Volume 31, Number 20 · December 20, 1984
Giants in Dwarfs' Jackets
By D.S. Carne-Ross
Paradiso: The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri, Book 3 commentary by
a new verse translation with introduction and Allen Mandelbaum
University of California Press, 307 pp., $29.95
Translation becomes interesting once it transcends what is now taken to be its primary function, that of providing those who don't have the original with a substitute text. This remains and has always been an essential service, a difficult but relatively humble one. Translation shows its paces when it is addressed to those who already have the original and want not a substitute but an alternative text, one that draws its guiding impulse from the original while taking on a partially independent, critically hazardous life of its own. The liberties this involves are in order only with a work in the public domain, a classic; with contemporary writing we normally want as straight a rendering as we can get.
Review, 3687 words
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