Translations of Dante | Discussing Those I’ve Read
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 มิ.ย. 2024
- Translation can make or break your experience reading something originally written in another language. With Dante’s Divine Comedy, there are many options for an English translation. These are the few I’m most familiar with and what I think of them.
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Such great content ⭐️ To answer your question “for Italians”: you are absolutely right, there are many “Divine Comedy in easier Italian” or “in prose” being published in Italy, because understanding Dante’s Italian is HARD. Typically, an Italian high-school student will find it much easier to understand the Divine Comedy in any English translation than in the original. It’s also the use of language that he does: instead of saying “eyes” he will use an very archaic word for “windows”, but the English translator very often chooses “windows”, therefore cutting that extra step. I now understand and enjoy the original, but as a kid to my eyes it looked almost like Chinese!
Thank you for this info, Tom! That is fascinating.
@@jenniferbrooks "The Mahabharata" one of the greatest Indian epic poems of all time, written 350 BC which in itself contains "The Bhagavadgita" or simply the "The Geeta" it's a divine revelation of Krishna to Arjuna in the battlefield or Kurukshetra.. also Ramayana which is even older than Mahabharata..
Actually I don't think is so. I mean, I've never seen someone using simplify version of Dante here in Italy (at most a summary/parafrasis for each Canto at the beggining for the different editions). As for understanding much better in english, really this makes no sense. Yes, is very difficult, as poetry in a ancient version of the language can be, but nobody read The Divine Commedy in manipulate version in Italy (if anything they don't read it) and certainly not in high-school. Obviously is very common the use of notes whit a sort of modern translation to better understand the more obscure parts, but reading only the "modern" version is not something we are used to.
@@dariostevens250 Thanks so much Dario for sharing your experience - or lack thereof. The fact that you haven’t seen people read “La Commedia in prosa” doesn’t mean that Italians don’t read it, does it? I lived in Italy for the first 22 years of my life. I am not talking about something I don’t know. Just go to any online bookstore and search for those simplified versions. There are tons of them, and if they didn’t have a readership, they wouldn’t get published.
And as for the English translation - yes, it does make it easier for an Italian to understand it. As long as your English is good enough.
@@tomlabooks3263 Hi, I'm 22 and I live in Italy. What I was saying is that in school we don't study modified versions obviously and people who read it for pleasure the same. As for the books in library, yes they are published, but to help some students to understand better, not to actually read it. And for the English version I'm sure you are very confident with English, but most of italians not, so is like saying is easier in Dantes original if you know a bit of Latin. This is my experience but I was only sharing it, I didn't want to discredit others, sorry for that.
1. My favorite is the Mandelbaum translation. 😊 It's blank verse. The World of Dante uses his translation as their base English translation. So one can read it online. I also have the Everyman's Library edition which is a beautifully crafted hardback that's worth owning. Everyman's Library books are almost always excellent editions of the classics. Just superb quality in terms of look and feel.
2. Same with Longfellow, he's available everywhere online. Longfellow was of course an amazing poet in his own right, and a scholar and a professor at Harvard University back in the 19th century. His translation of Dante is itself a work of art. I believe it was the first major American English translation of Dante's Commedia. Well worth reading.
3. Musa is a good choice too. I find him simple and clear to follow with an understated elegance. He's not my favorite, but I certainly wouldn't begrudge anyone if they enjoy Musa. I disagree with some of his notes (e.g. his psychoanalysis of Dante's motives in writing about Beatrice). But overall he's fine.
4. Hollander is available through the Princeton Dante Project. It's a serviceable translation in free verse, and I find the free verse can be a bit jarring or too abrupt at times. For better *and* worse, it's very much a literal or word for word or formally equivalent translation. But at the cost of literary beauty, at least to my ears. It comes with a tremendous amount of helps, super detailed notes, almost overwhelmingly so, which I imagine would be great for dedicated study.
5. I'm afraid same goes for Kirkpatrick. It's a good but not outstanding translation. Kirkpatrick is at times a bit too vulgar for my tastes (e.g. using four letter words like "fig f-").
6. I'm surprised Ciardi wasn't mentioned since he's very popular. His translation flows beautifully. It well echoes the "music" in Dante's terza rima. However I find Ciardi plays a bit too fast and loose with the meaning for my tastes; it isn't as faithful to the Italian (e.g. where Ulysses says "brothers" in Italian, Ciardi translates as "shipmates" which in context the brothers are indeed his shipmates but I'd have preferred to have a more literal translation in this case). Nevertheless one could do far worse than Ciardi for the first read-through of Dante. Ciardi is the people's choice. Still if given the choice I would prefer Mandelbaum for the first (and subsequent) read-through of Dante because I find Mandelbaum just as beautiful as Ciardi and he's more faithful to the underlying text than Ciardi.
7. There are other translations like Sayers, James, Pinsky, Carson, and Bang, and they each have some interesting or provocative or idiosyncratic takes - I especially enjoyed Pinsky though he only did Inferno I believe - but at best I think these should be reserved for reading after one has already read and is sufficiently familiar with Dante's Commedia in one of the earlier translations I've mentioned.
8. There are a couple of fine prose translations too. Of course, the prose form loses the poetic structure and all this entails, but it has its benefits like potential for fuller expression of meaning and livelier imagery and perhaps better pulling one into the story qua story and so forth. Durling is a wonderful modern prose translation. Also, a good thing about Durling is it comes with so many helpful notes and maps and so on. Not to mention the Italian is printed alongside the translation. So one can read the story like a novel but also read the Italian to hear the "music".
9. Although Durling is great, my favorite prose translation of the Commedia is an older one by Singleton. Singleton is a legendary Dante scholar and his translation still soars. His extensive commentary on Dante is often still cited today, it is still full of insight.
10. In a sense we're spoiled for choice in English when it comes to Dante. Of course, nothing beats the original Italian, which is surprisingly quite comprehensible if one knows modern Italian. It's not as wide as the divide is between, say, modern English and Shakespearean or Elizabethean English. Even though there is a wider time interval between modern Italian and the Italian or Dante's period than there is between modern English and Shakespeare, Italian as a language evidently hasn't evolved as dramatically (no pun intended) as English has evolved. So the Italian in Dante is certainly dated but not horribly so. And if one can read other Romance languages, such as Spanish or French, then learning Italian isn't a huge jump.
Can you read Italian?
@@HkFinn83 Yes, and I can speak Italian as well! 😊
I should add Kirkpatrick has grown on me. He sounds more like Dante filtered through Shakespeare. Quite a theatrical presentation.
And another translation that's not been widely reviewed but which I purchased and have been dipping in and out of us J.G. Nichols. I very much enjoy Nichols. Not as much as Mandelbaum who remains my favorite, but Nichols is near the top, at least so far. Definitely worth a look!
@@pattube did you learn from reading Dante?
@@HkFinn83 Yes I have learned from reading Dante.
I meant did you learn Italian from Dante
Longfellow had me with the line " I found myself within a forest dark' which I love but I will look at the Musa translation because I agree Longfellow does have a layer of poetry that requires more thinking. Having a few translations is probably the way to go. Thanks so much for your videos and inspiration.
I grew up with the 1948 Lawrence White blank verse translation (Pantheon Press with complete illustrations by Gustav Dore) and it remains my benchmark. It seems an all but forgotten translation, but the edition can still be found in used bookstores. Dante and Dore are inseparable in my mind. The translation is beautifully smooth and rolls off the tongue which is more than I can say for those that try to duplicate the Italian verse. I have no idea why this translation is lost, or been discarded, but I still love it and return to it.
"Midway upon the journey of our life
I found that I was in a dusky wood;
For the right path, whence i had strayed, was lost.
Ah me! How hard a thing it is to tell
The wilderness of that rough and savage place,
The very thought of which brings back my fear!
So bitter was it, death is little more so:
But that the good I found there may be told,
I will describe the other things I saw."
We study the comedy as original, there are some "modern, simplified version" but just for kids, in high school we study the original, but Italian is such a difficult language and sadly so many Italian struggle to understand a well spoken Italian. People who has studied a bit could understand the most of the original very well. I consider myself lucky to speak Italian and I think it is my duty to understand this masterpiece, one of the biggest effort ever made in literature, when Beatrice died, he promised himself that he would dedicate the greatest literary work ever written to her, and he simply did it
Thanks for this :) i didnt end up picking one of these translations, but you helped with the confidence to just pick one that feels good. Looking forward to diving in!
Thank you for this. Been wanting to read it all and could find a lot of good info on what's the best translation, but not comparative translations for the most popular ones.
Greetings from Norway. Great content. I’ve just completed Inferno and Purgatorio, reading mainly the Longfellow translation because of the beautiful language and the wonderful illustrations by Doré. However I had the Musa translation because of the intros and extensive notes. Purgatorio is beautiful not least because Dante mentions various hymns and psalms which gives it an extra dimension. I had a similar experience when reading James Joyce’s The Dead, where the song The Lass of Aughrim had a dramatic effect in the short story and listening to it, it gave me a better understanding of the short story. Keep it up!
I have had copies of the first two for ages but never picked them up, Your read-along has encouraged me to start reading Inferno. It's the Mark Musa translation, so I am delighted it's a good one. One of my favourite books is the Iliad and the first one I read was translated by Alexander Pope, but I just couldn't gel with it. I eventually got the Richmond Lattimore translation, and it's so good.
I read Inferno back in high school (2011) and Ive been rereading it ever since then. I learn something new every time! Im so excited for this
You’re so right! It’s something different every time!
I just found your channel today and I am obsessed with your content!!!
Thank you!! 💕
So glad to have found your channel!
Oh thanks, that was very helpful! I definitely want to read Dante this year but I haven‘t even started to think about which translation to get. At the beginning I just looked at which edition looked the nicest 😅 My Italian is okay (I guess) so I‘m planning to get an edition with a parallel text. And I kind of love the idea of reading multiple translations!
Oooh thank you for reading these! I think I will order a Musa version 😍
No, we read La Comedia exactly like Dante wrote it: it sounds a bit "old fashioned" at times, plus let's not forget that it consists of 14k+ lines of poetry (not prose) but all in all it is very readable even today: in fact, I would say that 99% of the challenge of reading Dante's work, and why it requires so many notes in the margins, is due to its depth and density more than anything else.
I'm surprised you did not even mention John Ciardi's version (at least in this video). I thought that that was so popular and acclaimed that it was almost consensus as being a primary English version of the Divine Comedy.
His version is a compromise with some rhyme, mostly keeping iambic pentameter rhythm, but with the language fresh and almost colloquial and yet still sublime and elevated, with powerful narrative images, in spite of its simple wording. Plus he was a poet in his own right, and it is clear through his footnotes and introductions that his background knowledge of Dante and his universe was profound.
Normally when reading classic poetry in English I prefer the versions written hundreds of years ago since those more properly reflect the classic tradition of poetry in the English language, including its stricter meter and rhyme with archaic vocabulary and inverted grammar. But for rendering the Divine Comedy, Ciardi's version works best as it reflects the nature of how this work was written in Florentine vernacular when this was a language hardly used for writing. Therefore, a fresh take on the poetry works best, writing in modern English as though there was no previous body of literature in our language.
I'm glad you wrote that, Ciardi's translation is wonderful, but it seems to have been buried in recent years. Also, I believe it was the most widely read by college students.
I've never felt compelled to read Dante although I studied literature but your enthusiasm for his work makes me want to give him a try:)
And thanks for doing the blind taste test!
English is my second language so I can see that most of the time, something is lost when works are translated into English. It just isn't the same. But I think it also depends on the skill of the translator. So for example, most Sri Lankan Sinhalese novels are translated to English by scholars or English professors and those are not very well done imho. But there are a great number of Russian texts that have been translated to my native Sinhala by those who studied in Russia or are proficient in the language ( not academics per se but those who spent time in Russia and speak the language) that are excellent or at least very convincing.
Yes! So, in Italy in high school (and university if you take a lit degree) we study Dante and we read the original in order to appreciate the poetic writing, but some texts include also a modern translation for us to better understand it (we call it “parafrasi”). Also, part of the analysis we do, together with the professor, is this kind of “translation” into modern Italian, other than commenting on what we’ve been reading and analyzing the text. This at least in my experience!
Thank you! That is really interesting-we do a similar thing with Chaucer, trying to “translate” him into modern English.
I’ve decided on Charles Sissons version in Oxford world classics version, it is not one I see people talk about much but I enjoyed the more clear language and loved the maps and notes however these are at the front and back of the books so there is a lot of page flipping.
There are some really amazing charts and maps in that edition!
I was waiting for this for a long time. I want to read Dante but it has to be the best translation into English. As a qualified translator myself, I can agree with ‘traduttore, traditore’.
I agree!! I hope you find the translation that works best for you!
My first Divine Comedy translation was Laurence Binyon's, which uses terza rima in addition to a lot of faux-archaisms, Elizabethan language (e.g., sayeth, havest, doth, thine, thou, ye), and old poetic diction. When I was reading it from late 2003 to early 2004, I had to mentally translate it into modern English. In a way, I'm emotionally attached to that version, since I've known the first twelve lines and the last four lines in it by heart all these years (without consciously setting out to memorize them), but rereading it in the Mark Musa translation, and studying it through a lot of other venues, has made it obvious how many things I totally missed, or misinterpreted, because I was so distracted by the forced rhyme scheme and its resulting creative translations, as well as the outdated language and some prudish euphemisms.
Binyon's Portable Dante (which includes La Vita Nuova and excerpts from several other works) did make me fall in love with Dante all those years ago, but I wish my first experience had been with something more modern, where I could just pay attention to the story instead of figuring out a very old form of English.
This is something I always struggled with, I’ve always distrusted translations. My dream is to be able to read books in their original language.
I love duo language editions.
I agree-when you read different translations of the same work and you see how much they differ, it does make you wonder.
Just came across your channel and this video. Thank you so much for the insight.
I tackled Italian at college and University and we studied the Divine Comedy using the original text from the Zanichelli editions. Lately, I've been wanting to read Dante's works in English and picked up Robin Kirkpatrick's translation of the Divine Comedy. I'm into Canto 6 of the Purgatorio and am finding the text quite engaging, but I'm intrigued by the Mark Musa edition, especially given that I've read his translation of La Vita Nuova and found it very profound and flowing.
Does the Portable Dante have accompanying notes to the Divine Comedy ,by any chance? Thanks again for this video!
I found a really fancy edition of the divine commedy in a used book store today so this video seems like sign
Yes!! Pick it up!
Thank you 🙏
My copy arrived today! I wanted the Musa translation but it wasn't in stock, so I have the Sisson one. Looking forward to joining the discussion!
I picked up the Sisson used the other day and I’m quite liking it! A lot of wonderful charts and maps in it. I hope you enjoy!
@@jenniferbrooks I'm loving it so far! The charts are actually super helpful ☺️
I bought the Mark Musa edition and I am very impressed. I have not read Dante before but I really like the synopsis at the beginning of each canto and then the notes after each canto with numbers at the text correlating to the notes. I have tried reading only one Oxford world classic book once (not Dante) and found myself flicking from where I was reading to the back of the book or the bottom of the page for footnotes which really disturbed the flow of the text. I did briefly attempt the Clive James translation of Inferno but knew after 10 pages that it was not for me. I am waiting on the Robin Kirkpatrick version of Purgatorio and Paradiso from my library to see what this translation is like and if not to my taste I will then source the Mark Musa editions of these.
It’s veey long though. Almost 900 pages. How long it took you to finish it? I have been assigned to read some verse for my History class but I want to read it all to understand it better.
@@watchingtower8023 It took me a week to read. (I read a lot of books in a year so I might be a faster reader than some). I remember enjoying it immensely and found the notes at the end of each canto extremely helpful. I also read Purgatorio at a later date in the Mark Musa edition but did not like this as much.
@@hayleyc5594 you are def a fast reader. I am still stuck in inferno 😅. Watching Yale University Dante translations course Videos to understand it better. I got myself Mark Musa translation after I saw your comment and it's very satisfying than the Robert and Jean Hollander translation. 😊
My big book by Alan Mandelbaum from the Everyman Library arrived yesterday !! Yipee I am set
Wow that’s great Lee, I’m actually excited for you : )
@@tomlabooks3263 My Mark Musa arrived today and I already have my Robert Pinsky and Marco Santagata. I am ready to read. Of course I have been reading Pinksy while I follow along with you Tom.
@@Leebearify Oh wow that’s serious passion 😄 Fantastic ! I do look forward to using Mandelbaum’s for Purgatory.
I'm interested in buying this one but I'm curious. Does it contain the original aside also? Or is it just the translation?
@@nicole73551 Mandelbaum? My edition is by the “Quality Paper Bookclub” and it does have the Italian as well.
Hi I'm Italian, I never read all the divine comedy, but I am glad that you described longfellow translation as the best. I read some of it and I agree that a more eloquent, difficult and highly poetic english resembles much better Dante archaic italian. More than that, It is good to tell People to prefer hard language over an easy one, especially during this time of very poor language...
My first experience with Dante was reading the Longfellow's translation of Inferno, and I found the language beautiful. I went on to start Longfellow's translation of Purgatorio, and there I found that Longfellow's poetry was requiring more effort and strain for me to fully comprehend. (That's not to say I was catching all of Dante's historical references -- far from it, but I was able to catch all of his references to Homer and Virgil. I think it was either canto ii or iii of Paradiso that made an allusion to the golden bough from book Vi of The Aeneid.) I am considering reading the Mandelbaum translation of Purgatorio and Paradiso before returning to Longfellow's translation.
I agree with your analysis: I did not particularly love Dorothy L. Sayers’s translation, and I believe that Mark Musa’s translation is the most readable. Allen Mandelbaum’s translation is good, but Musa’s is my go-to Dante.
I am not an Italian, but I know the language (and love it so so much). I study Dante at the university (and my thesis is about him). I read The Divine Comedy in the original language (The Tuscan Vernacular) and even though I've read many many translation to English (Sinclair, Pinsky, Durling, Singleton, Hollander, Ciardi, Longfellow and more), I prefer the Italian version. The Hebrew version (for those who knows Hebrew) is quite good. I love when they put the Original poem with the translation side by side, it is wonderful. Nowadays, I read only in Italian, but if in English, I would start with Durling, Pinsky, Sinclair or Ciardi. Been said, Hollander and Longfellow are great too. I think you should start and see how do you feel about it. Personally, I don't like translations that are not in the same structure as the original. The form is very important to the content. I hope I helped somehow and thank you for this video. Just found your channel and it is wonderful :)
I have the Longfellow, the Sayers and a more recent translation by Anthony Esolen which is also dual: Italian and English. I agree that Sayers is clunky but she has the best footnotes! I really like Esolen’s the best out of my tiny sampling.
I’ve heard such good things about the Esolen translation!
I recently found Dr. Stephen Wentworth Arndt translation on Amazon. Written on Iambic Pentameter and Terza Rima. It flows, and I really like it.
I've decided to read the Longfellow translation and a Norwegian translation alongside it. I'm hoping to be sure to get the meaning of the poem and also compare the two to see what the differences are. Hoping it'll be a successful endeavour😅
I’m thinking about reading two translations too! Hopefully we won’t be overwhelmed 😓
Any updates?
Wow...I see I'm very late for the party but I'm so glad to find your channel and the interesting way you're able to communicate it Sub'd!!
Hollander for study, Mandelbaum for reading! 😊
No John Ciardi?
Thanks for the video ... I´ve read Inferno and Purgatory in translation by Longfellow. As a non-native English speaker I can say it´s been a bit .... challenging :D But I wasn´t thinking about the translator when choosing the book - I just wanted to have the beautiful leather bound book with Dore´s drawings...
I used to be that person "i only wanna read a thing in the ORIGINAL version" but now i picked up homer on my Macmillan edition , and actually I just love the penguin classic more modern translation so much better. its just easier to get thru !
I called my list: "the the Comedy of Translations". I couldn't decide on a translation.
One tiny thing I couldn't unhear; you say mEndelbaLm; but it's with an "A" and not "balm" - Mandelbaum.
I'm going with the Longfellow translation, but have a couple of other translations downloaded on my phone just for curiosity's sake.
I’m also going to be comparing a couple of translations-it can be kind of fun!
Hello Jennifer, what are your thoughts about the Robert Pinsky translation? I suppose he only did Inferno.
I am reading John Ciardi translation. I think it is ok but I am super novice. Do you have any thoughts on his work
What are your thoughts on the Pinsky and Mandelbaum translations?
Does this book also have prose translation as well? I don't quite get the poetic verses.
I am not a theologian, medieval historian, Dante expert, or astrologist. However, I am a delver of old English poetry, and regardless of accuracy, I personally find the poetical interpretation (if nothing else) of Henry Boyd to be beautiful.
It was released in 1802 in three volumes, under the title of Divina Commedia.
I would be interested in reading the opinions of his translation in general from Dante experts, whether good or bad, heh.
Who are you and why do i want you to teach/read me this book !! Accidentally found this and i could listen to you all night!! I dont think im bright enough to pick a correct copy and understand its beautiful story .. yet im compelled… can you help? I can’t find the links where you read the book I would love to fall asleep, listening to you
....Ulster poet Ciaran Carson's translation may seem idiosyncratic and, to some extent, inaccurate to some, but over the first 24 hours I owned the book,I read almost all of it aloud, a thing I'd NEVER done before. I was already familiar with a few translations of _The Inferno_ and, perhaps more important, was (and am) a huge admirer of Carson's poetry. Give it a try. It goes, and there's nothing else like it (or like Carson generally, particularly his early to mid stuff)...
You are familiar with Tom LA’s channel? I really appreciate this discussion of translations. Tom’s LA Books.
Thanks Debby! Jennifer and I are planning to do a live video at some point during this readalong, and I can’t wait for that (never done a live before..!).
One Point: The Divine Comedy; apart some latin parts is all written in ''Vulgar'' and that was the ancient Florence language/dialect ; so it' been translated into Italian, even if ''vulgar'' is the original language that modern italian comes from; after that...it's been translated in many languages and even english; some easier like french; others with harsh times as english language itself; it's too ''limited'' for Dante's Master Pieace; as an example in the Ttile ''The Divine Comedy''; the woord comedy it's not refering on something comic or fun; but it means Journey,trips,adventure...of the Village/Town as by the Greek κωμῳδία ; that means Chant of the Village ! Geoffrey Chaucer might be a good example !
As an italian, really is very difficult for me to understand how is possible to traslate in other languages, sorry for that hahaha. I mean that for me the use and choice of words is one of the most fascinating thing in Dante's work, the same for the musicality of the rhymes. Obviuolsly I think this is something very common also for many books I've read but, sadly, I think there is much that is lost.
How do you get so much reading accomplished?
Hello, I'm italian and I can confirm that translations totally break all the opera (I have this theory in a general situation of any text), I study philology and there are so many manuscripts about the Commedia, even some of them don't recognize the original text due to copying ( let's remember that we absolutely do not have the original text but only an ancient manuscript which contains the opera plus Dante' sons commentary, so it is very complicated in general) . Currently I'm studying Dante in the english literature at the University and, for me, the first author who translates in a perfectly way, I mean in a very litteral way is Cary (obviously I don't know every author so he is the first who makes me think about a similar translation). I don't know if you talked about him, but if you like Dante, you should take a look. The Commedia is one of the most beautiful operas we ever had and unfortunately due to the absence of the press (which was only invented an hundred year later (even more)) we are stuch in a vortex of transcriptions and translations who trry (in a naive way) to get close to the autografo. Good video!
Plus, in high school students study an diplomatic edition about the opera, which means the original text whit the same grammar rules and expressions, plus the commentary and notes (testo in prosa I mean).
Who is "Dahntay"?
I would like to see you become a faculty member in modern languages.
what about spanish, French and Portuguese? those are really close to Italian
John Ciardi gets no love? It’s the best one imo .
Your beautiful
You think Longfellow's 1867 version was the first translation into English? Typical American parochialism. Henry Cary's 1814 translation was hugely popular, and went through four editions just in his in his lifetime. I have no doubt Longfellow knew it.