> Sorry, Rob, this only just came through to me. Vittoria Colonna wrote
> sonnets, George Kay somewhat condescendingly refers to her as 'this
> excellent lady recorded her love for her husband in numerous sonnets'.
K -- I stand corrected on this.
[Did I ever mention that George Kay once tried to seduce one of my
ex-fiancées? Right, obviously I +didn't+ say that, as it's libelous. Or
speaking ill of the dead.]
> I didn't mention which Duino Elegy as I assumed people would know, but I
see
> Anny has provided the info anyhow.
Yeah -- I was simply too lazy to look it up.
> I kept Sidney's sister and others out of
> the frame as I was just sticking to Italian poetry of that period, partly
to
> maintain coherence of reference.
Um ... Yeah, but Sonnets Are Male. I really can't think of anyone other
than Gaspara Stampa who was a woman-writing-sonnets. At least not in
England. Dunno. But then I'm pretty monolingual.
> Anyhow, I better not try to sound clever, as I've realised one of my big
> problems is that a lot of persons dislike the fact that a piece of
low-life
> like me +knows+ so much, just by opening my mouth I upset the ways things
> should be., knowledge is the prerogative of the powerful, not the weak, so
I
> apologise, I truly am sorry that I know anything.
So you bloody ought to be -- get back beneath your stone.
<g>
> (PS I don't mean you in that critique.)
As if ...
Robin
ADDENDUM: Garioch and Belli ...
Garioch's translations of Belli are contained in pages 217 ff of the
_Complete Poetical Works_, edited by Robin Fulton. Lines Review Editions,
1983. It seems as if (and say this with a slight degree of discomfort, as
I reviewed the bloody book for, of all places, _Lines Review_) that
Garioch's knowledge of Belli and Italian was sufficient that he didn't need
a co-translator. But he +was+ working with Antonia Stott, who introduces
the translations in the postumous 83 Collected.
Other than that ... surely someone knows more about this than me? Right, I
+know+ I ought to have got this right in the first place .. So sue me.
;-)
R2D2.
Further Addendum (as it may not be totally obvious) ...
George Kay was Professor of Italian at Glasgow University in the sixties,
about the time that the damn place seemed to be over-run with potes -- Ken
White, Eddie Morgan, Alexander Scott, Philip Hobsbaum -- you couldn't walk
across the quadrangle without tripping over a poet. (And that was only
staff-side.)
Anyway (and where this makes a minimal amount of sense) is that George Kay
edited _The Penguin Book of Italian Verse_ wherein he published and
translated both Gaspara Stampa and Vittoria Colonna. And yeah, naturally,
Mike the Angel.
See? It makes perfect sense if you just think about it ...
As to my ex-fiancée, let's not get into that.
:-(
CP3O
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