Is this book overrated? What are some overrated "classics"
>>7408108
Very, very overrated.
>>7408108
>What are some overrated "classics"
Ulysses
>>7408109
Vaffanculo
>>7408108
Dante isn't like Stephen King or even James Joyce. There are statues of Dante and Virgil in Italy that were carved hundreds of years ago. He pushed the entire language of Italian in a certain direction. His Comedy is everywhere referenced. He is mythological more than he is historical.
I don't see how "over rated" (or "under rated") can even apply here.
>>7408108
Anything by this guy. Especially that one called infinity jest or something like that.
Shakespeare's entire corpus
Also Milton
>>7408108
Is that translation from Portugal or Brazil?
>>7408108
Not overrated, Dante carried the torch from Virgil than he took from Homer.
Dante didn't believe in his hell and he wasn't sure about his paradise, it's an epic quest. It might not hold up as well today but in the context of it's time it's pretty fucking brilliant.
>>7408129
Overrated classic for me are things like Romeo and Juliet or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. They are good books but people give them to much credit. At least in my opinion
>>7408142
Portugal
>>7408133
It's called The Infinity Joke, anon.
>>7408149
You don't read Shakespeare like a novelist. You read him like a poet.
ITT: /lit/ goes full Reddit
DAE Dante and Shakespeare overrated? xDDD
>>7408162
You mean "Endless Humor"?
>>7408167
Shakespeare is very underrated. Dante is extremely overrated.
>>7408168
If by endless humor you mean what that book gives you, me, and all of us. Then yes.
>>7408167
To be fair, coming up with an original subject as an OP here is an ability very much scarce.
>>7408171
Are you me?
>>7408168
I thought it was Unceasing Hilarity.
>>7408129
It's a book just like any other. Just because it "pushed limits a long time ago" doesn't give a free pass from being critically analyzed by the public eye.
>>7409060
>Dante significantly shaped the Italian language and the renaissance as a whole, and he is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest literary geniuses in history.
>english speaking board
>2015
>probably hasn't even read it in Italian anyway
>probably regurgitating whatever memes his english teacher shoved down his throat
>can't even detach himself from academic dogma for two seconds to realize how big of a hack dante is
Hey guys! Three is a holy number! It's three books! It's written in cantos, which is threes! Aren't I so smart :^)
>>7409060
I have never seen someone so wrong and mired in ideology.
Yeah, I just finished Canto XVIII of Inferno. The poop stuff was funny, but I dunno. I'm gonna blame myself since I don't care about Christianity that much and I'm reading it in English and I'm not sure if Mandelbaum was the right translation to get. Yeah I know muh renaissance muh italian language I get it but I'm not gonna pretend that I like it as much as Joyce. From my shitty perspective Joyce was way more talented.
>>7409060
I mean, what this anon says is true; but since /lit/ is a bunch of monolingual retards who don't understand Dante's role as the Italian Chaucer:
His role in ENGLISH literature was as a precursor to Chaucer, who like it or not, is the father of English poetry, and whose influence simply will never be matched by any other English writer, not even Shakespeare (not even close). Dante's art is sometimes subtle (look at Canto IV Purgatorio, lines 1-21ish; it ups the ante of the vaguely philosophical ramblings of Cavalcanti and the Troubadours to full-force rejection of Platonism in 12 lines, as a PART of the description of Dante (the narrator's) perception of time -- one of Dante's most beautiful passages.) He's less subtle in, say, Inferno, where symbols rule unchallenged, and in Paradiso, where rhetoric (poetic AND philosophic) rules unchallenged. Poets before Dante were either playing around with Latin (see: Petrarch's Africa, or John Gower) pointlessly, writing short post-Troubadouran lyrics after they became stale (though Guinizelli and Cavalcanti were hitting strong), writing boring French chansons, or writing dumb Middle English alliterative rewritings of the Bible.
Dante runs that through with a sword, writes a sophisticated, HIGHLY original triptych epic exploring the soul without the (and, though retards here might disagree) dogma of the pre-Renaissance religion beating through every crevice and stanza. In translation, his work still reads modernly, much more than Chaucer, other than the naming of contemporary Ghuelfs etc. In some senses he reads more modern and universal than even Shakespeare; his only true contenders are maybe, MAYBE, Chaucer, Whitman, and Homer. He certainly far exceeded the originality of his models, Virgil not excepted.
Dante IS world literature. Dante MADE Chaucer. Dante CANNOT be overrated.
>>7409167
This. Excellently put.
>>7409167
thread le closed
>>7408108
>translations
>>7408149
>to much credit
>shakespeare - book
lol
>>7409167
>Dante CANNOT be overrated.
Dante invented Christianity, he is more important than Jesus.
Just overrated him, step up nigga.
>>7409173
The Sisson translation:
Half way along the road we have to go,
I found myself obscured in a great forest,
Bewildered, and I knew I had lost the way.
---
Through me you go into a city of weeping;
through me you go into eternal pain;
through me you go among the lost people.
Justice is what moved my exalted Maker;
I was the invention of the power of God,
Of his wisdom, and of his primal love.
Before me there was nothing that was created
Except eternal things; I am eternal:
No room for hope, when you enter this place.
---
I turned round to my left, with that trust
With which a child runs to his mother,
When he is afraid or in trouble,
To say to Virgil: “Less than a drop of blood
Is left in me, that is not trembling:
I know the signs of the ancient flame.”
But Virgil had taken himself away from us,
Virgil, my sweetest father, to whom
I had given myself up for my own well-being.
Nor was all that our ancient mother lost
Enough to keep my cheeks, although washed with dew,
from turning dark with tears, and I wept.
'Dante, weep no more for Virgil's going,
Weep no more yet, for you will have to weep
Presently because of another sword.'
---
At this point high imagination failed;
But already my desire and my will
Were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed,
By the love which moves the sun and the other stars.
>>7409167
Shakespeare is still greater.
>>7410212
I'd argue back but I'm tired and just finished a long essay 4 hours ago and got 4 hours of sleep. I'll leave it with a "strongly disagree
>>7409167
Much of this is wrong and anachronistic, relying for its effect on an appeal to modern tastes and ignorance of history.
Dante is revered even now not because his predecessors were shit, nor because he was an inspiration to later poets. Dante is revered because he was a great poet who wrote an incredibly good poem.
As for your bit about his casting off religious dogma I just don't think you know what you're talking about.
>>7408149
I don't say this often, but if you can't understand the genius of Shakespeare - you're actually a fucking pleb.
>>7408108
Brothers Karamazov.
Decent read, but hardly worth all the praise it receives.
![Go_Nagai_Divina_Commedia_01_thumb[2].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/johynJl.jpg "Go_Nagai_Divina_Commedia_01_thumb[2].jpg")
>>7408108
>>7408109
>>7408171
>>7408197
>>7408212
TRIGGERED
>>7408149
Romeo and Juliet is overrated? Lmao fuck off.
>>7409173
Also I told you this fucking ages ago, Hollander is in blank not free verse. Jesus, I don't trust your guide if you get something as basic as that wrong.
>>7409173
>>7410805
>tfw mother tongue italian
>>7409167
Dante was definitely very important and is actually still very cool to read. Abandon hope all ye who enter here!
All I want is a Alexander Pope translation, life is cruel
>>7408171
pfff
>>7409119
e quanti cazzi
>>7410548
Tolstoy was a pleb?
>>7408171
this
the board that shits on Dante and praises Pound
jesus christ
>>7410805
? The excerpts he posted are clearly NOT blank verse?
>>7410805
Are you retarded?
>Consider the Hollanders’ free verse rendering of a thrilling, poignant moment in the final canto of the “Paradiso” — the moment when Dante, having risen through the nine spheres of heaven to the empyrean, turns to face God.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/books/review/Longenbach-t.html
>>7412446
>nytimes
>>7410805
This nigga got BTFO
Tell me anon how embarrassed are you now :^)
>>7411285
do you know how ridiculous it is to generalize about this board based on a handful of responses in one thread? I, for one, can't stand Ezra Pound.
Reminder that a 'classic' doesn't necessarily denote quality (although that's part of it) but more the influence the work has had. The canon/classics aren't a list of the greatest works of all time, but the most influential.
>>7408139
Please tell me this a joke
>>7412422
>>7412446
>>7412455
>>7413126
I've read the Hollander translation. It's blank verse. Why are you relying on a review article in the NYT to lecture me about a book I've read? Why are you relying on a review in the first place if you're trying to recommend it in a guide? If you don't know the metre of the poem how can you recommend it authoritatively?
How about another review article:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/09/03/cloud-nine
>Jean Hollander made a bigger compromise. She has used blank verse, primarily: unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Yes, the verse is stretched in places, but any good poet writing in blank verse does the same thing (otherwise it becomes boring). Shakespeare, Donne, hell, Fitzgerald's translation of the Iliad.
Can you explain how:
>Here my exalted vision lost its power.
>But now my will and my desire, like wheels revolving
>with an even motion, were turning with
>the Love that moves the sun and all the other stars.
Is free verse?
Why are you trying to write a guide about Dante translations when you quite clearly haven't read all of them?
>>7415132
>Why are you trying to write a guide about Dante translations when you quite clearly haven't read all of them?
I doubt you have either. There is a fuck load of translations of Dante.
>>7415132
I opened my copy to a random page. Here's lines 64-66 of Canto VIII:
>Of him I say no more. Then we moved on,
>when such a sound of mourning struck my ears
>I opened my eyes wide to look ahead.
Is that a free verse translation?
>>7415132
nigga i didn't even make the chart and i'm not half the guys you replied to LOL
all i see is you being salty as fuck. and desu i'd rather trust the ny times than some random sperglord on a cambodian wall mural forum.
>Here my exalted vision lost its power.
11 syllables
>But now my will and my desire, like wheels revolving
14 syllables
>with an even motion, were turning with
10 syllables
>the Love that moves the sun and all the other stars.
12 syllables
in what world is this blank verse LOL
>>7415151
I never claimed to. But I am not the one making an infographic guide.
>>7415160
dude if you're so salty you can email him he literally left his email address for you to sperg out
>>7415159
All the lines you quoted are iambic (first line is 10 syllables btw). Like I said, Hollander varies for sense and effect as all good poets have done writing blank verse in English. Here's a line from Shakespeare:
>Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's snake
