{"product_id":"2940015493122","title":"The New Life (La Vita Nuova)","description":"_PREFATORY NOTE_\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDante Gabriel Rossetti, being the son of an Italian who was greatly\u003cbr\u003eimmersed in the study of Dante Alighieri, and who produced a Comment on\u003cbr\u003ethe _Inferno_, and other books relating to Dantesque literature, was\u003cbr\u003efrom his earliest childhood familiar with the name of the stupendous\u003cbr\u003eFlorentine, and to some extent aware of the range and quality of his\u003cbr\u003ewritings. Nevertheless—or perhaps indeed it may have been partly on\u003cbr\u003ethat very account—he did not in those opening years read Dante to\u003cbr\u003eany degree worth mentioning: he was well versed in Shakespeare, Walter\u003cbr\u003eScott, Byron, and some other writers, years before he applied himself\u003cbr\u003eto Dante. He may have been fourteen years of age, or even fifteen (May\u003cbr\u003e1843), before he took seriously to the author of the _Divina Commedia_.\u003cbr\u003eHe then read him eagerly, and with the profoundest admiration and\u003cbr\u003edelight; and from the _Commedia_ he proceeded to the lyrical poems and\u003cbr\u003ethe _Vita Nuova_. I question whether he ever read—unless in the most\u003cbr\u003ecursory way—other and less fascinating writings of Alighieri, such as\u003cbr\u003ethe _Convito_ and the _De Monarchiâ_.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom reading, Rossetti went on to translating. He translated at an\u003cbr\u003eearly age, chiefly between 1845 and 1849, a great number of poems by\u003cbr\u003ethe Italians contemporary with Dante, or preceding him; and, among\u003cbr\u003eother things, he made a version of the whole _Vita Nuova_, prose\u003cbr\u003eand verse. This may possibly have been the first important thing\u003cbr\u003ethat he translated from the Italian: if not the first, still less\u003cbr\u003ewas it the last, and it may well be that his rendering of the book\u003cbr\u003ewas completed within the year 1846, or early in 1847. He did not, of\u003cbr\u003ecourse, leave his version exactly as it had come at first: on the\u003cbr\u003econtrary, he took counsel with friends (Alfred Tennyson among the\u003cbr\u003enumber), toned down crudities and juvenilities, and worked to make the\u003cbr\u003ewhole thing impressive and artistic—for in such matters he was much\u003cbr\u003emore chargeable with over-fastidiousness than with laxity. Still, the\u003cbr\u003ework, as we now have it, is essentially the work of those adolescent\u003cbr\u003eyears—from time to time reconsidered and improved, but not transmuted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome few years after producing his translation of the _Vita Nuova_,\u003cbr\u003eRossetti was desirous of publishing it, and of illustrating the volume\u003cbr\u003ewith etchings from various designs, which he had meanwhile done, of\u003cbr\u003eincidents in the story. This project, however, had to be laid aside,\u003cbr\u003eowing to want of means, and the etchings were never undertaken. It was\u003cbr\u003eonly in 1861 that the volume named _The Early Italian Poets_, including\u003cbr\u003ethe translated _Vita Nuova_, was brought out: the same volume, with\u003cbr\u003ea change in the arrangement of its contents, was reissued in 1874,\u003cbr\u003eentitled _Dante and his Circle_. This book, in its original form, was\u003cbr\u003ereceived with favour, and settled the claim of Rossetti to rank as a\u003cbr\u003epoetic translator, or indeed as a poet in his own right.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor _The Early Italian Poets_ he wrote a Preface, from which a passage,\u003cbr\u003eimmediately relating to the _Vita Nuova_, is extracted in the present\u003cbr\u003eedition. There are some other passages, affecting the whole of the\u003cbr\u003etranslations in that volume, which deserve to be borne in mind, as\u003cbr\u003eshowing the spirit in which he undertook the translating work, and I\u003cbr\u003egive them here:—\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The life-blood of rhythmical translation is this commandment—that a\u003cbr\u003egood poem shall not be turned into a bad one. The only true motive for\u003cbr\u003eputting poetry into a fresh language must be to endow a fresh nation,\u003cbr\u003eas far as possible, with one more possession of beauty. Poetry not\u003cbr\u003ebeing an exact science, literality of rendering is altogether secondary\u003cbr\u003eto this chief law. I say _literality_,—not fidelity, which is by no\u003cbr\u003emeans the same thing. When literality can be combined with what is thus\u003cbr\u003ethe primary condition of success, the translator is fortunate, and must\u003cbr\u003estrive his utmost to unite them; when such object can only be obtained\u003cbr\u003eby paraphrase, that is his only path. Any merit possessed by these\u003cbr\u003etranslations is derived from an effort to follow this principle.... The\u003cbr\u003etask of the translator (and with all humility be it spoken) is one of\u003cbr\u003esome self-denial. Often would he avail himself of any special grace of\u003cbr\u003ehis own idiom and epoch, if only his will belonged to him: often would\u003cbr\u003esome cadence serve him but for his author’s structure—some structure\u003cbr\u003ebut for his author’s cadence: often the beautiful turn of a stanza must\u003cbr\u003ebe weakened to adopt some rhyme which will tally, and he sees the poet\u003cbr\u003erevelling in abundance of language where himself is scantily supplied.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47080770306288,"sku":"2940015493122","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015493122","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}