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Fw: VN's opinion of Ciardi's Dante
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From: <nitrogen14@australia.edu>
> Some months ago, a query was raised as to VN's opinion
> of John Ciardi's translation of the Commedia. Yesterday,
> as part of my holiday reading, I read VN's Letters: 1940-1977,
> and found something overlooked in the earlier discussion, a letter
> from VN to Morris Bishop (pp 334-5), congratulating him on his review of
> Ciardi's vol 1, and on his correspondence regarding it.
>
> The review (NY Times Book Review, 24 December 1961), looked up, proves
> slightly disappointing: not the full-scale attack one
> had expected; it contains much more praise than
> censure, and itself refers to its criticisms as 'cavils' only.
>
> The correspondence (NYTBR, 21 January 1962, p 31) is slightly
> more interesting. Mr Ciardi wrote in to object to the criticism
> that, by avoiding archaisms, his version suffered a loss of
> (potential) 'majesty'. (He suggested this was a matter of taste.)
> His second objection was directed at the criticism that he
> had abandoned Dante's rhyme scheme; he said that English simply
> didn't allow sufficient rhymes to make it possible. Mr Bishop
> replied that other translations which had followed terza rima,
> showed that it was possible.
>
> It is easy to see that VN would have supported the first of these
> two criticisms by Mr Bishop; harder (for me) to believe that
> his congratulation extended to the second of them; but there they are.
>
>
>
>
From: <nitrogen14@australia.edu>
> Some months ago, a query was raised as to VN's opinion
> of John Ciardi's translation of the Commedia. Yesterday,
> as part of my holiday reading, I read VN's Letters: 1940-1977,
> and found something overlooked in the earlier discussion, a letter
> from VN to Morris Bishop (pp 334-5), congratulating him on his review of
> Ciardi's vol 1, and on his correspondence regarding it.
>
> The review (NY Times Book Review, 24 December 1961), looked up, proves
> slightly disappointing: not the full-scale attack one
> had expected; it contains much more praise than
> censure, and itself refers to its criticisms as 'cavils' only.
>
> The correspondence (NYTBR, 21 January 1962, p 31) is slightly
> more interesting. Mr Ciardi wrote in to object to the criticism
> that, by avoiding archaisms, his version suffered a loss of
> (potential) 'majesty'. (He suggested this was a matter of taste.)
> His second objection was directed at the criticism that he
> had abandoned Dante's rhyme scheme; he said that English simply
> didn't allow sufficient rhymes to make it possible. Mr Bishop
> replied that other translations which had followed terza rima,
> showed that it was possible.
>
> It is easy to see that VN would have supported the first of these
> two criticisms by Mr Bishop; harder (for me) to believe that
> his congratulation extended to the second of them; but there they are.
>
>
>
>