The way we have done this in the past is that each one of us takes a turn in selecting a poem, we discuss that poem for a while, and then the next person picks one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
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The way we have done this in the past is that each one of us takes a turn in selecting a poem, we discuss that poem for a while, and then the next person picks one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
I put in my order the other day.
There you go ranking poems, May. "This one's good, and that one's bad," which is precisely the kind of thing JBI warned us against!Quote:
Originally Posted by mayneverhave
I ordered mine today, but the expected delivery date is March 12th, oh well. I also had to dig around for some other books to order, since I refuse to pay for shipping.
I think the distinction should be made from historical and periodical approaches - though quite simply, the Canti are one work, despite the stand-alone quality of each poem. In that sense, the whole work is the work, not just the "higher quality" or "longer" or "more classical" poems within the collection.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
As with Romantics in general, Leopardi as a background to his poems seems to at least require a progressive chronology in interpreting anyway - so we could isolate, for instance, A Sylvia, but it reads better around the other poems, and seems to gain more when read in perspective.
Of course individual poems work better when they're put in their proper context, but I'm not sure close reading the entire Canti is feasible - but who knows.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
How about an ISBN for the text being used?
I am pretty sure that people have ordered or have already got different copies though, for various reasons. Anyway, I'm not sure that using different translations is a bad idea - I think it might bring new things to the table, though you can hit me with that if it all goes pear-shaped if you want. :boxing_smiley:Quote:
Originally Posted by quasimodo1
Eamon Grennan is the translator I'll go with then... thanks
Mine has arrived. Not bad - ordered on saturday.
Mine too, Mayneverhave's funny orange one with no list of contents. It seems OK though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
I assume you didn't get the orange cover one - lucky. Is yours dual language?Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulclem
Mine has yet to arrive... but deliveries have been slowed to to the heavy snows on the East Coast (New York, Washington, etc...) I do have two older translations, however... one of which is bilingual and includes a good deal of notes as well as excerpts from Leopardi's notebooks and other writings. I'm waiting on the Eamon Grennan translation, however.
I did get the orange covered one. It is dual language and has numbered canti. It is different to the one I viewed online which had an introduction. This one has notes at the back.Quote:
Originally Posted by mayneverhave
I sense we're getting close to starting. Is anyone going to start a new thread, or will the discussion just stay in this one? I'll set my signature link to wherever it's going to be.
Mine has not yet arrived, but it should be here in a day or two, I reckon.
Whooohooo!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2801/...f0f908b2_o.gif
My Leopardi book arrived at the same time as my income tax refund!!:banana:
Unfortunately I'm fighting off a particularly nasty sinus infection/flue and feel like death warmed over. I think I'm going to go back to bed and get up tomorrow.:ack2:
Not bad at all, income tax refund sounds pretty tasty as does the Leopardi turning up, though the cold business is not fun at all. :sick: I always have a hot lemon drink and beer when I am feeling like that. The hot lemon because it makes you feel better and the beer because you shouldn't drink it.
I've been reading the Leopardi a little, or "Hamlet" as I am thinking of re-naming him, at least in some poems and very much enjoying what I am reading. "Enjoying" in the sense of thought provoking enjoying, which is not the same "enjoying" when one munches strawberries in the summer, if you get my meaning...
I am looking forward to reading more of him this week, when I can and in starting to pull thoughts together on him when we have all had a proper chance to read a little. Sleep well. :Yawn:
I suggest John Donne's love poetry.
.
Genie... welcome to LitNet. The poet of choice has already been selected by voting and we have agreed upon the Italian, Leopardi. Our goal is to have a discussion of a poet that is a bit outside of usual poets we have all read in school (Blake, Byron, Keats, Shelley, etc...). Our discussion will be focused upon the actual text. Donn is certainly a great poet and please feel free to post your thoughts about him to a new thread or the long-running thread on exemplary older poets. I have several threads on French, German, and Spanish poets which I try to add to every now and then. Also fell free to join in the discussion on Leopardi. There are several regulars (myself included) who are among the usual suspects on any discussion of poetry, but we welcome any output from anyone.:wave:
As one of those "usual suspects" let me also welcome Genie to the forum. So great that Stlukes has had a remittance from the venerable irs to arive with the same edition of Leopardi as myself. Looking forward to the commentary. "The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the milestones are lifted."
George Bernard Shaw
Thank you,thank you!
As you see I am new here and a bit confused; but it sounds more interesting than what I expected. I would like to get involved. You' ll see me here again soon!
Oh shoot, I forgot to order this. I can't make up my mind which edition to order. I really want a bi-lingual, and it doesn't appear that I have access to one. Or do I?
What should I get, the Morrison or the Grennan translation?
I've got the J.G. Nichols orange cover edition and I'm quite happy with it. http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_...opardi&x=0&y=0 (top one) It is a duel text and has extracts of his Zibaldone as notes to support each poem. I believe that it is regarded as a good translation. Its also got a few other extras namely a short account of his life (20 or so pages) and a collection of photos. The only downside to note is that there is no table of contents listing each poem or a section dedicated to the first lines of poems (though I never seem to use that anyway). Despite of this though I am quite pleased with it and with the quality of the paper and printing etc. The Grennen translation is also well thought of from what I can gather, it is a duel edition again, but I don't think that it has the notes that the Nichols edition has and it even seems to have less poems in than the Nichols edition based upon using the book search tool on Amazon? I think this is the one that most people have gone with, I’m not sure. I don't know about the Morrison one at all, I can’t seem to see it listed after a quick search. Overall I would certainly recommend the J.G Nichols one and I am happy with it myself, it's a nice little book. :)
I don't seem to have the option here in the States for the orange one you ordered. Is this the same book, do you think: http://www.amazon.com/Thoughts-Hespe...993567&sr=1-1?Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
The Grennen is a dual language edition? It didn't say that in Amazon.
No, don't get that one it is a different thing entirely! I'll see if I can find it on the Amazon US for you.
No, it doesn't seem to be available in the US and I think you are right about the Grennen, it doesn't say that it is duel language, I though I saw that it was. You might have to go for that edition anyway or order the Nichols orange one from the UK, though it might take a while and I don't know the cost difference. It's really annoying. I had the same problems trying to get it from the library, that just wasn't going to happen. Oh, other than that there is an online translation you might want to use instead that Quasimodo passed on to me, it's available here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19315/19315-8.txt
I've printed a few of these off are going to read some alongside my version anyway. Print them off at work when no one is looking!
Thanks Neely. I'll try to come to some decision.
So odd, because that orange one is the first one to come up on Amazon.ca and when I go to the used editions the sellers are all located in the USA.
Yes, I did see that in the used. I don't usually buy the used. Perhaps I should.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Leopardi describes his method of poetic composition: "I compose only when under an inspiration, yielding to which, in two minutes, I have designed and organised the poem. This done, I wait for a recurrence of such inspiration, which seldom happens until several weeks have elapsed. Then I set to work at composition, but so slowly that I cannot complete a poem, however short, in less than two or three weeks. Such is my method; without inspiration it were easier to draw water from a stone than a single verse from my brain."
Virgil, the Grennan translation is a dual language translation. From what I have read it seems to have received the highest accolades as a translation into English poetry... in other words it is not merely an accurate literal translation but one that retains some semblance of the poetry. It is not highly annotated... but I'm not certain I need or want this. I already have the Casale translation in his volume, A Leopardi Reader which includes a good deal of notation, critical commentary, and a good deal of quotes from other writings of Leopardi that the editor/translator felt help to illuminate the poems.
Fabulous. I'll go order it. Muchos gracias. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I got mine today, the orange one with no table of contents.
Looks good, but I haven't had a chance to read any of the poems yet.
My copy arrived today. I'm ready to roll.
Can we take it then, that whenever backpain was at its worst, or he was feeling horny/lonely he got the so called "inspiration", and wrote? Given the subjects, it seems that the inspiration found is generally a connection between history or abstract ideas and his own deformity and perceived failures.Quote:
Originally Posted by quasimodo1
For those of you with dual language versions (and know how to use them), I have a couple of questions about the mood and emotion of "The Infinite." Reading in different books, I've seen the poem treated in a few different ways and I'm curious to know which is closer to the original. Some translations give the last half of the poem a happier ending than others. Take the Kate Flores translation:
And listening to the wind
Rustling in this greenery, to
That infinite silence I compare
This voice: and I ponder the eternal,
And the dead seasons, and the present
And living, and its sound. Thus in this immensity
My meditations drown:
And it is sweet to lose myself in this sea.
In this version, the poem winds up its platonic message with the warm, reassuring last line "And it is sweet to lose myself in this sea." Most translations, though, insert a little trouble or sadness into the poem:
And as I listen to the wind, that through
These trees is murmuring, its plaintive voice
I with that infinite compare;
And things eternal I recall, and all
the seasons dead, and this, that round me lives,
and utters its complaint. Thus wandering,
My thought in this immensity is drowned;
And sweet to me is shipwreck on this sea.
This version makes nature dolorous. And it turns the quiet absorption at the end of the Flores translation into a "shipwreck." Are these details in the Italian? JBI's characterization of the poet as a chronic complainer make me believe the latter translation is more accurate, but I was hoping someone might know for sure.
I was about to suggest someone start off with a poem. Quark has apparent leadership qualities. :wink5: Why don't you start with that poem? I can't contribute yet, since i don't have my copy, but I think most people do and there's no point in waiting.
Shipwreck is clearly in the original, though in is the better choice of preposition. Shipwreck though is, by my reading, not a negative but a positive, in contrast to the world outside of the infinite. The poem is certainly contrasting the emptiness of the infinite with the pains of life - that is the central idea I think, as to how depressing it is, well that is up to the reader.
Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of "shipwreck" in the translations I'm looking at now. It must just be a quirk of Flores to leave it out. What do you make of the "plaintive" and "complaint" of the second translation? Are those in there, too?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
I agree that the last line is still positive, but to say "shipwreck" rather than "lose myself" changes things a little. "Shipwrecks" generally are "negative" since they remind us of danger, mortality, and being lost. I think Leopardi is acknowledging these meanings, and acknowledging that there is a danger to the self involved in drowning one's thought in "immensity." No doubt, Leopardi still believes it's worth it to do so, but there's a slight reservation in that word.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
For some reasons this reminded me of one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes strips--the one where Calvin unveils his new sculpture "The Torment of Existence Weighed Against the Horror of Nonbeing:"Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
While Leopardi is probably being just as intellectually pompous as Calvin, I don't think he's nearly so dramatic. Calvin's focusing on the dilemma, whereas Leopardi is more concerned with how the infinite and finite, immortal and mortal interact in the mind. It's a creative back-and-forth between these concepts that Leopardi seems to be after. To be shipwrecked here is to be absorbed in this interaction.
Clearly.Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
The Infinite (trans Nichols)
To me this lonely hill was always precious,
And this hedgerow also, where so wide a stretch
Of the extreme horizon’s out of sight.
But sitting here and gazing, I find that endless
Spaces beyond that hedge, and more-than-human
Silences, and the deepest peace and quite
Are fashioned in my thought; so much that almost
My heart fills up with fear. And as I hear
The wind rustle among the leaves, I set
That infinite silence up against this voice,
Comparing them; and I recall the eternal,
And the dead seasons, and the present one
Alive, and all the sound of it. And so
In this immensity my thought is drowned:
And I delight in sinking in this sea.
I must admit that when I first read this poem, the first part of it immediately reminded me of something not altogether out of Wordsworth, the way the narrator takes comfort (in some way) in re-visiting nature. This is perhaps also the case because he takes pains to name the particular elements of nature in exact detail reaffirming that it is the exact place he has been before “this lonely hill” “this hedgerow” “that hedge” similar to that of say “Tintern Abbey” where Wordsworth does the same with “these waters” “these steep and lofty cliffs” “this dark sycamore” etc, etc. The difference being of course that one takes comfort in nature in itself, even delights in nature, whereby one uses nature simply because it presents the infinite which blocks out darker internal voices and woes. If “The Infinite” can be seen as light in any way, then surely the whole thing is tinged in despair because we know that such temporary reliefs are just that? Because of this for me, the whole piece is still ultimately clouded in sadness because nature or the infinity the narrator gets from nature, only offers a short respite from darker thoughts from which the narrator/Leopardi figure is obviously suffering.