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This document provides background information on two recent translations of Dante's Inferno from the late 20th century. It discusses the challenges of translating Dante given his own views on translation expressed in earlier works. It also outlines some key differences in the translation approaches of C.K. Williams and Robert Pinsky, despite them being contemporaries. The document defenses translating Dante by exploring his elevation of the vernacular Italian language for poetry and his implied universal Christian audience that extended beyond Italian readers. It suggests translation was necessary to allow non-Italian speakers access to his work and for future Italian audiences as the language evolved.
This document provides background information on two recent translations of Dante's Inferno from the late 20th century. It discusses the challenges of translating Dante given his own views on translation expressed in earlier works. It also outlines some key differences in the translation approaches of C.K. Williams and Robert Pinsky, despite them being contemporaries. The document defenses translating Dante by exploring his elevation of the vernacular Italian language for poetry and his implied universal Christian audience that extended beyond Italian readers. It suggests translation was necessary to allow non-Italian speakers access to his work and for future Italian audiences as the language evolved.
This document provides background information on two recent translations of Dante's Inferno from the late 20th century. It discusses the challenges of translating Dante given his own views on translation expressed in earlier works. It also outlines some key differences in the translation approaches of C.K. Williams and Robert Pinsky, despite them being contemporaries. The document defenses translating Dante by exploring his elevation of the vernacular Italian language for poetry and his implied universal Christian audience that extended beyond Italian readers. It suggests translation was necessary to allow non-Italian speakers access to his work and for future Italian audiences as the language evolved.
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Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Translation Review Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/utrv20 In the Midst of an Infernal Crowd: Dante and the Original Text(S) James J. Donahue Published online: 21 Aug 2012. To cite this article: James J. Donahue (1999) In the Midst of an Infernal Crowd: Dante and the Original Text(S), Translation Review, 58:1, 31-44, DOI: 10.1080/07374836.1999.10523749 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07374836.1999.10523749 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the Content) contained in the publications on our platform. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions IN THE MIDST OF AN INFERNAL CROWD: DANTE AND THE ORIGINAL TEXT(S) BYJAMES 1. DONAHUE A work dies by being completed. Paul Valery, "Variations on the Eclogues" D ante' s Commedia is one of the most translated works of all time, numbering about three dozen complete translations, and this into English alone. Among these translations, the most individually translated book of the three is the Inferno, numbering about 50, as well as more than 100 partial translations (individual cantos, strings of cantos) (Toynbee 156- 304). For various reasons-poetic, philosophical, theological, political-English-speaking translators have found new reasons for bringing this poem back (the first major wave starting in the 18th century, but having been translated-or at least incorporated into English literature-as far back as Chaucer).' Moving in and out of academic favor, Dante's great epic has, by our time, become a stable part of the English lit- erary canon. For this, we thank a number of "stan- dard" translations from the modem age in academic circles, most notably by Dorothy Sayers (1949)/ John Ciardi (1954), Charles S. Singleton (1970), and Allen Mandelbaum (1980). Recently, within the space of two years, two very noteworthy-and very different-translations of the Inferno have been pub- lished, one collection by 20 contemporary poets (1993) and a second by Robert Pinsky (1994), who was also a contributor to the aforementioned collec- tion. C. K. Williams (who translated canto xix in the collection) and Robert Pinsky (the current American Poet Laureate), despite their working in the same era and genre, have translated this work in two very dif- ferent manners. This is a result of their differing translation practices, specifically for the translating of Dante, and intentions for their works. Although neither poet is new to the art of translation, both used different strategies than they are used to. This article will compare these two translations, but in order to do so, much must be accounted for. Therefore, a look Translation Review at issues in translation will be explored, especially for the translation of poetry in general and Dante specifically, as well as contemporary translation practice. However, before such an enterprise may begin, a defense of the translation of Dante must be put forward. Furthermore, these two translations- and maybe even the act of translation itself-have serious implications for the question of authorship, which can be used as a frame to discuss the role of the translator in contemporary literature. Defense for Translation Before writing his great vernacular epic the Commedia (1308-1321), Dante wrote a treatise dis- cussing, among other issues, the act of translation. In "Translation Destroys the Sweetness of the Original" from Il convivio (1304-1307), Dante wrote against the act of translating poetry. All translators of Dante must work against the charge that "nothing harmo- nized by the laws of the Muses [i.e., poetry] can be changed from its own tongue to another without destroying all its sweetness and harmony" (Hillard 48). There are two defenses against this charge: Dante's own views on language and the inherent untranslatability of the poem. In De Vulgari Eloquentia (1302-1305), Dante extols the beauties of the vernacular language over the dead "grammatica," Latin, then the language of academics. Latin, as a language of discourse and especially of poetry, is rigid. Conversely, the vernac- ular is "illustrious" (II, i) "because it was the lan- guage originally used by the human race ... because the whole world employs it '" and .,. because it is natural to us, while the other is, in contrast, artificial" (I, i). This is a special issue for poets, whose very life is spent in developing this language. Although Dante spends much time breaking down the differences in the various local Italian vernaculars, in search of the "noblest" language to express (Italian) poetic senti- ment (II), the significance for the issue of translation 31 D o w n l o a d e d
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lies in his discussion of the importance of the com- mon tongue for poetry. Throughout Book II, Dante discusses the role of the vernacular in poetry. Despite its commonness, only poets of the highest caliber-those with the most "knowledge of' and "affinity for" poetics (II, ii)-are able to fully flush out the intricacies and beauties of the vernacular. Furthermore, the vernacu- lar should be used in poetry only for the most appro- priate subjects ("well-being," "love," and "virtue") and only in the "noblest" form, the canzone (II, iii). The canzone, a lyrical ballad usually consisting of any number of stanzas of equal lines and an envoy of fewer lines at the end, was popularized by Petrarch (1304-1374) and used by Italian poets singly, as well as stringing them together for the epic.' (Although Dante also writes of tragedy as the "highest" poetic mode, he was later to use canzoni for his great comic epic.) Rather than explicate the nuances of Italian poet- ics discussed in this work, what is important here is the fact that Dante is discussing the poetic merits of the vernacular language over the "grammatica." Dante's discussion centers on the argument that only the vernacular is suitable for the highest modes of poetry. Thus, his great epic must have been written in the vernacular for it to strive for the highest poetic laurels. But what implications does this have for trans lation? Had Dante written the Commedia in Latin, the educated across Europe could have universally read it. However, his use of Italian was as much a linguis- tic as a poetic statement. Although Dante was dealing specifically with the Italian vernacular, his argument could easily be extended to all European vernaculars (or at least the Romance languages). As such, Dante was implicitly arguing for the raising of vernacular language to the status previously held by classical language. By breaking free from a universal lan- guage and promoting the use of the national lan- guage, Dante's move begs for translation for two rea- sons. First, Dante's audience must be considered. Although he was very consciously writing a nation- ally based poem, taking most of his examples from the contemporary political, religious, and social 32 issues of his time and place,' his implied reader is not specifically an Italian but a Christian. Thus, his audi- ence reaches beyond the borders of his own lan- guage, and for these non-Italian-speaking Christians to read his poem, it must be translated into their ver- nacular (or Latin, which was still the language of the Church, but this would negate the use of the vernac- ular). Furthermore, although this is not explicit in the poem itself, one should consider the implications of Italian as a living language. Unlike Latin, Italian was still evolving, and as such, the work would later require translation, because the language would inevitably change. Thus, a translation would still be necessary even for an Italian-speaking audience of later times. Second, this work would require translation to help establish what would become a multilingual poetic community. Where poets from two different language backgrounds would have had the same background for poetry written in the "grammatica," no set background(s) would be in effect for reading multiple types of vernacular poetry (except possibly within that language community, as in Dante's set standards in De Vulgari Eloquentia). For poets who want to work in the vernacular but reach an audience beyond their own language community-such as audiences targeted by religion, social or economic class, or profession-translation would be needed. Dante's use of the vernacular becomes important for contemporary translation. In the foreword to Pinsky's recent translation, John Freccero states that Dante was among the first in the Middle Ages to write in the vernacular, writing this most serious of poems not in Latin, as one might have expected, but in the everyday speech of his city. Ultimately, this is the justification for another contemporary transla- tion, apart from its power and extraordinary accura- cy. The poem is written in a language that we speak now, no matter which language we speak (xvii).This statement justifies a perpetual process of translation. By writing in a then-contemporary language, Dante implicitly allows for his work to be translated so that it may always remain in a contemporary language (and not risk falling into a "dead" status, such as in the case of Latin). However, this statement makes a more intriguing claim. In claiming that Dante wrote Translation Review D o w n l o a d e d
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"in a language that we speak now, no matter which language we speak," Freccero is arguing for a uni- versal "contemporaneity" of language. That is, it would appear that Freccero is giving the language of Dante's poetry a quality that transcends the temporal actualities of Dante's medieval Florentine dialect of Italian and is shared by contemporary English (as well as any other language that is contemporary for any given time and place). Although this assumption is as old as Dante,' it has serious issues. First, what defines a language as "contemporary" outside of its being used at a specific time? Also, what is this defi- nition based on: tone, diction, style, metrics, etc.? As beautiful a statement of language as it may be, Freccero has taken one too many liberties. (Had he proceeded to explain himself, as difficult-t-or impos- sible-i-as that may be, it might have shed some light on the linguistic quality of "contemporaneity." As it stands now, this charge sounds much more like a reviewer searching for the most "poetic" way to jus- tify yet another translation of the most widely trans- lated poem into English.) The focus should rather be put on Dante's use of "the everyday speech of his city." This act justifies a contemporary translation, so that Dante may always be read in "the language of the city" of his reader (beyond medieval Florence). In a recent article discussing translations of Dante into English, Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., states that the Commedia is "perhaps the most untranslatable of the great literary classics" (144). This "untranslatability" is due to two major factors: an uncommon and diffi- cult rhyme scheme and a complex mix of medieval European theology and medieval Italian politics. The rhyme scheme of terza pat- terned in ABA BCB CDC, etc.c-has never been pop- ular outside Italy (where it was also a somewhat rare form), and the very few English examples are often noted.' Robert Pinsky appropriates terza rima to his very well-reviewed translation (the nuances of which will be discussed below). This is in keeping with what Cachey calls "the modernist attachment to terza rima," a movement set by the translations of Sayers and Ciardi. However, as popular as it may have been in the past 50 years, terza rima translation has its staunch opponents. Citing a review of the Sayers translation, Cachey Translation Review quotes Charles S. Singleton (who translated the Commedia into prose): "To attempt this [terza rima] is to be guilty of hybris, the wages of which is padding at every tum" (152). Singleton believed that, by adhering to the form overmuch, the translator was letting slip the thematic focus of the work, letting the "meaning" take second chair to finding the right rhyme. As such, he believed that translating Dante into prose was the best method, writing in a note to his own translation that while I was enduring the painful loss of the poetry of the Comedy that any prose translation inevitably brings about, I consoled myself with the thought that there are, after all, a great many readers who are able to make out the meaning, or some of the meaning at least, in the original Italian on the left-hand page. May this be the case with them ever more frequently, until they are able to 'live along the lines' over there, on the left, in Dante's own words. The poem, the poetry, is there in its richness and true greatness-s-there, in the original, and almost nowhere else (372-3). There is much here to be unpacked. In this statement, Singleton is assuming a greater, and growing, reader- ship in Italian (which mayor may not be true). Thus, the need for translations is ever-decreasing, and the translations in existence now are to be used as a guide to get at the meaning. As such, a prose transla- tion would be most useful by not sidetracking the reader with poetry. More significant, however, is his claim that the poetry is in the original only, or at least most importantly. This is in keeping with Dante's own feelings of translation expressed in Il convivio: "For it would have been against their [the poems'] will, I say, speaking generally, to have explained their meaning where their beauty could not go with it" (Hillard 48). Because the terza rima poetics cannot be completely recreated in English in the manner that Dante wrote the poem,' the translator should, accord- ing to Singleton, not even attempt it (or any other poetic appropriation). Furthermore, Singleton's translation is facing-page, with the original Italian printed alongside the English translation. This prac- tice has become very popular and has also been used 33 D o w n l o a d e d
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by Allen Mandelbaum and Robert Pinsky; it will be further discussed below in detail along with Pinsky's translation. However, despite this strong attack, there has been much praise for terza rima translations, especially Pinsky's." Freccero, as cited above, prais- es Pinsky for his "admiral clarity and grace." Edward Hirsch of The New Yorker celebrates Pinsky's cre- ation of "a supple American equivalent for Dante's vernacular music where many others have failed"; and Bernard Knox of The New York Review ofBooks admires Pinsky's "serious attempt to solve the prob- lem that has baffled so many translators: to find an adequate English equivalent to Dante's poetic form, the terza rima .... A brilliant success" (Pinsky back cover, 1994). It is unlikely that this debate will ever be settled, furthering the possibility for later transla- tors to work at it. The second major factor of the poem's "untrans- latability" is its complex mix of medieval European theology and medieval Italian politics. The Commedia is filled with numerous references to the people and places of Dante's time. As such, there is much to relay to the reader, and the translator is often at odds to convey the progression of Dante's narra- tive and images in his form. Although prose transla- tions are arguably best able to handle this task, disre- garding the poetics entirely, Pinsky and Williams have found two unique solutions, which will be dis- cussed in the comparison between the two transla- tions below. How is the translator to convey the vast amount of background knowledge needed to understand Dante's complex society of contemporary sinners and their crimes? Most translators use accompanying endnotes. (The number and length of footnotes would take up far too much room.) In the Mandelbaum translation, all of the notes appear at the end of each book. In the Sayers translation, the notes follow each canto, and a summary precedes each canto. The most comprehensive set of notes was produced by Singleton, who found it necessary to publish a separate volume of notes for each book. However, the two translations that are being focused on here are surprisingly scantily annotated. This could be due to one of two factors. First, it could be that, because others have already compiled quite 34 detailed sets of notes, the translators here did not need to. (Both translators have referred to their con- sultation of the Singleton translation in personal interviews.) However, I believe that neither translator was concerned with the background, focusing instead on the production of a work of poetry, separate from the previous tradition of translations. As such, the notes-as background information to a medieval Italian work of art-would be less relevant to con- temporary works of art. This has important implica- tions, which will be explored later in this essay. At any rate, the complex amount of background knowl- edge needed to fully comprehend Dante's epic is a daunting stumbling block to the process of transla- tion. Given the reasons for difficulty in translating the Commedia, Cachey asks, "How can the poem's ulti- mate untranslatability be the condition of its infinite translatability?" (160). The answer is given in Wilmer's article, where he states that "No translator renders more than a part of his author, and that will be largely a part he identifies with" (4). Each transla- tor will find a different aspect or nuance of the poem to deal with, and with a poem as intricate as the Commedia, there will be much to bring forth. (And with the number of modem and contemporary trans- lations, as well as the number previously produced, it seems that there is no foreseeable end in sight.") Ifthe poem is completely untranslatable as a whole (at least the way Dante wrote it), then it is completely translatable in its parts, and each translator will select which part or parts he will specifically deal with. There is a third, often under-discussed, defense for translation. As Cachey points out, "Dante's poet- ics were designed in imitation of God's writing" (161). This sentiment is also expressed by Pinsky, who states that "Dante in the Commedia made the best translation that will ever be made of an original in the mind of God, written in the language from before the Tower of Babel" (e-mail interview, emphasis mine-the importance of which will be explained at the end of the article). The question of how to translate the words of God is not the only one brought up; one must also ask what gives a translator the right to even try. In response to such questions (or objections), Cachey cites Walter Benjamin in The Translation Review D o w n l o a d e d
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Task ofthe Translator: "Where a text is identical with truth or dogma, where it is supposed to be the 'true language,' in all its literalness and without the medi- ation of meaning, this text is ultimately translatable. In such case translations are called for because of the plurality of languages" (161). On one hand, transla- tion is justified on the religious basis that after the destruction of the Tower of Babel, the language of the word of God needed to be translated into many languages 10; on the other hand, translation is justified on the basis of language plurality, which adds anoth- er dimension to the section on the use of vernacular translations above. Although the question of the translation of Dante, in all its intricacies, has not been fully worked out, the practice of translation is still very strong today. At this point, it is time to explore the two translations at issue here. Two Contemporary Translations If the defense for a translation of Dante "proves" anything, it is that a number of possibilities are open to the translator; and C. K. Williams and Robert Pinsky best show this in their two recent translations of canto xix of the Inferno. Both translators came to the poem for different reasons, with different inten- tions, and hoped for their respective translations to achieve different goals, in terms of both translation and poetics. Williams came to translate Dante in a very straightforward way: he was asked. Daniel Halpern, in attempting to produce a translation of Dante specifically for a contemporary audience, had asked some of the most respected poets of our time to trans- late a few cantos." His only two requirements: that they be poets "whose own poetry I respected and admired and whom I suspected had more than a pass- ing interest in Dante." No previous knowledge of either translation theory or Italian was required: "Some of them were familiar with Italian; others were proven translators; but, finally, all were select- edfor the quality oftheir own poetry in English" (vii, emphasis mine). Thus, both the editors and transla- tors were well aware that the primary reason for their being asked was their own original material; as such, they were conscious of working to produce a volume Translation Review of poetry as much original as it was "translated." This was certainly very much the case with Williams' con- tribution. In general, Williams believes that it is essential to translate poetry as poetry "because [ think there's a specific kind of consciousness that happens when you are reading verse, especially if you are an edu- cated reader of verse, which doesn't when you are reading prose." Further, "the reason to do a transla- tion [is] to make it accessible for contemporary read- ers" (interview 4). Thus, Williams' theories about translation fit in very well with the project he was asked to do for the Ecco Press Dante. However, this was not his first attempt at translating poetry. An award-winning poet, Williams has also pro- duced a few works of translation or, as he calls them, "versions." When asked to define the difference between translations and "versions," in respect to his "versions" from Issa (The Lark. The Thrush. The Starling. Poems from Issa, 1983), he replied that "I decided to decode them; and I took several, two or three, haiku and I put them all together.... I made them into little contemporary poems rather than imi- tations of a world that doesn't really exist [for Westerners]" (interview 2). This early translation project is important for his translation of Dante for two reasons: first, Williams does not speak a word of Japanese, having translated from a modem collection (which he could not recall) translated into English. Second, he was consciously producing a volume of contemporary poems, not haiku to be read by a con- temporary audience." We have the same issues in his translation of Dante. In translating Dante, Williams did not consult the original text but rather the Singleton prose translation and a French poetic translation (which he could not recall). Although he needed the Singleton (partly because it was a prose translation) in order to under- stand the canto, he consulted a French volume because "When I translate I like to find something in another language, usually French because that's a language I read with some fluency" (interview I). This brings up a major issue. Even though we know that it is important for Williams to translate poetry as poetry, he did not have access to the original poetry." Rather, he needed to resort to another translation in 35 D o w n l o a d e d
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order to have access to it, even though he already understood the "sense" through the prose (which, as explained above, is often best suited for such a pur- pose). So why go to a French text? Wouldn't this just cloud the issue? In any case, Williams was very much aware of his "lack"; ifhe could not read the poetry in the original, how could he translate that same poetry into his own language? Conveniently, this was not an issue, because Williams (like the others) was select- ed for his ability to create poetry in English, not re- create the poetics of Dante. As with his "versions" from Issa, Williams was here appropriating his material to create an original work of poetry in English. Even though he stays as close as he can to the "sense" of the original-"It was hard to get close to anything but a few images in it" (interview 1)-his intentions for the poetry had very little of Dante's original in mind. In his brief note to his translation, he states that ... I wanted to keep a strong stanza, with no run-ons except where they occur in the original, and that I wanted each stanza to have at least one full rhyme (though I didn't think I could keep the linkings of the terza rima without too much dis- tortion), I decided I needed a supple line to make the stanzas, and so I arrived at what I have here, which, halfway through, I realized, not to my sur- prise, were the line and stanza Elizabeth Bishop used in "The Moose," one of the contemporary poems I most admire. (184) In terms of metrics, in contrast to Dante's use of 45 stanzas of long-lined tercets, Williams uses 45 stan- zas of short-Iine" (averaging less than 10 syllables on average) sextets. In trying to keep as close to the original as possible, Williams did his best to "match" his stanzas to Dante's in the development of the stan- za. However, whereas his stanzaic pattern is as close as he could get it, the rhyme is as far from Dante as he could make it. The "at least one full rhyme" in each stanza is not regularly assigned, nor is there always just one. (The first stanza, for instance, has two full rhymes.) Thus, Williams' "supple line" gets about as far away from Dante (poetically) as any translator of Dante into English poetry has come. 36 Williams feels that this difference is justified because as "a translation it gave me... sanction to do some- thing very different, and even the necessity to do something very different" (interview 2). Williams realizes that, by virtue of his act of translation-of his work not being the original-he will have to reappropriate the canto to his sense of language and poetics. However, Williams' complete reappropriation of Dante's verse is also justifiable in that Williams was actively writing a contemporary, creative work. This is justified by his falling into a form previously used by Elizabeth Bishop, another celebrated contempo- rary poet. Although this canto became "as much an homage to Bishop as to Dante," Williams did not consciously choose this form. He had been studying "The Moose" for some time, but he does not believe "that you can patent forms, I don't think you want to patent forms; forms are '" discoveries that people make, and forms are to be shared" (interview 3). Williams' canto is thus justified as a piece of original, contemporary poetry because, in his own way, he happened upon a form that had been previously brought out to the community of contemporary poets by another such poet. When asked what he most wanted to bring to the contemporary reader with his translation of the canto, Williams replied, "I wanted ... to bring out the vivid- ness of the imagery, and the ease of the line ... the fluidity of the language" (interview 4). Notice that Williams is not as interested as bringing to the read- er a complete sense of what Dante was trying to teach; nor was he as interested in keeping to the nar- rative flow of the Inferno as a whole. IS Whereas the basic "raw material" came from Dante, the poetics- the poetry-comes from Williams. This is not so much the case with Robert Pinsky. In his later translation of the Inferno-a work undertaken while asked to translate two cantos for the same work as Williams-Pinsky is more con- cerned with translating "Dante's poem." Although he shares Williams' concern for the poetics of the work, he resolves the issue of translating poetry in another manner. Unlike Williams, who gets as far away from Dante's rhyme as he can, Pinsky translates Dante into terza rima. However, because English does not Translation Review D o w n l o a d e d
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rhyme as easily as Italian does, Pinsky has had to make a few adjustments. As shown earlier, critics are generally tom on the issue of translating the Commedia into terza rima. Putting this issue aside (because I am not in a posi- tion to resolve it), Pinsky's terza rima translation takes a few liberties with rhyme in order to fit into the rhyme scheme, which, as mentioned earlier, is very difficult for English. In his "Translator's Note," Pinsky explains that he needed "a more flexible def- inition of rhyme, or of the kind and degree of like sound that constitute rhyme" (xix). However, he was discriminating as to what constitutes "like sound." All same consonants rhyme, regardless of the pre- ceding vowel"; for example, in canto xix we find "unsaid/stood/side" (11. 35, 37, 39). However, if the final consonant is part of a consonant cluster, the whole cluster is what rhymes (again, with no consid- eration to the preceding vowels); for example, in canto xix we find "burst/coursed/worst" (II. 23, 25, 27). Here we have an example of what Williams referred to as Pinsky's "rather free notions of rhyme" (interview I). In order for "coursed" to rhyme with "burst" and "worst," the final "<ed" must be pro- nounced as a "t," not uncommon in contemporary American English. Although he admits that this sys- tem of rhyme is a matter of "personal taste" (what Pinsky also calls "harmony"), he sends the reader back to Yeats, "a master of consonantal rhyming," for justification (xix). Despite the possibility of criticism this freedom with terza rima may receive in general (and I am here thinking of what Charles Singleton would have to say about such liberties), Pinsky was not entirely successful in his approximation of terza rima to English poetics. By his own admission, Pinsky is guilty of "occa- sional compromises and slidings" in his rhyme (xx). 17 Although this is normally not something to fault a poet for, especially given the difficulty of the rhyme, a successful approximation was important to Pinsky's intentions. Although he claims that his rhyme was not a choice but rather "an unconscious intuition," he also places an importance on terza rima as serving "the speed of Dante's narrative" (e-mail interview 2). As such, in order for Pinsky to create "the only verse translation in English to translate Translation Review D[ante]'s sentences," he would have to successfully re-create the verse (e-mail interview 2). However, because Pinsky is working on a specifically English version, writing "English pentameter lines of terza rima," this may not be a major fault (e-mail interview 2). At any rate, the importance here is on the fact that Pinsky is intentionally working to create an English version of Dante's poem. In fact, one may go so far as to say that he is trying to create an English Commedia. As opposed to C. K. Williams, who consciously wrote a contemporary English poem in terms of poet- ics, Pinsky was more concerned with re-writing Dante's "sentences." Taking the two major meanings of this word (etymologically), Pinsky is writing a translation of both Dante's lines and his "meanings." Thus, Pinsky's translation of the Commedia could be read as the work that Dante would have written, had he wrote in English. This is furthered by the Italian text that Pinsky includes on the facing page. Earlier translators of Dante, such as Singleton," have used facing-page translations. As discussed above, Singleton intended for his prose translation to convey the sense of the Commedia, leaving the "poetry" where it rightfully belonged, in the original. However, Pinsky translates the "poetry" as well as the sense. Whereas Singleton included the original Italian for those who could understand it, even ifjust a little, why would Pinsky include it if he is giving the "poetry" to the reader? The reader who can understand the Italian would not need a translation, and the reader who needs a translation would not comprehend the Italian. I argue that Pinsky is invit- ing the reader to compare his version to the origi- nal-to read his as the original. This is not a new concept. Romantic-age translators of Dante, con- cerned with "producing a translation that will have an aesthetic effect similar to that the model has in the source language," considered a translation to be "a kind of magic mirror, an enchanted looking glass, against which the pages of a poem in one language are held and, somehow, imaged forth in the other" (DeSua 28). A facing-page translation is the most recent development of such a thought, allowing (forcing?) the reader into reading the translation as a mirror image of the original. 37 D o w n l o a d e d
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This issue is further complicated by Pinsky's view of Dante's translation "of an original in the mind of God, written in the language from before the Tower of Babel" (e-mail interview 3). Pinsky, view- ing Dante's "translation" of what God would have written had he been forced to write in a post-Babel language (specifically Italian), thus views his own as a continuation of that tradition. Although Pinsky does claim that "no one will ever equal or even approach Dante's translation of that original," he also states that "English translations can hope, if they are works of art, to add some information about the original that is not in the Italian" (e-mail interview 3). That is, even if Dante's work is somehow "better" than any translation of it could be, the translation of it into other languages brings the work as a whole closer to the pre-Babel language used by God in imparting it to Dante. This clearly brings us back to Walter Benjamin and his views on translation in a religious context (see discussion above). In terms of "originality," Pinsky is closer to Dante's original text in that he had access to it in Italian and translated it from the original (with refer- ence, however, to Singleton, Sinclair, Longfellow, Mandelbaum, and Musa, "To get as close as possi- ble" [e-mail interview 3]). This strengthens the chain of relation from God to Dante and now to Pinsky; whereas Dante had access to the language of God, in terms of "the mind of God," Pinsky had access to the language of Dante, and by claiming to translate the sense as well, he is also claiming an access to "the mind of Dante.'?" This would seem to work against an argument for Pinsky's translation as an "original." However, just as authorship of the Commedia is assigned to Dante, Pinsky assigns authorship to him- self, stating that "I was trying to create a work of art" (e-mail interview 4).20 This brings up many other issues for the idea of originality in translation, which will be dealt with below. Authorship in Translation In his recent work on the place of the translator in Anglo-American literature, Lawrence Venuti states that a "translated text ... is judged acceptable by most publishers, reviewers, and readers when it reads fluently, when the absence of any linguistic or stylis- 38 tic peculiarities makes it seem transparent ... the appearance, in other words, that the translation is not in fact a translation but the 'original ,,, (I). That is, a translation is judged at its best (in contemporary lit- erary terms) when there is no trace of the translator in the work. In our two examples, this is much more so the case with Pinsky's translation than with Williams', in that the former works his to read in such a manner, whereas the latter is working to cre- ate a more "original" (in contemporary creative terms) work of poetry." However, this practice, according to Venuti, is inherently ethnocentrically violent, stating that "in the translating process, for- eign languages, texts, and cultures will always under- go some degree and form of reduction, exclusion, inscription" (310). In translating a work, the transla- tor will, by definition, subject the piece to the target language, either by removing any culturally specific linguistic techniques and replacing them with those of the target language, or by "foreignizing" the trans- lation to the point where it is not understandable in the target language (which "foreignizing" is done not by the standards of the original but in relation to the standards of the target language). As a response to this process, Venuti calls for "limiting discursive experiments to perceptible deviations that may risk but stop short of the parodic or the incomprehensible, that release the derive of cultural discourses in the target language" (311). But how is one to understand this reform in terms of the two contemporary translations of Dante we have been investigating? On the one hand is Williams' translation, which could be charged with removing all culturally based linguistic practices of the original in subjecting it to a contemporary audi- ence (translating canto xix into a contemporary American poem), thus forcing the original text to submit to the literary forms of the target language. On the other hand we have Pinsky's translation, which could be charged with risking the parodic in attempting to recreate a poetic strategy that does not commonly exist in English (with a few exceptions, all of which were forced schemes, most likely deriv- ing if not originating from Dante)." As such, both translators could be charged with a degree of inten- tional "foreignizing:" Williams, on the one hand, for- Translation Review D o w n l o a d e d
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eignizing the text from the original; Pinsky, on the other, foreignizing the text from the expectations of its target-language audience. Clearly, the role of the translator involves a degree of making the text dif- ferent, either from itself or from its intended audi- ence. In terms of authorship, Venuti calls for the trans- lator to "revise the individualistic concept of author- ship that has banished translation to the fringes of Anglo-American culture." Although he argues that translators should develop "innovative translation practices in which their work becomes visible to readers" (as individual, creative works), he continues to posit translators into a secondary role in calling on them to present "sophisticated rationales for these practices" (311). That is, Venuti is recognizing trans- lation as an individual act separate from the actual writing of the text; the text is already complete, and the translator is the presenter of that work to another language-based culture. However, this does not justi- fy the existence of two very different translations of the same work appearing at the same time. To justify the possibility of radical difference in two such works, deriving from the same "original," the very concepts of "authorship" and "originality" must be called into question. In discussing the translator in terms of author- ship, we are working in the middle ground of a bina- ry, both sides of which are clearly limiting to the role of the translator. On the one hand, we have the trans- lator as sole author, which cannot work, given that no matter how many translations of a certain work appear, there will always be a similar text (although in varying degrees) behind them all. On the other hand, there is the "original author" as sole author, which clearly cannot work, given that even though the one "original text" is common to them all, the possibility of difference between the two translations is too great to subject all translations (canonical or variant) to the authority of the "original author." It is in this middle ground that we must negotiate to find a suitable place to situate the translator. This middle ground becomes even more complex when it involves translators whose primary literary activities are in what I have been calling "original texts." The question at issue is: at what level of the production is Translation Review the contemporary poet/translator an "author" of the text he is working with? In an e-mail interview, Pinsky stated that "trans- lation is an unusually intense form of reading" (6). As such, the translator is first and foremost a reader of the text. The first level of importance that a translator must consider is his role as reader-and interpreter- of the text, for his reading will certainly influence his translating. However, positing the importance of the translator in the role of the reader is dangerous. In his influential essay "The Death of the Author," Roland Barthes argues for "the birth of the reader," which must come "at the cost of the death of the author" (148). Thus, the translator-as-reader can only be an effective reader/interpreter/translator of the work if, by reading the text, he participates in the "death" of the "original author." To follow this through, the translator then becomes the new "author" of the work, or at least until someone new comes to sup- plant him in terms of reading his work." In fact, this would allow for multiple "authors" to emerge in dif- ferent traditions (language-based, culture-based, or in different academic circles), depending on which translations each new translator works to supplant. Where at first this method would seem to allow the translator to become the "author" of the work, one sees how this method does not allow for any sole "author" to emerge. Both the original author and the translator (who was first a reader, but then an inter- preter, then author, of the text) "die" so that the read- er may assume primacy in the interpretation of the work. As such, the translator cannot become the sole author of the work because, in the very act that would remove the original author from the work, the trans- lator himself is removed. With all this in mind, discussing the "death of the author" is an inherently misguided way to consider the role of the translator. Although it may have value in discussing nontranslated works, translated works make this system complicated by their very virtue of admitting to an "original author" as well as falling prey to the acts of a reader/translator/ interpreter/author, who in some ways re-authorizes the text for a new audience. Therefore, we must accept some notion of "author" that would validate both the similarities between the translation and the 39 D o w n l o a d e d
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"original" as well as the differences between the indi- vidual translations. But, one may ask (as many have done in the past), what is an "author?" Rather than deal with an "author" of a text, who "must assume the role of the dead man in the game of writing" (143), Michel Foucault deals with an "author-function" (148). This is because it is too lim- iting in the interpretation of a text "to repeat the empty affirmation that the author has disappeared .... Instead, we must locate the space left empty by the author's disappearance" (145). In terms of transla- tion, the "original author" must, as a matter of neces- sity, disappear. However, the position previously filled by the "original author" is then filled by the translator, who reads, interprets, and then re-authors the text for his target audience. It is not enough to allow only the "original author" to fill the position of the "author-function," because a "name as an indi- vidual trademark is not enough when one works within a textual tradition" (150). In terms of transla- tion, the very act of translation places a text into a tra- dition, which by definition calls for a reevaluation of the "individual trademark" of the work. Because "the author provides the basis for explaining not only the presence of certain events in a work, but also their transformations, distortions, and diverse modifica- tions" (151), the translator as transformer, distorter, and modifier must be posited in the "author-func- tion," at least at some point in the process." In writ- ing that the "author-function" "does not refer purely and simply to a real individual, since it can give rise simultaneously to several selves, to several sub- jects-positions that can be occupied by different classes of individuals" (153), Foucault seems to be opening the discussion of "authorship" to include multiple "authors," all at different stages of literary production. In his answer to Foucault's question, Jack Stillinger begins his discussion with reference to Webster s Third New International Dictionary (1961), which defines an author as (in part) "one hav- ing the right to make author's alterations" (215, note 2). In doing so, Stillinger states that only authors have the right to make alterations to the text. But who is the "author?" Clearly the "original author" is not the only "author" occupying the "author-function," 40 because the work continues to take shape long after he has finished with it. However, neither is the trans- lator the only "author," because he can only work within the limits (however loosely or rigidly defined) of the "original text." In his discussion, Stillinger separates '''nonauthorial' authorizing" from "the common types of textual corruption-situations where someone other than the nominal author [whom I have been calling the "original author"] is essen- tially and inextricably part of the authorship" (20). In his discussion of the alterations made to Keats' Sonnet to Sleep by the many editors and printers, Stillinger seems to be arguing for a notion of"author- ship" that can only be authorized by the "original author" himself. Although this allows for the possi- bility of multiple "authors" for any text, it limits the "authoring" ("authorizing") of the text to the time and place of the "original author." As such, the pro- duction of the text dies with the producer. This defi- nition may work for limiting the possibility of edito- rial corruption, but it fails to take into consideration the translator of a text. In arguing for a criticism that considers the mul- tiple "authors" of a work, Stillinger considers the work only in terms of original production and edit- ing, recognizing that the "original author" is not the sole author of the work, but rather the primary author, who in tum is the sole judge of any changes that are to be made, even if those changes come from some- one other than himself. So what are we to do with textual "corruptions" that arise from the act of trans- lation, especially those that occur beyond the scope (in terms of time, geography, or language) of the "primary author?" Although this is beginning to read much more like an argument for solitary authorship, this is the closest we have come so far to a theory of authorship that will even consider the translator. Where Stillinger claims that "better theories may tum out to be those that cover not only more facts but more authors" (24), we must now insist on a theory that posits the translator as one of those authors, or rather, as filling one of the multiple "author-func- tions." This is especially the case for those of us who rely on translations (which would, to a degree, involve most if not all of academia); without access to the "original text," we are forced to work with the Translation Review D o w n l o a d e d
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re-authorized productions. As such, it is time to rec- ognize the role of the translator as "author" in the tradition of literary production. To return to the above-stated binary, we cannot allow for a theory of authorship that posits either the "original author" or the translator as the "solitary genius" (to borrow from Stillinger's title). According to T. S. Eliot, "No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone" (431). Where the poet must look back to the tradition for the roots of his talent, this is especially the case for the translator, who, however creative his work may be, must keep one eye looking back to the original; this is even more the case with a translator of Dante, who must always remain conscious of the tradition of translation of the work. However, this is also the case for the author, who must realize that the tradition of textual produc- tion only begins with the "original text." Translation sets up a tradition that calls into question any notion of solitary authorship. This is especially the case with translators such as C.K. Williams and Robert Pinsky, who use the act of translation as a means of author- ship, creating contemporary works of poetry within a tradition of literary production. In terms of the tradi- tion that translation sets up for a work, "complete meaning" cannot equally rest with the original, for such a consideration disregards the tradition-espe- cially the tradition of a much-translated work-of reading, interpreting, and re-authorizing that transla- tion calls into being. What is needed is a theory of authorship that gives the translator a position in the "author-function" of a work, equal to the "author- function" filled by the "original author." Such a def- inition of authorship is the only way to justify the two very different contemporary translations of the same work, Dante's canto xix of the Inferno. Just as Dante is given creative authorship of his version of canto xix, so must Williams, because both were conscious- ly writing creative pieces for their specific audiences. Although Pinsky will also fall into this definition of authorship (even if to a lesser degree), we must grant him authorship on the same basis that he grants it to Dante; if Dante's original exists only as a translation of "the mind of God," then Pinsky's must exist as a translation of "the mind of Dante." As such, Dante becomes only the (temporally) first "author" to fill Translation Review the "author-function." After that, once the work enters into a tradition of translation, each translator, or (temporally) secondary "author," fills the "author- function." Further, we must rethink our notions of an "original" text. If we are still going to consider each of these three texts (by Dante, Williams, and Pinsky) "canto xix.?" then we are forced to throw out our pre- vious notion of an "original" text independent of the multiple "authorship." The notions of "original text" and "secondary texts" are then obsolete, and the "text" then exists in a state of perpetual "originality," allowing for further translators to occupy the role of "author function" in making textual changes in terms of creative authorship. All texts must be considered "works in progress," because of the possibility for each (temporally) primary text to enter into a tradi- tion of translation. BIBLIOGRAPHY Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. "Hell." Translated with an Introduction by Dorothy L. Sayers. New York: Penguin Books, 1949. ---. The Divine Comedy. "Inferno." Translated, with a Commentary, by Charles S. Singleton. Bilingual Edition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970. ---. The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. "Inferno." A Verse Translation by Allen Mandelbaum. Bilingual Edition. New York: Bantam Books, 1980. ---. The Inferno of Dante: a new verse translation. Translated by Robert Pinsky. Bilingual Edition. With Notes by Nicole Pinsky and Foreword by John Freccero. New York: The Noonday Press, 1994. ---. De Vulgari Eloquentia. Translated by Steven Botterill. Bilingual Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ---. La Vita Nuova. Translated with an Introduction and Notes by Barbara Reynolds. New York: Penguin Books, 1969. Barthes, Roland. "The Death of the Author." Image/Music/Text. Essays selected and translated by Stephen Heath. New York: Hull and Wang, 1977. 41 D o w n l o a d e d
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Cachey, Theodore J. Jr. "Between Hermeneutics and Poetics: Modern American Translation of the Commedia" Annali d'Italianistica. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. 8. (1990): 144-165. DeSua, William J. Dante Into English. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1964. Eliot, T. S. "Tradition and the Individual Talent." Criticism and Major Statements. 3rd ed. Eds. Charles Kaplan and William Anderson. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. Foucault, Michel. "What Is an Author?" Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticism. Edited and with an Introduction by Josue V. Harari. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979. Halpern, Daniel, ed. Dante's Inferno: Translations by 20 Contemporary Poets. Introduced by James Merrill with an afterword by Giuseppe Mazzotta. Hopewell: The Ecco Press, 1993. Hillard, Katherine, trans. Translation Destroys the Sweetness of the Original. Western Translation Theory: From Herodotus to Nietzsche. Ed. Douglas Robinson. Manchester: St. Jerome Press, 1997.47-48. Metzger, Bruce M. and Roland E. Murphy, eds. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books. New Revised Standard Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Pinsky, Robert. E-Mail Interview. March 21, 1998. Boston, Mass. Stillinger, Jack. Multiple Authorship and the Myth of Solitary Genius. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Tasso, Torquato. Jerusalem Delivered: an English Prose Version. Translated and Edited by Ralph Nash. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1987. Toynbee, Paget. Dante Studies. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921. Venuti, Lawrence. The Translator s Invisibility: A History ofTranslation. London: Routledge, 1995. Wallace, David. "Dante in English." Jacoff, Rachel, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Dante. Chapter 15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 42 Williams, C. K. Personal Interview. March 11, 1998. Boston, Mass. Wilmer, Clive. "Dante made plain: sacrifices and successes in two centuries of translating 'the acerb Florentine'." The Times Literary Supplement. September 6, 1996: 3-4. NOTES 'Chaucer used selections from Dante for his Canterbury Tales, most notably in The Monk s Tale iInfemo, canto xxxii-xxxiii-Ugolino), as well as working passages from the discussion of nobility found in II Convivio IV for The Wife of Bath:" Tale (Wallace, 237-240). "Ms. Sayers died before completing her translation, which was finished by Barbara Reynolds (1962), who also translated Dante's La Vita Nuova (1969). 'Although Dante's Commedia is the most popular example, this form was also used by Torquato Tasso (1544-1590) for his Gerusalemme Liberata (1581). "However, one must also consider the many exam- ples taken from France, England, and beyond, such as Alard de Valery, constable of Champagne (canto xxviii); Prince Henry, son of Richard Duke of Cornwall and nephew to Henry III of England (canto xii); and Ali Ibn Abu Taleb, nephew and successor to Mahomet (canto xxviii). 5De Vulgari Eloquentia I, " ... because the whole world employs it. .. " (see p. 2). "The most popular examples are from Chaucer, for a portion of A Complaint to His Lady, Sir Thomas Wyatt's Second Satire, Lord Byron's The Prophecy ofDante and Ode to the West Wind, and Browning's The Statue, as well as a number of translations of the Commedia, most notably those by Dorothy Sayers and Robert Pinsky. The unpopularity is due to its difficulty-English is not as inflected as Italian. "Pinsky was forced to alter the line scheme of the poem in order to stay within the limits of terza rima: "This translation is not line-for-line, nor tercet-for-tercet. In order to represent Dante's succinct, compressed quality along with the flow Translation Review D o w n l o a d e d
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of terza rima, I have often found it necessary to write fewer lines in English than he uses in Italian" (xxi). Dante's canto xix has 133 lines, while Pinsky's has 124. "Despite the high praise it received, even Pinsky's translation has received negative reviews, such as Clive Wilmer's, in "Dante made plain: sacrifices and successes in two centuries of translating 'the acerb Florentine'" (The Times Literary Supplement, September 6, 1996). Wilmer states that "the whole translation is marred by a curious absence of conviction," and that "Pinsky some- how contrives to make the Inferno dull" (4). "Since this study, there have been no fewer than four noteworthy translations, done by: Ellis (London: Vintage, 1995); Musa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996); Durling (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); and Zappulla (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998). "That is, except for the case of the descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday (The Acts ofthe Apostles 2: 4), at which event people of different languages were able to comprehend each other. "The other translators are Seamus Heaney, Mark Strand, Daniel Halpern, Galway Kinnell, Cynthia Macdonald, Amy Clampitt, Jorie Graham, Charles Wright, Richard Howard, Stanley Plumly, Robert Pinsky, Susan Mitchell, Carolyn Forche, Richard Wilbur, W. S. Merwin, Alfred Com, Sharon aids, Deborah Diggs, and Robert Haas. "Williams has also translated "two Greek tragedies [and] a book of French poetry." However, it is his work from Issa that has the most relevance here. In translating the Greek plays, Williams immersed himself"in translation theory and ideas about Greek culture and the plays"; he is also flu- ent in French (interview). The "versions" from Issa, and thus Dante, are significant in that Williams did not, nor was he able to, give each of these projects the same energies he gave to his Greek and French translations. IJSee below for a discussion of translation, author- ship, and originality. "Williams first tried long lines, as in his own poetry, but "that seemed wrong because it's a different Translation Review kind of speech than Dante was after" (interview 1). However, Williams uses short lines in his "versions" of Issa, giving another comparison, even if Williams claims no relation, between the two poetic projects (interview). "This, admittedly, would have been difficult, given that the Inferno as a whole was put together by various translators, with differing approaches and interests. 161n fact, Pinsky writes of his general distaste of "mere vowel rhymes" such as "claim/feign" or "state/raid" (xx). 17But, unlike his successful rhymes, he does not point out examples where he has had to compromise. "Robert Durling's recent translation is also facing page. It is interesting to note that he included no introductory note on his translation, as Singleton and Pinsky have with their facing-page transla- tions. "This is not Pinsky's first attempt at translation. He has also worked with Czeslaw Milosz. I have not been able to find any information on this work, and the only help that Pinsky gave in his e-mail interview was that "Two great differences are that Czeslaw is alive, and I don't know any Polish" (3). This translation project could therefore be similar to Williams' "versions," but I have not been able to compare the works. "This was in response to a question regarding the audience he was trying to reach, in which he also stated that his intention was "not [to] 'reach' an 'audience'" (e-mail interview 4). However, a "work of art" generally implies an artist creating it, and Pinsky is very consciously placing himself in that position. "Although it should be remembered that, in Pinsky's text, "originality" and "translation" are two ideas that can coexist, where the translator is, by neces- sity, creating an original by the very act of trans- lation, because of the inaccessibility of the origi- nal and the chain of relation between the transla- tor and the original writer (who in tum is a trans- lator of an original writer). 22At the very least, Singleton would likely charge Pinsky with such, as well as all others who dis- approve of terza rima translation on the sole basis 43 D o w n l o a d e d
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that it was the form Dante used. 230r if another, separate translation is made. Each successive translation would, unless done with- out any reference to previous translators, sup- plant the one before it. This is not the case here; because Pinsky was a participant in the Ecco Press collection, his later translation supplants it. "However, this becomes entangled when one also considers Foucault's assertion that the author "also serves to neutralize the contradictions that may emerge in a series of texts" (151). Although he is dealing here specifically with the unity of all works by a certain author, the existence of multi- ple translations of one work (ascribed to one "original author") allows for multiple texts to exist that one author cannot unify. Therefore, what happens to the "author-function" in these texts that both relate to but also diverge from one another as well as the "original?" The closest we could come to answering this would be to allow the translator to fill the "author-function" as the most recent author who works to neutralize the contradictions specific to his own text. But this does not account for any unity between the one particular work and the others. 25Not to mention the numerous other texts in the tra- dition of the same name. 44 Translation Review D o w n l o a d e d
Dante Alighieri Vol. 1) Dante Alighieri, Robert Turner, Robert M. Durling, Ronald L. Martinez - The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. - Vol. 1, Inferno-Oxford PDF