Background and Resources

[[deleted user]]

Thanks, Everyman. I had a copy of Dorothy Sayers checked out oginally...but I found myself reading other translations. I might pick her up again...if only to take your suggestion of reading an entire canto...instead of only a few verses. (I had actually forgotten that she had written with that rhyme scheme.)

[Lily]

Here is some background information I came across today on the Dali images illustrating Commedia:

http://dali.parkwestgallery.com/divin...

[Everyman]

Lily wrote: "Here is some background information I came across today on the Dali images illustrating Commedia:

http://dali.parkwestgallery.com/divin..."

Hmmm. I think Dore's approach is better for Hell, but Dali's for Paradise.

[Lily]

Everyman wrote: "Hmmm. I think Dore's approach is better for Hell, but Dali's for Paradise. ..."

I think I agree -- and given how I have always viewed Dali's work previously, that surprises me.

[Thomas]

According to Giuseppe Mazzotta (and Massimo Verdicchio in The Poetics of Dante's Paradiso) Dante links each of the heavens with one of the liberal arts. (Plus three, since there are seven liberal arts and ten heavens.) I've been looking for the connections in the text, but they're not always obvious. I thought I'd list them in case anyone has any observations.

II-IV..... Moon ..... Grammar
V-VII..... Mercury ..... Dialectics (Logic)
VIII-IX ..... Venus ..... Rhetoric
X-XIV ...... Sun ..... Arithmetic
XV-XVII ..... Mars ..... Music
XVIII-XX ..... Jupiter ..... Geometry
XXI-XXII .....Saturn ..... Astronomy
XXIV - XXVI .....Fixed stars ..... Physics and Metaphysics
XXVII-XXIX ..... Primum Mobile ..... Moral Philosophy (Ethics)
XXX-XXXIII .... Empyrean ...... Theology

[Lily]

Thomas wrote: "According to Giuseppe Mazzotta (and Massimo Verdicchio in The Poetics of Dante's Paradiso) Dante links each of the heavens with one of the liberal arts. (Plus three, since there are seven liberal a..."

Thx for this, Thomas. Will try to look out for at least some of these.

[Lily]

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66...

In case you haven't noticed, there are some really fun reviews of The Divine Comedy at the link above.

[Lily]

Laurele -- I read that Barbara Reynolds completed Dorothy Sayers work on Paradiso. Have you been able to tell when/where she took over the translating?

[Laurel]

Lily wrote: "http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66...

In case you haven't noticed, there are some really fun reviews of The Divine Comedy at the link above."

Oh, great!

[Laurel]

Lily wrote: "Laurele -- I read that Barbara Reynolds completed Dorothy Sayers work on Paradiso. Have you been able to tell when/where she took over the translating?"

Sayers had translated the first twenty cantos by the time of her death. Most of the remaining translation work was done by Reynolds.

Here is what Reynolds says in the foreword:

In completing this translation of the Paradiso, I have done my best to continue in the style of the first twenty cantos. My hope that I may have, to some degree, succeeded rests on the fact that over a period of eleven years, and particularly during the last three years of her life, I was in contact with Dorothy Sayers with regard to her work on Dante. In conversations and in letters she discussed in detail her methods of translation, the reasons for her choice of diction, her preferences as to style and rhythm; sometimes she sent as many as ten or twelve trial renderings of a single passage, and frequently she wrote long letters almost wholly concerned with the technique of verse translation. When I learned, after her death, that she had expressed the wish that I should continue her work, I found that I had accumulated a store of information, almost of instruction, as to how to proceed. In writing the Introduction and in the Notes and Commentaries, in order to keep to the style and pattern of the two previous volumes, I have re-read the letters I received from Dorothy Sayers about the Paradiso, her Dante notebooks, and one or two of her unpublished lectures. I have also recalled, as best I could, conversations we had on Dante in Cambridge and Witham and elsewhere. By these and other means, I have endeavoured to ensure as smooth a transition as possible between the first two volumes and the third.

[Laurel]

Here are two interesting paragraphs about Dorothy Sayers' translation and notes, from Barbara Reynold's foreword to Paradise:

My interest in Dorothy Sayers’s work on Dante dates back to August 1946, when I attended a lecture she gave on Canto xxvi of the Inferno at a Summer School of Italian held at Jesus College, Cambridge.1 This was the first of a memorable series of lectures on the Divine Comedy, most of which she later collected together and published in two volumes, entitled Introductory Papers on Dante2 and Further Papers. It was evident from the beginning that she was bringing to Dante studies in this country a new and revitalizing force, and in my foreword to her Introductory Papers I said that she had made possible a new relationship between Dante and the present-day reader. I still think this is true. The most valuable and original service she performed for readers of Dante was to redirect attention to the literal meaning of the Comedy. This she did by commenting, in a stimulating and readable manner, on the story, or poetic reality, of the work. Such an approach should not be regarded as superficial or naively literal-minded. It is, on the contrary, fundamental to a proper understanding of the Comedy. It is no compliment to Dante as an artist to disregard the superb skill with which he constructed his story, related his unique adventure, devised dialogues and situations and created characters. It is not even sound intellectually to do so, for he himself said that the allegory could not be explained until the literal sense had been understood.

In interpreting the allegory, Dorothy Sayers continually drew the reader’s attention to the relevance of the Comedy to life. By her masterly and observant handling of both these aspects, in her lectures, in her introductions and commentaries on Hell and Purgatory, and in her translation itself, she brought Dante within the reach of thousands of readers for whom he would otherwise have remained unintelligible. It is probably true to say that between 1949 (the date of the publication of her translation of the Inferno) and the present day, the Divine Comedy has had more English-speaking readers than it has ever had over a comparable length of time in all its history. This would not have displeased Dante; as Professor E. R. Vincent has said, “he wanted as many readers as possible.… He could not have foreseen the invention of printing and the vast reading public of today, but he certainly appealed to the widest audience known to him. The lettor Dante had in mind was not a learned man, and therefore neither the Divine Comedy nor the Convivio was written in a learned language. Dante wanted readers because he had a message for all.”

[Lily]

Laurele wrote: "Here are two interesting paragraphs about Dorothy Sayers' translation and notes, from Barbara Reynold's foreword to Paradise:

My interest in Dorothy Sayers’s work on Dante dates back to August 194..."

Good stuff. Thx. Looks like I'll "have to" invest in Sayers at some point if I keep reading this thing. It may become to me what I think Paradise Lost is to Eman -- great poetry and epic story to be revisited again and again. Somehow, I like contrasting the theology of yesteryear with what it seems to me may be emerging today -- perhaps not so much as theology but as Christian practice. Also, I like the journey concept of spiritual experience and relate to it.

[Everyman]

Lily wrote: " It may become to me what I think Paradise Lost is to Eman -- great poetry and epic story to be revisited again and again."

How did you know? [g]

[Lily]

Everyman wrote: "Lily wrote: " It may become to me what I think Paradise Lost is to Eman -- great poetry and epic story to be revisited again and again."

How did you know? [g]"

After six years, off and on, of reading together, Cerberus curls up at our feet and says Arf, arf.
LOL!

"Cerberus was the offspring of Echidna, a hybrid half-woman and half-serpent, and Typhon, a fire-breathing giant whom even the Greek gods feared. Its brother is Orthrus, always depicted as a two-headed hellhound.[5] The common depiction of Cerberus in Greek mythology and art is as having three heads. In most works, the three heads each respectively see and represent the past, the present, and the future, while other sources suggest the heads represent birth, youth, and old age.[6] Each of Cerberus' heads is said to have an appetite only for live meat and thus allow only the spirits of the dead to freely enter the underworld, but allow none to leave.[7] Cerberus was always employed as Hades' loyal watchdog, and guarded the gates that granted access and exit to the underworld .[8]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerberus

[Lily]

http://www.gradesaver.com/divine-come...

Has a succinct character list for The Inferno. Didn't explore availability of other books. Stumbled across while looking for something else.

[[deleted user]]

Here is what appears to be a new Dante resource:

http://www.worldofdante.org/index.html

[Lily]

Zeke wrote: "Here is what appears to be a new Dante resource:

http://www.worldofdante.org/index.html"

What a way to exploit the popularity of Dan Brown to promote a new book and to expose a broader audience to the classical Dante! (This appears to be tightly related to the site we used extensively during the discussion of The Commedia. I wonder what is going on -- a transfer in funding and support? Otherwise?)

[Lily]

I am thoroughly confused. The Princeton site, which the one at University of Virginia now looks so much like, appears to not be very functional. I can't get many links to work today. It provided comparisons with Hollander's translations. The new "worldofdante" site appears to compare with Mandelbaum's translation, according to the introductory video.

http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/pdp/

http://www.worldofdante.org/index.html

Zeke, if I may ask, how did you learn of the "new site"? Any way we can readily find some background?

Some fascinating changes and enhancements! Just a little sad as to what may be happening to the Princeton Dante Project. In hindsight, I can't totally reconstruct all the ways I worked between the two, just that they seemed tightly integrated to the point that I did not consider them as independent.

[Lily]

Wonderful little video on the Bodleian Library treasure re: Dante:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkUEs...

Brought to my attention on this board:

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

[Laurel]

I'd love to see all the pages, Lily!

[Lily]

Laurele wrote: "I'd love to see all the pages, Lily!"

Most of the illustrations are available online.

Laurele -- the link for each book is available here @ msg 39:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Most, if not all, can also be accessed via the Gallery section of World of Dante (Links to other artists near bottom of page):

http://www.worldofdante.org/gallery_m...

(Links for Purgatory and Paradise are at the end of Inferno illustrations.)

I believe these illustrations can generally be enlarged to full screen.

[Laurel]

Thanks, Lily.