/lit/ - Literature

>>10112348
Once you're more confident with your Italian, say, after 3 or 4 semesters, I recommend finding an Italian edition of Divine Comedy. They usually have great footnotes that'll explain any ambiguous vocabulary. (Sadly the one I had eyed for awhile in a bookstore was snatched up.)

Just get a copy that has Italian on one page and English on the other.

>>10112397
>3 or 4 semesters
I can already read it just fine, only I'll occassionally run into a noun or adjective I've never seen before, but hey, that also happens with english, so

My point was: Is a more "legitimate" experience, as I imagine?

>>10112397
There is arguably better English scholarship than Italian scholarship on the Divine Comedy these days (and it has been that way for most of the past century). And any footnotes on a non-budget English edition will be more than sufficient, with some going above and beyond (Hollander, Durling-Martinez, Ciardi, etc.)

>>10112403
>Is it* a more

>>10112403
I think the same rules apply to Dante as most poets read in translation. You'd miss out on formal qualities of his craft such as meter and rhyme, but a good translation will carry the meaning across. Your Italian seems sufficient to dive into an Italian edition with good annotations.

>>10112405
I'm no expert on Dante let alone Italian literature. I've just noticed from my own reading in medieval French literature that French editions would help me parse out archaic spellings and pronunciation of words I already knew in French. I noticed the same in the Divine Comedy that got away from me...

Thanks for the input, I'm going in seco.

which is hardest for a non-italian, divine comedy or orlando furioso?

>>10112779
>orlando furioso
Probably this on account of what >>10112405 said:
>There is arguably better English scholarship than Italian scholarship on the Divine Comedy these days
If we're going by language alone I'd wager it's actually easier since it's written in a language that's a lot closer to contemporary italian

>>10112779
Why do you want to know which is hardest?

>>10112807
Why do we want to know anything?

>>10112348
dropping this here for whoever finds it helpful

>>10112849
Woah

>>10112964
I really hate it when they translate verse to rhyme in other languages. That doesn't sound assbackwards to anyone else?

>>10112403
>is reading something in its original language a more legitimate experience?
is this a serious question

>>10113019
Medieval florentine dialect =/= contemporary italian, you retard-o-matic fuck

>>10113026
so what?

>>10113038
>what does it matter that you answered my question?
Is this a serious question?

>>10113009
No, I prefer it. The Penguin translation of the ~1000 pages of Orlando Furioso with much of the rhyme preserved is a miracle. Also the literal translations of Goethe's Faust with no rhyme sound like absolute ass due to the difficulty of the translation already and its poetic character without it just becomes inane and it sounds like wiry and long-winded prose in a bewildering style that has literally never existed in English writings

>>10113322
But it's basically a different book. Someone else took the liberty of bending the words so that they rhyme in other languages. It's like a tribute; a cover if you will. I'd rather know what the text says and appreciate the verse in its native language as music rather than have someone decide how the rhyme should go by themselves.

>>10113038
do you have a 5 second memory or what? how did you forget the context of his answer?

>>10112403
>should I read this work in the original language that I have no problems understanding or should I read a version that is obviously an inferior, diluted experience?
Sweetie...

>>10113395
>original language
How did you injure yourself so badly?

>>10113395
>>10113026
I like it when retards call other people retards

>>10113395
we've been through this, pumpkin
>>10113026

Any good translation in Spanish?
I have a Kindle so...

>>10113397
>>10113400
>>10113401
wew lad

>>10113405
>I have a Kindle so...
welp, I was gonna say Ediciones Libertador are godly for the big classics, but I've no idea how Kindle even works

>>10113406
oh man weve been had haha nice memeing lad x'D

>>10112403
you should translate it yourself

>>10113412
I don't speak medieval florentine

>>10113397
Are you saying modern Italian editions do not use the original language?

>>10113426
That is precisely the case, my dear friend. You see, the original language is extinct, much in the same way middle english is extinct.

You could also read it in English and Italian.
You'are welcome.
>https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Divine_Comedy

>>10113451
I'm thinking of getting the actual book, which is why I made this thread. Sorta already made my mind some >>10112480 seven hours ago anyway

>>10113375
Any translation is a 'different book' compared to its source text. That the relationship between the source and target text should be one of identity and not difference is an outdated view inside translational research, so it all depends firstly on how well a language is able to render the Italian rhymes without becoming repetitive and seeming forced and secondly on the skill of the translator. Personally, I read a translation that didn't try to rhyme, and instead it focused on maintaining a good flow and on translating the meanings most accurately, but it could have been done differently and there's no intrinsic merit to either of the two strategies.
For my money it's more important to have a version with a solid commentary because Italian history is a clusterfuck, like medieval physics, and they both take up a lot of room in the book. Having read the Bible and the Aeneid also helps a lot, but you can also make up for this with a good commentary.

>>10112405
>There is arguably better English scholarship than Italian scholarship on the Divine Comedy these days
have anglos ever even made a critical text lmao

>>10113572
you know nothing about how divine comedy scholarship do you

It's actually not hard to read in Italian.

Poetry should never be read in translation. Translated works are their own work

>>10113616
if you did you'd know textual criticism is impossible because there are no textual families, no hierarchies, there is no equivalent of an alexandrian or byzantine text-type for the dc.

tell us, o great scholar of dante, is inf. vii, 106 "una palude fa", or "in la palude va"? which is right? why? does virgil say the latin-like "mostrerolli" or the tuscanian-like "mosterrolli" in purg. xxi, 32? is it "contasto" or "contrasto?" if dante says "sodisfàmmi" does virgil say "satisfatto sarà" or "soddisfatto sarai"?

lmaoing at ur life

>>10112405
It's Kirkpatrick's edition any good?
(He taught me the Renaissance paper when I read Eng Lit at Cantab.)

>>10112405
>There is arguably better English scholarship than Italian scholarship on the Divine Comedy
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

>>10112348
If you can read it in the original language, go for it. All the English translations I've read were kinda meh and didn't really manage to communicate the beauty of the poem (try reading some excerpts online and see if you understand what you're reading before diving in tho, Dante obviously didn't write in modern Italian and some passages can be hard even for a native)

>>10113646

t. guy who can't read Homer in the original

Also, in case you find reading Dante too hard, you should try reading some of the 20th century great Italian poets (Montale, D'Annunzio, Ungaretti, Zanzotto, etc).

>>10113692
>>10113692
Why do you find it hard to believe English scholarship could be superior to Italian work on Dante? For the longest time it held true for Shakespeare that German scholarship was miles beyond, to the point where the Germans practically 'invented' Shakespeare as we know him, and I'm sure you could still make a similar claim today as gems of Shakespearean scholarship continue to be written by Germans.
I'm not saying Italian scholar is actually inferior, but you come off as a total philistine whose only 'qualification' would be speaking Italian on a native level with which you deny all the rest of us poor 'muggles' a say in the matter. Furthermore, if you're actually Italian, the same argument you implied could be turned against you, because how would you be able to rate an English translation?

>>10112348
Read in Italian if your understanding is good enough, which it should be considering the language used is relatively modern and familiar.
I'm reading it in French because I can't into Italian at all but you lose all the rhymes to preserve the meaning which makes the read a bit tedious.

OP, you should definitely wait until you've learned Italian.

You will lose all, I said ALL, if you read it in translation. It's like reading simplified Shakespeare.

If you really want to know the *subject matter*, then read a prose translation.

I first read it in Portuguese and I couldn't stand it. Then I read some of it in English and it still looked somewhat tiresome. I could see the genius behind it, but I couldn't feel it. It was as if I was looking at a woman through a very dark veil.

Then I started searching for my grandfather's documents in order to get my Italian citizenship, and took the trouble to learn the language. All I can say is: Dante created the best art I have ever experienced. I do not have musical education, nor have I ever been to more than one museum, so this statement isn't based after too much first-hand knowledge - however, as far as literature goes, Dante is my preferred choice.

Where are you from, OP? If you speak Portuguese, Spanish or French, you shouldn't take more than two or three months to get to Dante. You would still have a lot of dictionary search to do while reading, but that's OK.

>>10113026
Yeah, but it's still very easy to understand, because modern Italian was mainly based after the Tuscan dialect of the three great writers (Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca). The biggest challenge is to understand Dante's symbolism and obscure references. Most Italian editions will come with at least half a page of footnotes, every page.

>>10114079
But have you tried learning Italian? It's similar to French. Only the pronunciation is quite different, but I suppose you can get used to it quickly. I have never studied French, but using my knowledge of PT, Italian, Spanish and English I can understand Flaubert, and Flaubert seems to me to have a very large vocabulary. Sure, I don't understand all of the words, and it takes me one hour to read twelve pages, but I can get the 'story' and enjoy the more poetic paragraphs. I don't think it would take you more than three months studying Italian for you to read Dante, even if only one or two isolated canti now and again.

I didn't study Italian. I watched some Fellini movies, listened to Verdi, Mozart and some contemporary popular songs (Fabrizio de Andre, Gaber), and then delved straight into Indro Montanelli's series on the history of Italy, using a dictionary. It's written in a very easy-reading style. Montanelli was a journalist (sort of a conservative liberal, thank God) who wrote history to the large public, following the old 'great men' style without forgetting about the lives of the common people. His books are very nice to read, and he makes it easy for you to memorize important persons and facts.

>>10114127
I would but I'm a student and my time at home is already used on projects and studying, so I don't really have the time to learn a new language these days.

>>10114136
That is very sad. I am a Law student, so I am sort of free to basically ignore all of my university-related work and focus on literature instead. Had I chosen computer engineering, which I almost did, I would have found myself in your situation. It will be a terrible day when reality decides to knock on my door.

>>10114072
>Why do you find it hard to believe English scholarship could be superior to Italian work on Dante?
Because:
>For the longest time it held true for Shakespeare that German scholarship was miles beyond, to the point where the Germans practically 'invented' Shakespeare as we know him, and I'm sure you could still make a similar claim today as gems of Shakespearean scholarship continue to be written by Germans.

>>10114151
>Had I chosen computer engineering
Yeah that's me.

>>10114173
Thank you for confirming my suspicions

>>10113653
literal utisy googling things he doesn't understand detected
if you weren't a basement dwelling shitpostee you'd know everything you posted about and more is vigorously discussed in English and not so much in Italian, which defaults to making the text more modern in cases of disagreement

>>10112348
OP, stop with these questions.
You must read it in every different language you can find a translation of. YOU MUST DO IT!!!!
STOP FUCKING AROUND!

>>10114072
>For the longest time it held true for Shakespeare that German scholarship was miles beyond, to the point where the Germans practically 'invented' Shakespeare as we know him, and I'm sure you could still make a similar claim today as gems of Shakespearean scholarship continue to be written by Germans.

This meme invented by Tolstoy needs to end.

>>10114446
no

>>10113405
i read Mitre's and it was p good

>>10113567
>Any translation is a 'different book' compared to its source text.
That's only technically true, but you can't just reduce a very simple statement to such an extreme one. It's not the same thing to translate something word for word than to translate it by changing the words and choosing the ones you think are going to make the prettiest rhymes. One of them is just mirroring the text while the other is clubbing it into your preferred shape

>>10114446
lmao anglo/nordic larper should be exterminated en masse

>>10113429
So that means you can't find any chaucer on middle english?

>>10115297

What literary movement does de Sade's work fit in?

What other books can you recommend that are as brutal as his work?

--

I asked the same to an Italian studentessa and she said that even Italians kids read it in books that often have more footnotes than text. Think about how hard it would be for a fresh English speaker to read Hamlet, then remember that Shakespeare was writing in the early modern period, and Dante right at the start of the Dark Ages.

She also said I should get to know the historical background, as Dante didn't write like someone who believed that he would be read after his time. He expected his reader to be familiar with even the cronaca of

(shitty android app)
With the cronaca of contemporary Florence. So there's a big linguistic and historical bridge to cross before you can really read Dante.

And now you have me thinking about my Beatrice. More than a year since I saw her last. I'll need valium to sleep tonight.

>>10113429
What a lying faggot

Every copy of the divine comedy is printed with the same words Dante wrote plus footnotes.

Even schoolbooks.

t. Italian

>>10115333
In the french pedos movement. It has been going on for 1000 years

>>10115418
>beatrice

Little Easter egg you got there, ya larping scoundrel

>>10115399
>right at the start of the Dark Ages.
More like right at the turning point between the middle ages and early renaissance

>>10115418
thank you vincent desiderio

>>10115399
>the start of the Dark Ages
>1300
>not the end of the 13th Century Renaissance.

>>10115455

Hard not to larp a little when the most famous painting of Dante and Beatrice shows them at the end of Ponte della Santa Trinita, where me and this girl separated after walking home at the end of the day.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Henry_Holiday_-_Dante_meets_Beatrice.jpg

Maybe I'll also write a masterpiece about this girl who, in retrospect, I barely knew and certainly doesn't think about me any more, just like Dante.

Sigh

>>10115509
Hot damn who's the one in red

So, what's the ultimate edition? What's the best italian edition? Bilingual edition? With/without annotation? Should someone expect the annotation to be even longer than the actual text? What's the point then, there? You'll understand the world alright, but you won't be able to enjoy reading it.

>>10115518

She kinda breaks the immersion for me as someone with red hair and that sort of complexion wouldn't last a day in the Florence summer.

>>10115529
Yeah because I'd smash that to smithereens

>>10115529
>wouldn't last a day in the Florence summer.
>"July is the hottest month in Florence with an average temperature of 25°C"
Nigga that's not even hot; it's short sleeves + long trousers weather

>>10115523
>What's the best italian edition?
UTET

>What's the point then, there?
Knowing what Dante's talking about.

>>10115538
I was there July through to September last year and It broke 30 degrees more often than not. In August it was generally around 35. Trying to live there and get work done in these months is next to impossible. The entire city shuts down for about six weeks for this reason.

>>10115557
>Knowing what Dante's talking about.
How about enjoying the work for its literary merit, though? The story, the technique, the metaphors and even the prose (inb4copypasta) can be enjoyed without literally academic ammounts of annotation

>>10115561
This summer wasn't normal though. Italy got melted this year. I hope trump reconsider the Paris climate agreement

>>10115561
Where I live, temperatures between December and February can fluctuate from 35 to 50, so Iunno

>>10115557
>UTET
Go into a bit of detail, why don't you? Why is it the best, in your opinion? What's the most recent print? Will I find it in, say, Amazon?

>>10115596
>I hope trump reconsider the Paris climate agreement
It's too late anyway

>>10115509
You can see that painting in either Manchester or Liverpool; I can't remember which.

>>10112964

No Musa, jet half translates are up there.
>REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>10113418
Medieval Florentine is modern Italian...

>>10115529
>What's the best Italian edition?
Probably some 200€ obscure edition by one of the many Italian Dante study societies which consist of 3000 pages of literary criticism and 500 of the actual text (I've seen a couple of these old tomes with my own eyes, pretty amazing stuff)


>>10114072
>Why do you find it hard to believe English scholarship could be superior to Italian work on Dante?
I mean... because it isn't? Are you aware of how much we love to wank over Dante's poem? We've done it for 600 years. Also, anglos who are interested in Italian literature are a very small minority and a even smaller group are those who actually speak the language. Which, ya know, it's actually a pretty important thing when doing poetry criticism. Italians start reading Dante in middle school, with edition with footnotes that cover half the page, most anglos (at least from my personal experience) don't even know about basic stuff like the four levels of interpretation or the numerical symbolims.

>I'm not saying Italian scholar is actually inferior, but you come off as a total philistine whose only 'qualification' would be speaking Italian on a native level with which you deny all the rest of us poor 'muggles' a say in the matter.
Sorry but this is a dumb argument. Italian isn't some Arabic language, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Italian criticism of Dante is translated and every Anglo that is actually interested in the poem knows about it. And if it was untranslated, as you seem to imply, yes, you'd still need to read it in order to make a judgement. Thinking otherwise is plain retarded, and makes you sound like the typical ignorant American that unconsciously thinks that "everything worth reading is translated to English and if it isn't translated it isn't worth reading" or something along these lines.
>Furthermore, if you're actually Italian, the same argument you implied could be turned against you, because how would you be able to rate an English translation?
Because I can speak English pretty decently and I've read the poem in the original language?

Btw read Montale

>>10115509
>>10115932
Indeed, it's at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Worth a visit if you like The Pre-Raphaelites.

>>10116019
ya sure and middle english is present-day english you dunce

>>10116045
Lemme rephrase: What is the best currently in print and not obscure as fuck italian edition for someone who just wants to read the fucking thing goddamn.

Not everyone looking for decent editions of books is looking to devote the rest of their lives to becoming a scholar on it, and I think you understand that, so either tell me you don't know or stop being so pedantic, fuck.

>>10113697
huh?
he just said works should only be read originally..

>>10116066
And the other guy counted with an example how how ludicrous that statement is: If we're to take it seriously then we should give up on reading anything written in any language that has either been lost or requires years and years of study to master.

At least that's my take on that exchange.

>>10116059
Yeah i know lol I was just joking. I'd go with UTET as the other anon said (yeah I think you can find it on Amazon, I've seen it the other day at the bookstore). Currently I'm rereading my edition from High school (pic related).

>>10116083
thanks

>>10116083
>>10116087
I've been looking for a while now and it's really hard to find an UTET edition of the book that's in one volume and below a thousand-or-so Euros.

>>10116185
just get any italian version, how different can it be, it's the same language

>>10116537
Are there different italian versions? Of the actual text, I don't mean the annotations, There really can't be, can there?

>>10117338
I think that's the question we should be addressing? What's the translation that's the most loyal to the original medieval florentine dialect? Assuming for time's sake that it's present-day italian, do italian translations vary? As >>10117338 said, we're talking about Dante's writing itself, regardless of annotation.

Would any book bought in Italian, maybe at some random italian bookshop, as long as it has the three parts in it, do?

>>10115566
You can't without the language. Go ask any Italian what a "vas" is.

>>10117378
>do italian translations vary?
WE DO NOT TRANSLATE DANTE

Italian editions often do not even bother with a paraphrase.

>the original medieval florentine dialect
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU ANGLOS THAT TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE DIVINE COMEDY HAS PROVEN TO BE AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK

WE DO NOT HAVE A GENEALOGY OF TEXTS

WE CANNOT DIVIDE THE 800 MANUSCRIPTS INTO FAMILIES WITH CLEAR LINES OF TRANSMISSION

Either you go with the volgata, which you find pretty much everywhere, or with the UTET version in which the professional opinion of the editor, this Siro Amedeo Chimenez, is that the volgata needed some corrections, he tells you everything about it in the introduction, and also in the notes.

>Would any book bought in Italian
What part of "UTET" do you not understand? Just pirate it off libgen FFS.

>>10112403
>I can already read it just fine
Then why wouldn't you read it in Italian, ya goofball?

>>10117955
See: entire thread

>>10117745
>Just pirate it off libgen FFS.
Looking for a physical copy, bud

>>10117745
>vas
a vessel or duct

>>10118012
In Latin. It meant pic related in "Dantese."

>>10118110
I was kidding of course, but do you not think that you can deduce something like that from context? It's not like the book is written in latin, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. As it stands it seems I won't be able to get the UTET edition any time soon

>>10117745
oh you never actually read the divine comedy. besides snippets in high school
it's all.obvious now kek

>>10118941
Look at you explaining in detail what led you to that conclusion. Truly a scholar.

>>10118945
>he doesn't deny it

>>10119320
I'm not the other guy. I haven't read the Commedia. You're still a trolling little shit.

>>10119375
get off of /lit/

>>10119375
pleb

>>10118937
>do you not think that you can deduce something like that from context?
No. This is not Chaucer that somehow still sounds like English but reads like the captions of cats on the internet.

Another fun fact for your thread: Italians began speaking this thing called "Italian language" for real shortly after the introduction of the television to the peninsula. Said language being a scholarly project that began, but did not finish, with Dante, and there really was no equivalent of the King James Bible + Shakespeare establishing some manner of state of the art in the middle of the road from Dante's days to the current year. Even today my parents don't talk to each another in Italian.

>deluded Italians think Dante wrote in Italian
kek.

>>10119498
*anglos

>>10119498
>literally read the last five, maybe ten posts
kek.

>>10119442
>>10119445
>lol why are you trying to learn about a book in this site about books
also samegaf

>>10119519
you should fuck off back to r/books or /pol/ or whatever you're from until you actually read something sweetie

>>10119636
>reddit
>pol
>sweetie
come on, surely you can do better than this

>>10112807
because I am not italian but am learning it. will start with calvino and will go up to 'harder' books. in the future, as major goal, I want to read those 2, and I will have to pick one of them first.

>>10112348
What's the best English translation? I can't decide between Darling and Musa

>>10119659
/pol/ is undeniably the most reddit board on this entire site. at least half of the users that post there are from the trump reddit page

>>10120720
I don't see how that's related at all to the previous exchange

>>10120967
might be because you're a low iq crossposter from /pol/ who lacks critical faculties

>>10113429
You know nothing.

>>10121138
>you haven't read dante therefore you're a /pol/tard
you're right it makes perfect sense
>>10121319
fine the original dialect isn't dead, it just evolved into the ugly tuscan language, parts of which held responsible for present day Italian
Which means that Dante's medieval florentine language didn't die. It just went through corruption, disfigurement and had random bits of it ripped from its already decaying and sad, wretched state, so as to yield material to the construction of this monolithical language that is contemporary ITALIANO

daily reminder Anglos understand Dante better than (((italians)))

>>10121463
sure you do