doesn't quite "flow" to me, though, and the form is sacrificed to convey a literal meaning.)

 

 

 

M: When I had journeyed half our life’s way,

I found myself within a shadowed forest,

for I had lost the path that does not stray.

 

 

(A perfect compromise of form and meaning, but not really compromising anything: the first line is maybe somewhat drastically restated, but the meaning is the same, the effect of causality is saved, he opts for paraphrasing "the right way", BUT, while doing so he uses the meaning of smarrito which is found in the text, so the paraphrasis cannot be considered out of line. An exemplary translation.)

 

 

 

Mu: Midway along the journey of our life

I woke to find myself in a dark wood,

for I had wandered off from the straight path.

 

 

 

(A bit less fortunate solution than the previous one: the literal meaning is perfectly saved, but the form is compromised to save it. I believe Mandelbaum was right to slightly enter paraphrasing, this is a case of a nearly perfect faithfulness to the text, but it "flows" less nicely.)

 

 

 

Cia: Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray

from the straight road and woke to find myself

alone in a dark wood.

 

 

(The third line is problematic: other than "woke" which I already commented - but okay, we can overlook that one - the problem is in adding alone. Yes, he IS alone there, but that is a totally a new piece of information, not an unfortunate sacrifice in translation.)

 

 

 

E: Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself in a dark wilderness,

for I had wandered from the straight and true.

 

 

(Even if we can technically allow it, something still rubs me as wrong here: he is entering into too much interpretation... how to explain it, yes, selva oscura would essentially mean the wilderness of sin rather than literally a dark forest, and the via diritta is the straight and true "path" in an allegoric sense, but what Esolen does is to already interpret the text while translating it... I believe imagery should be retained and interpretation be separated from translation.)

 

 

 

This was for the sake of commenting on each translation for the same verses, to see the difference. Now I will only focus only in brief to comment on the translations on the following chunks:

 

 

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura

esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte

che nel pensier rinova la paura!

 

 

Sayers is adding meaning again and constructing translation on her own imagery rather than that of Dante; Pinsky ignores quanto (in the sense of even, not only difficult to speak of it, but EVEN to speak of it is difficult) which is IMO a bad thing, especially because there is no need to ignore it if you give up the form; Mandelbaum is good again and even manages to retain the opposition of the present speaking and the fact he speaks about the past (era is translated too!) and so is Musa, though in both the form is sacrificed here, but the translation itself is good; Ciardi's is not a translation at all but a poetic improvisation upon Dante's text; Esolen is what I would call okay, but a whole shade behind Mandelbaum and Musa.

 

 

Tant' è amara che poco è più morte;

ma per trattar del ben ch'i' vi trovai,

dirò de l'altre cose ch'i' v'ho scorte.

 

 

Sayers gets better here, but she's entering interpretation too (such good, etc.) and I feel she is being a bit too free with syntax, even if the meaning perserved is correct; Pinsky gets problematic (he implies that the good is found as well, rather than in order to speak of that primary good he has to treat other things as well first); Mandelbaum is good on a literal level, and trying to perserve the form maximally too; Musa is entering interpretation (good that came of it rather than the good I literally found there that's in Dante's text); Ciardi's scherzi are amusing, but it's ultimately improvisation on somebody else's piece rather than rendering that same piece; Esolen is in the rank of Mandelbaum and Musa.

 

 

Io non so ben ridir com' i' v'intrai,

tant' era pien di sonno a quel punto

che la verace via abbandonai.

 

 

Sayers is adding again (verace is not narrow, it stems from vero, verita', the one related to truth rather than narrowness, that is followed for the quality rather than quantity), but her poetic compromise is good; Pinsky is overall good, he translates ben (ben ridir, not just ridir), but at the same time he adds a dimension of continuity of losing the way (when I started losing the way, rather than when I lost it); Mandelbaum translates ben and paraphrases vi (with the wood), very faithful to the text, I like it; Musa offers a good compromise; Ciardi is finally beginning to translate more than interpret, though he still adds an interperation in capitalizing true way and making it a concept more than a physical way; Esolen has surprisingly, by far, the best solution here.

 

 

I am skipping the middle to get to the last two portions, because I think the differences are interesting to observe there, because seeing how they solve the problem of a similarity here might give me an insight into how they solve it in the rest of the work.

 

 

 

E come quei che con lena affannata,

uscito fuor del pelago a la riva,

si volge a l'acqua perigliosa e guata,

così l'animo mio, ch'ancor fuggiva,

si volse a retro a rimirar lo passo

che non lasciò già mai persona viva.

 

 

 

Sayers is handling it fine, but I again have problems in nuances with her: guata does not mean "look", as in a moment, it is more like intense looking, like observing; Pinsky is adding a bit too in the last verse; Mandelbaum is PERFECT, yes, he does not satisfy the form, but faithfulness-wise, the best option so far; Musa is adding (swimmer? more like naufrago rather than swimmer; and there is no "conditional" feeling, no might turn, in Dante's text the parallel is real rather than potential); Ciardi is adding and changing again (affannata, not ultima; death's surviving image doesn't exist in the original); Esolen is right next to Mandelbaum.

[Ester Maria]

ON THE WHOLE:

Sayers does a good job with the form, but sometimes has to compromise the meaning; Musa, Mandelbaum and Esolen are the most faithful to the text on the whole; Ciardi is on the margin between translation and poetic interpretation; Pinsky is what I would call "okay", but somehow doesn't stand out for me.

 

Translating Dante is very very difficult, and the choice between the form and the faithfulness is not always an easy one... Sayers choose the form, Musa chooses faithfulness, Mandelbaum is a good compromise more in the direction of faithfulness.

 

Ciardi is making me smile, his "translation" is probably the most "Italian" (in all ways - from dramatizing the work to basically saying "to heck with original" :lol: in many instances, which is what is often done in Italy, sacrificing all and taking very great freedom - though as translators we are probably more stringent than many nations... in this case, Ciardi is more Italian than Italians LOL) and if I wanted somebody to throroughly enjoy the work, I might suggest his version, assuming it is well footnoted. If I still wanted something more faithful to the original or for a school reading, I would probably go with Mandelbaum and Esolen as the next choice. Musa doesn't "flow" that nicely, I wouldn't use Sayers either even if her translation does flow, but at too big expenses IMO. I would not use Pinsky.

 

God I am laughing here so much. :lol: Ciardi is a gem. I was a bit like that, used to sacrifice EVERYTHING for expression and argue that every translation is in essence an improvisation upon one's work and that one has a perfect moral right to do it. With time I opted for a more conservative and faithful approach, but something with Ciardi still resonates deeply with me. As crazy as it sounds, Ciardi seems to somehow capture the flavor in spite of not being faithful - NOT good for textual analysis, but good for rendering the general feeling of the work. Ciardi "feels" the most Dante - even more Dante than Dante when it comes to dramaticity - but I would still vote Mandelbaum for school purposes.

 

Sort of, Ciardi gives me the hope that English, maybe (big reservation and native speaker bias here), has the capacity of capturing the strength and the vivacity of Dante after all - but while doing so, he's not really capturing Dante. Mandelbaum is doing maybe the best overall.

 

I would actually look at Paolo and Francesca when deciding which translation to use (who manages to translate noi che tignemmo il mondo di sanguigno and Amor, ch'a nullo amato amar perdona, has my eternal awe). ;)

 

Thanks, Eliana! You gave me much to think about and a great parallel insight into how English handles Dante - and a wonderful opportunity to write two essayish posts on my favorite topic. :D

Edited March 30, 2011 by Ester Maria

[Ester Maria]

Thanks Eliana! :)

 

It is getting a bit dizzy reading so much Dante in English LOL, but I suppose I can say the same things as before: Mandelbaum has the best compromise and remains very faithful to the text, while Ciardi manages to "italianize" his interpretation very vividly. The rest of the options stand out less for me here, though I would opt for Sayers in this particular instance if I had to pick between them. Otherwise, Mandelbaum again (and Ciardi for personal pleasure).

[Guest David Lafferty]

My personal favorite is Mark Musa's. It's written in blank verse so has the feel of poetry, yet is very understandable His notes are also very good for the beginner. Another nice translation is Robert Hollanders, his notes are more detailed. A nice poetic transalation is Anthony Esolen's. http://www.amazon.co...52919986&sr=1-1

[Tullia]

Thank you, regentrude, for the reminder--and for the OP--just saw the date; another thread to bookmark because I missed it the first time! I'm between self-ed projects and need to find my TC audio cd's (Cook and Herzman) which are hiding out somewhere.

Edited November 29, 2012 by Tullia

[swimmermom3]

I am preparing for next school year. I talked to DD last night about the books she would be reading, and when I mentioned Dante, she squealed with delight: "The Inferno? Really?" Upon hearing that it's part of the whole Divine Comedy, she got excited and pleaded "May I please read the whole thing?"

 

So, yes, we are nerds. In order to make this as accessible and enjoyable as possible for us: what translation would you recommend?

Also, for the Homeric epics we greatly profited from the TC lectures by Dr. Vandiver. Any resources you can recommend that will help us understand what we read?

 

Thanks!

 

 

Regentrude, it had been 30 years since I had read Dante. I originally chose the Pinsky version, I think because SWB recommended it. After my initial reading, I actually chose not to have my son even read parts of it, thinking it a bit dull and not for him in 8th grade. By happy accident, we read a few selections of Ciardi's translation and my son chose to read all of that translation for The inferno. He loved the work and I thought the difference between the two translations was like night and day. This is not a scholarly assessment. It is the translation that spoke to us. I do find it worthwhile to go through Eliana's translation recommendations. She has saved us more times than I can count and is more academic in her reviews.

 

Have a wonderful time with The Inferno. My son found it very convenient for assigning particular levels of hell to some of our local politicians.

 

Should have looked at the date. The minute after I sent it, I was puzzling over the fact that I thought regentrude was done with the Medieval times.

[Tullia]

Regentrude, it had been 30 years since I had read Dante. I originally chose the Pinsky version, I think because SWB recommended it. After my initial reading, I actually chose not to have my son even read parts of it, thinking it a bit dull and not for him in 8th grade. By happy accident, we read a few selections of Ciardi's translation and my son chose to read all of that translation for The inferno. He loved the work and I thought the difference between the two translations was like night and day. This is not a scholarly assessment. It is the translation that spoke to us. I do find it worthwhile to go through Eliana's translation recommendations. She has saved us more times than I can count and is more academic in her reviews.

 

Have a wonderful time with The Inferno. My son found it very convenient for assigning particular levels of hell to some of our local politicians.

 

Should have looked at the date. The minute after I sent it, I was puzzling over the fact that I thought regentrude was done with the Medieval times.

 

 

I forgot to look at the date and replied, too. But, you may be able to help with this post further down the board.