Comments on: Cantos Stop Won’t Stop (1-5) https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/cantos-stop-wont-stop-1-5 Lollards in the high church of low culture Mon, 13 May 2013 22:09:54 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: Ed https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/cantos-stop-wont-stop-1-5/comment-page-1#comment-1142717 Mon, 13 May 2013 22:09:54 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24602#comment-1142717 Also, the Protestant Inferno, on MTV: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ehdg_nirvana-lake-of-fire_music#.UZFkWNVBnbM

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By: Ed https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/cantos-stop-wont-stop-1-5/comment-page-1#comment-1142607 Mon, 13 May 2013 11:06:59 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24602#comment-1142607 I love that fact about the Fenerbahce stadium; it’s a very cool bit of cultural appropriation. Presumably a bit of Muslim / Christian needle in there, too. Must be particularly tasty when Fiorentina or Lazio come to visit.

I’d be interested to see if you had a different response to different translations. My experience is that the choice of translation is massively important when you’re reading foreign language poetry.

If you are inspired to try Virgil next, I would urge you to check out Sarah Ruden’s recent (2008, I think) translation of the Aeneid. I did a bit of the Aeneid at school, using some other translation – this was back in the 1980s – and was underwhelmed by it . The Ruden translation, though, is awesome: terse, economical and very fast. One of the negative (one star) reviewers on Amazon suggests it is the Aeneid to be read on Twitter, which gives you an idea of how why it is so good.

Highly recommended:
http://www.amazon.com/Aeneid-Vergil/dp/0300151411/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368417791&sr=1-1&keywords=Ruden+Virgil

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By: Tom https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/cantos-stop-wont-stop-1-5/comment-page-1#comment-1139379 Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:17:44 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24602#comment-1139379 Wow, completely missed them! Thanks Anatol (and good to see you in the comments box once more…!)

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By: anatol_merklich https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/cantos-stop-wont-stop-1-5/comment-page-1#comment-1139376 Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:10:09 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24602#comment-1139376 Actually, Saladin is not the only Muslim among the Canto IV crowd — both Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroës (Ibn Rushd) remind us “how relatively advanced Arab civilisation was compared to 13th Century Europe” (although the former was Persian, not Arab).

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By: xyzzzz__ https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/cantos-stop-wont-stop-1-5/comment-page-1#comment-1139050 Sun, 28 Apr 2013 10:55:27 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24602#comment-1139050 Loving yer write-up so far. Wish I had my own copy as I would being again immediately.

“This translation, for World Classics, is by CH Sisson. He writes a long intro about how he never wanted to translate Dante and would be an idiot to do so but then decided for fun to tackle Canto I and immediately realised he would be amazing at it. The rest of the intro is about how bad most of the other translations have been, so our translator comes across as something of a cock”

So par for the course for translators. Seen worse, they are psychos.

And this: “But this Canto really gave me the sense of how Dante bleeds into vernacular Western thought – not just in every “Welcome To Hell” scene-setter (it’s on the away player’s entry of Fenerbahce football stadium!) but in the way the religious element to Dante’s viewpoint here (God has no time for fence-sitters!) has leeched out into secular thinking”

Reminds me I should pick up Auerbach’s “Dante: Poet of a Secular World” sometime as well.

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By: Tom https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2013/04/cantos-stop-wont-stop-1-5/comment-page-1#comment-1138630 Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:02:16 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=24602#comment-1138630 This is also my “write about something you don’t know how to write-about” cobweb-busting/self-challenge exercise. We shall see if it gets ‘any good’ or not.

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