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: The Buck Stops Here

Classics in Translation

By Stuart Buck, Esq.

I enjoyed John McWhorter's piece arguing that Shakespeare should be performed as translated into modern English, because even when he used words that exist to this day (such as "character"), he was using older meanings that are rather different than what we would understand. I've recently been trying to read Dante's Divine Comedy. Emphasis on "trying," because it's rather hard going, mostly because so much of the meaning lies in Dante's placement of so many then-modern-day Italian politicians, popes, and bishops in one of the levels of hell. But all of those politicians and church officials are now totally obscure, at least to me. Thus, translating Dante into English doesn't quite take things far enough. In order for the work to produce the same effect that would have been experienced by an Italian circa 1300, one would have to see (just for example) Pope John XXIII, Nancy Pelosi, Rembert Weakland, Dick Cheney, and perhaps Newt Gingrich in hell...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Buck Stops Here on May 21, 2009 (boomark / email).