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The Divine Comedy

The Divine Comedy

by Clive James (Author), Dante Alighieri (Author), Dante Alighieri (Author), Clive James (Author), Dante Alighieri (Author)

  • Used

    Hardcover 2013

    $12.15
Synopsis

`Finally I realised that I had been practising for this job every time I wrote a quatrain . . . I had spent all this time - the greater part of a lifetime - preparing my instruments'

The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and Clive James's new translation - his life's work and decades in the making - presents Dante's entire epic poem in a single song.

While many poets and translators have attempted to capture the full glory of The Divine Comedy in English, many have fallen short. Victorian verse translations established an unfortunate tradition of reproducing the sprightly rhyming measures of Dante but at the same time betraying the strain on the translator's powers of invention. For Dante, the dramatic human stories of Hell were exciting, but the spiritual studies of Purgatory and the sublime panoramas of Heaven were no less so.

In this incantatory new translation, James - defying the convention by writing in quatrains - tackles these problems head-on and creates a striking and hugely accessible translation that gives us The Divine Comedy as a whole, unified, and dramatic work.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
 Pages: 560
 Edition: Main Market
 Publisher: Picador
Published: 18 Jul 2013
ISBN 10: 144724219X
ISBN 13: 9781447242192

Media Reviews
'Clive James's new translation is wonderfully unstuffy and infects fresh life back into the poem.' Mary Beard, Observer Best Holiday Reads 2013 'An outstanding achievement ... He restores the sense of drama, the colours and music of Dante's vision ... Clive James has now given us a translation worthy of this and any other time; and a great piece of literature in its own right' - Robert Fox, Evening Standard 'an extraordinary verse-rendering -- the fruit of many years' work -- of Dante's The Divine Comedy. According to TS Eliot, this is the only book in the western tradition that surpasses Shakespeare. It is typical of James's chutzpah that he has not only tackled this Everest of translation, but has scrambled to the summit in triumph ... The result is a revelation. The reader is swept up in the drama of Inferno ... The tempo and texture of the poem has an inevitable majesty, but there is also a dancing levity that is suited to James and his joking seriousness ' Robert McCrum, Guardian 'Clive James comes to the Comedy with two important attributes: many years study of the poem and an impressively accomplished verse technique' - Sean O'Brien, Independent Book of the Week 'Like most successful translations, there is a sense of the personal throughout... the poetry is certainly here, spurring the reader to learn more.' The Times Saturday Review 'This is the translation that many of us had abandoned all hope of finding. Clive James's version is the only one that conveys Dante's variety, depth, subtlety, vigor, wit, clarity, mystery, and awe in rhymed English stanzas that convey the music of Dante's triple rhymes. This book lets Dante's genius shine through as it never did before in English verse, and is a reminder that James' poetry has always been his finest work.' Edward Mendelson, Columbia University 'Clive James' translation of The Divine Comedy is a remarkable achievement: not a scowling marble Dante of sublime set-pieces but a living, breathing poet shifting restlessly through a dizzying succession of moods, perceptions, and passions. Under James' uncanny touch, seven long centuries drop away, and the great poem is startlingly fresh and new.' Stephen Greenblatt, Harvard University, author of The Swerve
Author Bio
Clive James is the author of more than forty books. As well as essays, he has published collections of literary and television criticism, travel writing, verse and novels, plus five volumes of autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England, May Week Was In June, North Face of Soho and The Blaze of Obscurity. As a television performer he appeared regularly for both the BBC and ITV, most notably as writer and presenter of the Postcard series of travel documentaries. His popular Radio 4 series A Point of View has been published in volume form. He has also published several poetry collections, a verse commentary of Proust, Gate of Lilacs, and a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy. In 1992 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia and in 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins memorial medal for literature. He holds honorary doctorates from Sydney University and the University of East Anglia. In 2012 he was appointed CBE and in 2013 an Officer of the Order of Australia. Dante was a major Italian poet of the Middle Ages. His Divine Comedy is widely considered the greatest work of Italian literature.