At 04:43 24.12.98 +0100, you wrote:
>Dear friends,
>I'm looking for good, recent and commercially available English translation
>of Dante's works for my students here at Syracuse University Florence
>Program. We are already using Mandelbaum's Comedy and Botterill's De
>Vulgari Eloquentia, and they both work very nicely, but problems arise
>when I need to quote a passage from one of Dante's other works. A facing
>text is essential: poetry is often what gets lost in the translation, and,
>on the other hand, a good translation is often the best commentary on a
>complex poetic text. But, e.g., I wasn't able to get Tusiani's edition of
>the Rime from the book distributor. Why? I thought it came out just now.
Dear Massimiliano,
I have no info on Tusiani's edition (I did not even know about it), but you
could try Marc A. Cirigliano's ([log in to unmask]) translation of the
Rime, published by Edwin Mellen Press, 1997, ISBN 0889467382, available via
Amazon. It is not a literal translation, so probably not what you want, but
you could give it a try. If it has no facing Italian text (I am not sure),
your students could easily combine it with the online text supplied by the
RAI project ITALICA (link on my Dante Homepage).
>And what about Convivio? I wasn't able to get Lansing's translation either.
It seems to be out of print, although you can still place an order with
Amazon. If you want to ask Lansing when it will be reissued, his email
address is <[log in to unmask]>. In the meantime, you can get an online
text of his translation at the ILTweb Digital Dante Project (Columbia),
link on my Dante Homepage.
>Vita Nova perhaps requires a new translation based on Gorni's text and
>paragraphing.
I am not so sure that his paragraphing is really as compelling as he
himself thinks. If Barbi's text still can do in class, I would say that the
best solution is the bilingual edition by Dino S. Cervigni and Edward
Vasta, Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1995, ISBN 0268019258 (hardcover), ISBN
0268019266 (paperback). As you probably know, Cervigni and Vasta were the
first editors to question and abbandon the problematic paragraphing
introduced by Torri and adopted by Barbi. Given that it will still remain
the standard for quoting the text, they still indicate it on the margins of
their edition.
Dante's Rime of doubtful attribution haven't been translated
>yet, if I'm not mistaken. Most editions lack adequate footnotes. And what
>about the Eclogues and the Quaestio (often unjustly overlooked)? Then...
>Shaw's new and excellent translation of the Monarchia has unfortunately no
>facing text, and so on...
For the Monarchia there is now also Richard Kay's
([log in to unmask]) translation with commentary, Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1998. I don't know the ISBN
number, but Richard is a member of our list and will be able to supply it.
What's more, law regulations (rightly) prohibit
>massive photocopying of books (even of those books that are no longer in
>print but still very useful), and thus make it even harder. So, in the end,
>the currency is generally the studying of Inferno only, of which there are
>on the contrary even too many translations (with and without facing text).
Well, the Purgatorio and Paradiso are not really extracurricular readings
:-) And I don't think that there could ever be "too many translations" of
any work whatsoever. I am a bit surprised that you are using Mandelbaum in
your course. I myself would, by all means, prefer Durling/Martinez,
although their Purgatorio and Paradiso are not yet available (the
Purgatorio should be out very soon, and the Paradiso is in the making).
>Now: what does your ideal complete-Dante-in-English look like?
A good question, and I look forward to reading replies from our Anglophone
colleagues! For German readers, the situation has much improved with the
excellent (though much too expensive) translations and commentaries of the
'minor works' supplied by the Suiss Dante Project at the Universite' de
Fribourg (see http://www.unifr.ch/iem/fdp.html). The commentaries deserve
to receive more attention also by non-German Dante scholars.
Yours,
Otfried
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