Should I read this in Italian if I'm somewhat fluent in it or do I not miss much by reading a decent translation...

Why do you want to know which is hardest?

Why do we want to know anything?

dropping this here for whoever finds it helpful

Woah

I really hate it when they translate verse to rhyme in other languages. That doesn't sound assbackwards to anyone else?

>is reading something in its original language a more legitimate experience?
is this a serious question

Medieval florentine dialect =/= contemporary italian, you retard-o-matic fuck

so what?

>what does it matter that you answered my question?
Is this a serious question?

No, I prefer it. The Penguin translation of the ~1000 pages of Orlando Furioso with much of the rhyme preserved is a miracle. Also the literal translations of Goethe's Faust with no rhyme sound like absolute ass due to the difficulty of the translation already and its poetic character without it just becomes inane and it sounds like wiry and long-winded prose in a bewildering style that has literally never existed in English writings

But it's basically a different book. Someone else took the liberty of bending the words so that they rhyme in other languages. It's like a tribute; a cover if you will. I'd rather know what the text says and appreciate the verse in its native language as music rather than have someone decide how the rhyme should go by themselves.

do you have a 5 second memory or what? how did you forget the context of his answer?

>should I read this work in the original language that I have no problems understanding or should I read a version that is obviously an inferior, diluted experience?
Sweetie...

>original language
How did you injure yourself so badly?

I like it when retards call other people retards

we've been through this, pumpkin

Any good translation in Spanish?
I have a Kindle so...

wew lad

>I have a Kindle so...
welp, I was gonna say Ediciones Libertador are godly for the big classics, but I've no idea how Kindle even works

oh man weve been had haha nice memeing lad x'D

you should translate it yourself

I don't speak medieval florentine

Are you saying modern Italian editions do not use the original language?

That is precisely the case, my dear friend. You see, the original language is extinct, much in the same way middle english is extinct.

You could also read it in English and Italian.
You'are welcome.
>en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Divine_Comedy

I'm thinking of getting the actual book, which is why I made this thread. Sorta already made my mind some seven hours ago anyway

Any translation is a 'different book' compared to its source text. That the relationship between the source and target text should be one of identity and not difference is an outdated view inside translational research, so it all depends firstly on how well a language is able to render the Italian rhymes without becoming repetitive and seeming forced and secondly on the skill of the translator. Personally, I read a translation that didn't try to rhyme, and instead it focused on maintaining a good flow and on translating the meanings most accurately, but it could have been done differently and there's no intrinsic merit to either of the two strategies.
For my money it's more important to have a version with a solid commentary because Italian history is a clusterfuck, like medieval physics, and they both take up a lot of room in the book. Having read the Bible and the Aeneid also helps a lot, but you can also make up for this with a good commentary.

>There is arguably better English scholarship than Italian scholarship on the Divine Comedy these days
have anglos ever even made a critical text lmao

you know nothing about how divine comedy scholarship do you

It's actually not hard to read in Italian.

Poetry should never be read in translation. Translated works are their own work

if you did you'd know textual criticism is impossible because there are no textual families, no hierarchies, there is no equivalent of an alexandrian or byzantine text-type for the dc.

tell us, o great scholar of dante, is inf. vii, 106 "una palude fa", or "in la palude va"? which is right? why? does virgil say the latin-like "mostrerolli" or the tuscanian-like "mosterrolli" in purg. xxi, 32? is it "contasto" or "contrasto?" if dante says "sodisfàmmi" does virgil say "satisfatto sarà" or "soddisfatto sarai"?

lmaoing at ur life

It's Kirkpatrick's edition any good?
(He taught me the Renaissance paper when I read Eng Lit at Cantab.)

>There is arguably better English scholarship than Italian scholarship on the Divine Comedy
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

If you can read it in the original language, go for it. All the English translations I've read were kinda meh and didn't really manage to communicate the beauty of the poem (try reading some excerpts online and see if you understand what you're reading before diving in tho, Dante obviously didn't write in modern Italian and some passages can be hard even for a native)

t. guy who can't read Homer in the original

Also, in case you find reading Dante too hard, you should try reading some of the 20th century great Italian poets (Montale, D'Annunzio, Ungaretti, Zanzotto, etc).

Why do you find it hard to believe English scholarship could be superior to Italian work on Dante? For the longest time it held true for Shakespeare that German scholarship was miles beyond, to the point where the Germans practically 'invented' Shakespeare as we know him, and I'm sure you could still make a similar claim today as gems of Shakespearean scholarship continue to be written by Germans.
I'm not saying Italian scholar is actually inferior, but you come off as a total philistine whose only 'qualification' would be speaking Italian on a native level with which you deny all the rest of us poor 'muggles' a say in the matter. Furthermore, if you're actually Italian, the same argument you implied could be turned against you, because how would you be able to rate an English translation?

Read in Italian if your understanding is good enough, which it should be considering the language used is relatively modern and familiar.
I'm reading it in French because I can't into Italian at all but you lose all the rhymes to preserve the meaning which makes the read a bit tedious.

OP, you should definitely wait until you've learned Italian.

You will lose all, I said ALL, if you read it in translation. It's like reading simplified Shakespeare.

If you really want to know the *subject matter*, then read a prose translation.

I first read it in Portuguese and I couldn't stand it. Then I read some of it in English and it still looked somewhat tiresome. I could see the genius behind it, but I couldn't feel it. It was as if I was looking at a woman through a very dark veil.

Then I started searching for my grandfather's documents in order to get my Italian citizenship, and took the trouble to learn the language. All I can say is: Dante created the best art I have ever experienced. I do not have musical education, nor have I ever been to more than one museum, so this statement isn't based after too much first-hand knowledge - however, as far as literature goes, Dante is my preferred choice.

Where are you from, OP? If you speak Portuguese, Spanish or French, you shouldn't take more than two or three months to get to Dante. You would still have a lot of dictionary search to do while reading, but that's OK.

Yeah, but it's still very easy to understand, because modern Italian was mainly based after the Tuscan dialect of the three great writers (Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca). The biggest challenge is to understand Dante's symbolism and obscure references. Most Italian editions will come with at least half a page of footnotes, every page.

But have you tried learning Italian? It's similar to French. Only the pronunciation is quite different, but I suppose you can get used to it quickly. I have never studied French, but using my knowledge of PT, Italian, Spanish and English I can understand Flaubert, and Flaubert seems to me to have a very large vocabulary. Sure, I don't understand all of the words, and it takes me one hour to read twelve pages, but I can get the 'story' and enjoy the more poetic paragraphs. I don't think it would take you more than three months studying Italian for you to read Dante, even if only one or two isolated canti now and again.

I didn't study Italian. I watched some Fellini movies, listened to Verdi, Mozart and some contemporary popular songs (Fabrizio de Andre, Gaber), and then delved straight into Indro Montanelli's series on the history of Italy, using a dictionary. It's written in a very easy-reading style. Montanelli was a journalist (sort of a conservative liberal, thank God) who wrote history to the large public, following the old 'great men' style without forgetting about the lives of the common people. His books are very nice to read, and he makes it easy for you to memorize important persons and facts.

I would but I'm a student and my time at home is already used on projects and studying, so I don't really have the time to learn a new language these days.

That is very sad. I am a Law student, so I am sort of free to basically ignore all of my university-related work and focus on literature instead. Had I chosen computer engineering, which I almost did, I would have found myself in your situation. It will be a terrible day when reality decides to knock on my door.

>Why do you find it hard to believe English scholarship could be superior to Italian work on Dante?
Because:
>For the longest time it held true for Shakespeare that German scholarship was miles beyond, to the point where the Germans practically 'invented' Shakespeare as we know him, and I'm sure you could still make a similar claim today as gems of Shakespearean scholarship continue to be written by Germans.

>Had I chosen computer engineering
Yeah that's me.

Thank you for confirming my suspicions

literal utisy googling things he doesn't understand detected
if you weren't a basement dwelling shitpostee you'd know everything you posted about and more is vigorously discussed in English and not so much in Italian, which defaults to making the text more modern in cases of disagreement

OP, stop with these questions.
You must read it in every different language you can find a translation of. YOU MUST DO IT!!!!
STOP FUCKING AROUND!

>For the longest time it held true for Shakespeare that German scholarship was miles beyond, to the point where the Germans practically 'invented' Shakespeare as we know him, and I'm sure you could still make a similar claim today as gems of Shakespearean scholarship continue to be written by Germans.

This meme invented by Tolstoy needs to end.

no

i read Mitre's and it was p good

>Any translation is a 'different book' compared to its source text.
That's only technically true, but you can't just reduce a very simple statement to such an extreme one. It's not the same thing to translate something word for word than to translate it by changing the words and choosing the ones you think are going to make the prettiest rhymes. One of them is just mirroring the text while the other is clubbing it into your preferred shape

lmao anglo/nordic larper should be exterminated en masse

So that means you can't find any chaucer on middle english?

...

What literary movement does de Sade's work fit in?

What other books can you recommend that are as brutal as his work?

--

I asked the same to an Italian studentessa and she said that even Italians kids read it in books that often have more footnotes than text. Think about how hard it would be for a fresh English speaker to read Hamlet, then remember that Shakespeare was writing in the early modern period, and Dante right at the start of the Dark Ages.

She also said I should get to know the historical background, as Dante didn't write like someone who believed that he would be read after his time. He expected his reader to be familiar with even the cronaca of

(shitty android app)
With the cronaca of contemporary Florence. So there's a big linguistic and historical bridge to cross before you can really read Dante.

And now you have me thinking about my Beatrice. More than a year since I saw her last. I'll need valium to sleep tonight.

What a lying faggot

Every copy of the divine comedy is printed with the same words Dante wrote plus footnotes.

Even schoolbooks.

t. Italian

In the french pedos movement. It has been going on for 1000 years

>beatrice

Little Easter egg you got there, ya larping scoundrel

>right at the start of the Dark Ages.
More like right at the turning point between the middle ages and early renaissance

thank you vincent desiderio

>the start of the Dark Ages
>1300
>not the end of the 13th Century Renaissance.

Hard not to larp a little when the most famous painting of Dante and Beatrice shows them at the end of Ponte della Santa Trinita, where me and this girl separated after walking home at the end of the day.

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Henry_Holiday_-_Dante_meets_Beatrice.jpg

Maybe I'll also write a masterpiece about this girl who, in retrospect, I barely knew and certainly doesn't think about me any more, just like Dante.

Sigh

Hot damn who's the one in red

So, what's the ultimate edition? What's the best italian edition? Bilingual edition? With/without annotation? Should someone expect the annotation to be even longer than the actual text? What's the point then, there? You'll understand the world alright, but you won't be able to enjoy reading it.

She kinda breaks the immersion for me as someone with red hair and that sort of complexion wouldn't last a day in the Florence summer.

Yeah because I'd smash that to smithereens

>wouldn't last a day in the Florence summer.
>"July is the hottest month in Florence with an average temperature of 25°C"
Nigga that's not even hot; it's short sleeves + long trousers weather

>What's the best italian edition?
UTET

>What's the point then, there?
Knowing what Dante's talking about.

I was there July through to September last year and It broke 30 degrees more often than not. In August it was generally around 35. Trying to live there and get work done in these months is next to impossible. The entire city shuts down for about six weeks for this reason.

>Knowing what Dante's talking about.
How about enjoying the work for its literary merit, though? The story, the technique, the metaphors and even the prose (inb4copypasta) can be enjoyed without literally academic ammounts of annotation

This summer wasn't normal though. Italy got melted this year. I hope trump reconsider the Paris climate agreement

Where I live, temperatures between December and February can fluctuate from 35 to 50, so Iunno

>UTET
Go into a bit of detail, why don't you? Why is it the best, in your opinion? What's the most recent print? Will I find it in, say, Amazon?

>I hope trump reconsider the Paris climate agreement
It's too late anyway

You can see that painting in either Manchester or Liverpool; I can't remember which.

No Musa, jet half translates are up there.
>REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Medieval Florentine is modern Italian...

>What's the best Italian edition?
Probably some 200€ obscure edition by one of the many Italian Dante study societies which consist of 3000 pages of literary criticism and 500 of the actual text (I've seen a couple of these old tomes with my own eyes, pretty amazing stuff)

>Why do you find it hard to believe English scholarship could be superior to Italian work on Dante?
I mean... because it isn't? Are you aware of how much we love to wank over Dante's poem? We've done it for 600 years. Also, anglos who are interested in Italian literature are a very small minority and a even smaller group are those who actually speak the language. Which, ya know, it's actually a pretty important thing when doing poetry criticism. Italians start reading Dante in middle school, with edition with footnotes that cover half the page, most anglos (at least from my personal experience) don't even know about basic stuff like the four levels of interpretation or the numerical symbolims.

>I'm not saying Italian scholar is actually inferior, but you come off as a total philistine whose only 'qualification' would be speaking Italian on a native level with which you deny all the rest of us poor 'muggles' a say in the matter.
Sorry but this is a dumb argument. Italian isn't some Arabic language, I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Italian criticism of Dante is translated and every Anglo that is actually interested in the poem knows about it. And if it was untranslated, as you seem to imply, yes, you'd still need to read it in order to make a judgement. Thinking otherwise is plain retarded, and makes you sound like the typical ignorant American that unconsciously thinks that "everything worth reading is translated to English and if it isn't translated it isn't worth reading" or something along these lines.
>Furthermore, if you're actually Italian, the same argument you implied could be turned against you, because how would you be able to rate an English translation?
Because I can speak English pretty decently and I've read the poem in the original language?

Btw read Montale

Indeed, it's at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Worth a visit if you like The Pre-Raphaelites.

ya sure and middle english is present-day english you dunce

Lemme rephrase: What is the best currently in print and not obscure as fuck italian edition for someone who just wants to read the fucking thing goddamn.

Not everyone looking for decent editions of books is looking to devote the rest of their lives to becoming a scholar on it, and I think you understand that, so either tell me you don't know or stop being so pedantic, fuck.

huh?
he just said works should only be read originally..

And the other guy counted with an example how how ludicrous that statement is: If we're to take it seriously then we should give up on reading anything written in any language that has either been lost or requires years and years of study to master.

At least that's my take on that exchange.

Yeah i know lol I was just joking. I'd go with UTET as the other user said (yeah I think you can find it on Amazon, I've seen it the other day at the bookstore). Currently I'm rereading my edition from High school (pic related).

thanks

I've been looking for a while now and it's really hard to find an UTET edition of the book that's in one volume and below a thousand-or-so Euros.

just get any italian version, how different can it be, it's the same language