Divine Comedies for the New Millennium : Recent Dante Translations in America and the Netherlands

The difficulty of translating Dante has, paradoxically, created a steady of flux of translations. Around the year 2000, seven __cantiche__ were translated by Dutchmen and seven by Americans, giving rise to a seminar on the state and tradition of translating Dante in both countries. In the course of discussing these landmark translations, contributors to this volume inevitably make statements about how Dante's masterpiece should be read: as a poem, to be translated fearlessly and confrontationally; as a scholarly text, to be treated cautiously and rigorously; or as some combination of the two? Dante's intranslatability paradoxically causes a steady flux of translations, overwhelming in America, much more modest in the Netherlands. However, the tiny Netherlands witnessed a remarkable boom of Dante translations around the year 2000: within a short period seven cantiche were translated by Dutchmen and seven by Americans. This historic moment gave rise to a seminar about these recent translations, and about the traditions of translating Dante in both nations. The American and Dutch Divine Comedies discussed in this volume are important landmarks in a long tradition of making Dante's work accessible to non-Italian readers in both countries. On this already crowded stage, however, every newcomer inevitably makes statements about how Dante's masterpiece should be read: as a poem, as a scholarly text or as a scholarly poem? The old polarization between the fearless (at times reckless) 'poetical' translators and the more cautious 'academic' translators is very much alive, and the choice seems one between compromise and confrontation, between caution and courage. This volume contains articles by Paolo Cherchi (University of Chicago, Università di Ferrara), Robert Hollander (Princeton University), Jean Hollander, Pieter de Meijer (University of Amsterdam), Paul van Heck (University of Leiden), and Ronald de Rooy (University of Amsterdam). This title is available in the OAPEN Library - http://www.oapen.org Divine Comedies For The New Millennium / Ronald De Rooy -- Translations Of Dante's Comedy In America / Paolo Cherchi -- Translating Dante Into English Again And Again / Robert Hollander -- Getting Just A Small Part Of It Right / Jean Hollander -- The Poet Tranlated By American Poets / Ronald De Rooy -- Ciò Ch Potea De Lingua Nostra: One Hundred And More Years Of Dante Translations Into Dutch / Paul Van Heck -- Translating Dante's Translations / Pieter De Meijer. Edited By Ronald De Rooy. Includes Index. Selected Bibliography Of American And English Dante Translations: P. 135-140.

A lively debate on the recently published American and Dutch translations of Dante's masterpiece.