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Dante Alighieri
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Book
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Publisher | Oneworld Classics | ||
ISBN | 9781847490773 | ||
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Reviewer
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Vicky
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Synopsis
This collection of Dante Alighieri's "Canzoniere", translated for the first time in its entirety into English, charts his poetic evolution and displays the ground on which his "Vita Nova" and "Divine Comedy" developed.Inspired in his early poems by troubadour love poetry, Dante would later come to master all the genres of the time, such as the canzone, the sonnet and the ballad. At the same time deeply personal - dealing with themes of love, death and exile - and imbued with the poetic and political context of the period, "Dante's Rime", presented in dual Italian and English text and rendered by prize-winning translators Anthony Mortimer and J.G. Nichols, offers a fascinating glimpse into the imagination of arguably the greatest writer of all time.
Review
Dante's Rime published by Oneworld Classics is a poetry book that I did not expect to fall in love with! I find that I keep picking it up to read a poem or two and then, to reflect on what I have just read, with the poems being quite brilliantly translated by J.G. Nichols and Anthony Mortimer.
They have subtly different styles that mesh very well together - an example of one of Dante's poems is XLI 'Dante to Cino' on page 125 which starts
'Since here nobody cares to speak about....'
Dante is writing to Cino complaining that good(love) has been shut out by the uncaring - I think it's fair to say that nothing has changed since the 13th century!
There is plenty of background material at the back of the book that gives a fascinating insight into Dante's life and writing. He is well known for his 'Divine Comedy' and the first part of the 'Inferno'.
This is a book that I more than highly recommend especially as Dante is seen as a person to have had the greatest effect on world literature.
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