Dante Alighieri - The Divine Comedy by
Durante degli Alighieri, but better known simply as Dante, was born in Florence in about 1265. He grew to be the major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages and wrote perhaps the greatest of literary works in Italian: The Divine Comedy. In Italy, Dante is often referred to as il Sommo Poeta - "the Supreme Poet". Significantly he writes in the vernacular, an amalgam of Tuscan dialect, Latin and other influence and for this he is often cited as the Father of the Italian Language. As well he wrote The Divine Comedy in a three-line rhyme scheme, or the terza rima, a significant development and its first use, of course, is attributed to him. This major work provided influence for almost all who followed including Milton and Tennyson and has been translated into English by many world class poets including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Laurence Binyon. Henry Francis Cary was born in Gibraltar, on December 6th, 1772. He was the eldest son of William Cary, at the time a Captain of the First Regiment of Foot and Henrietta Brocas. Cary was educated at Rugby School and at the grammar schools of Sutton Coldfield and Birmingham, before proceeding, in 1790, to Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied French and Italian literature. He was a regular contributor at school to the Gentleman's Magazine, and published a volume of Sonnets and Odes. In 1797 he took holy orders and became the vicar of Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire. In 1808 he moved to London and became reader at the Berkeley Chapel and subsequently lecturer at Chiswick and the curate of the Savoy Chapel. Cary's translation of the complete Divina Commedia by Dante in blank verse appeared in 1814. It had to be published by Cary himself as publishers believed the risk of failure too great after the losses on his earlier rendering on The Inferno. The translation was brought to the notice of Samuel Rogers by Thomas Moore. Rogers made some additions to an article on it by Ugo Foscolo in the critically important Edinburgh Review. This article, as well as some fulsome praise from Coleridge in a lecture at the Royal Institution, led to a general consensus of its merit. Gradually Cary's Dante took its place among standard works, passing through four editions in the translator's lifetime. Between 1821 and 1824 Cary published a series of papers in The London Magazine which were later collected together in book form as Lives of The English Poets. He also published a companion volume, Lives of theFrench Poets. In 1824 Cary published a translation of The Birds of Aristophanes, the celebrated Greek dramatist. By 1826 he was appointed assistant librarian in the British Museum, a post which he held for eleven years. Cary had been married to Jane Ormsby for a number of years and the couple had nine children; William Lucius, Jane Sophia, Henrietta, James Walter, Henry, Charles Thomas, Francis Stephen, John and Richard. In 1833 Cary fell ill and was granted a six month leave of absence to recuperate. He took the remaining time to travel with his son, Francis, to Amiens, Paris, Lyons, Aix, Nice, Mentone, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Sienna, Rome (staying a month), Naples, Bologna, Verona, Venice (again staying a month), Innsbruck, Munich, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Ghent and Bruges. In 1841 a crown pension of 200 a year, obtained through the efforts of Samuel Rogers, was conferred on him. Cary's Lives of the early French Poets, and Lives of English Poets (from Samuel Johnson to Henry Kirke White), intended as a continuation of Johnson's Lives of the Poets, were published in collected form in 1846. He was buried in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.
The Divine Comedy, Inferno by
This first volume of Robert Durling's new translation of The Divine Comedy brings a new power and accuracy to the rendering of Dante's extraordinary vision of Hell, with all its terror, pathos, and humor. Remarkably true to both the letter and spirit of this central work of Western literature, Durling's is a prose translation (the first to appear in twenty-five years), and is thus free of the exigencies of meter and rhyme that hamper recent verse translations. As Durling notes, "the closely literal style is a conscious effort to convey in part the nature of Dante's Italian, notoriously craggy and difficult even for Italians." Rigorously accurate as to meaning, it is both clear and supple, while preserving to an unparalleled degree the order and emphases of Dante's complex syntax. The Durling-Martinez Inferno is also user-friendly. The Italian text, newly edited, is printed on each verso page; the English mirrors it in such a way that readers can easily find themselves in relation to the original terza rima. Designed with the first-time reader of Dante in mind, the volume includes comprehensive notes and textual commentary by Martinez and Durling: both are life-long students of Dante and other medieval writers (their Purgatorio and Paradiso will appear next year). Their introduction is a small masterpiece of its kind in presenting lucidly and concisely the historical and conceptual background of the poem. Sixteen short essays are provided that offer new inquiry into such topics as the autobiographical nature of the poem, Dante's views on homosexuality, and the recurrent, problematic body analogy (Hell has a structure parallel to that of the human body). The extensive notes, containing much new material, explain the historical, literary, and doctrinal references, present what is known about the damned souls Dante meets --from the lovers who spend eternity in the whirlwind of their passion, to Count Ugolino, who perpetually gnaws at his enemy's skull--disentangle the vexed party politics of Guelfs and Ghibellines, illuminate difficult and disputed passages, and shed light on some of Dante's unresolved conflicts. Robert Turner's illustrations include detailed maps of Italy and several of its regions, clearly labeled diagrams of the cosmos and the structure of Hell, and eight line drawings illustrating objects and places mentioned in the poem. With its exceptionally high standard of typography and design, the Durling-Martinez Inferno offers readers a solid cornerstone for any home library. It will set the standard for years to come.
Author search: Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321; Author search: Du, Fu, 712-770
The Poetry of du Fu
The Complete Poetry of Du Fu presents a complete scholarly translation of Chinese literature alongside the original text in a critical edition. The English translation is more scholarly than vernacular Chinese translations, and it is compelled to address problems that even the best traditional commentaries overlook. The main body of the text is a facing page translation and critical edition of the earliest Song editions and other sources. For convenience the translations are arranged following the sequence in Qiu Zhao'an's Du shi xiangzhu (although Qiu's text is not followed). Basic footnotes are included when the translation needs clarification or supplement. Endnotes provide sources, textual notes, and a limited discussion of problem passages. A supplement references commonly used allusions, their sources, and where they can be found in the translation. Scholars know that there is scarcely a Du Fu poem whose interpretation is uncontested. The scholar may use this as a baseline to agree or disagree. Other readers can feel confident that this is a credible reading of the text within the tradition. A reader with a basic understanding of the language of Chinese poetry can use this to facilitate reading Du Fu, which can present problems for even the most learned reader.
Selected Poems of du Fu by
Du Fu (712-777) has been called China's greatest poet, and some call him the greatest nonepic, nondramatic poet whose writings survive in any language. Du Fu excelled in a great variety of poetic forms, showing a richness of language ranging from elegant to colloquial, from allusive to direct. His impressive breadth of subject matter includes intimate personal detail as well as a great deal of historical information-which earned him the epithet "poet-historian." Some 1,400 of Du Fu's poems survive today, his fame resting on about one hundred that have been widely admired over the centuries. Preeminent translator Burton Watson has selected 127 poems, including those for which Du Fu is best remembered and lesser-known works.
