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I need you to teach me /lit/.
First of all, I want to apologize. English isn't my first language but I'll try my best to express my doubts as clearly as possible.
My question is about old works of literature and how we read them today. I'm going to use Chaucer's Middle English and Shakespeare's Early Modern English as examples.
I notice that editions like Riverside Chaucer or RSC Shakespeare replace some symbols (I don't know names but there was the thorn letter) but stick with archaic words and expressions, explained in foot or end notes. I imagine this isn't modernizing the text, or at least not in the sense that the expression is used, as I understand that that refers to a complete translation into Modern English. So, how is this called? What's the name this is given?
Some days ago I read an anon talking about how the Divine Comedy was written in the Tuscan dialect and learning Italian would leave you miles away from actually being capable of reading it. I don't actually remember the exact words anon used, but wouldn't leaning Italian to read Dante be equivalent to learning Modern English and then read the Riverside Chaucer?
Anyway, I realize this may sound stupid to all of those who study literature but I hope someone comes down to my level and explain things to me.
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>>8442330
most of the people here read "translated" Chaucer, and the ones that read in the original probably didn' understand most of it and read just for "street cred", this is probably true to Shakespeare too.
I can't really comment tho, because I've read both of it inportuguese, but I would say the Comedy is way more distant to modern italian than Chaucer is to modern english
Keep in mind that there are few people in the world today that can read the Comedy in the original, even Bloom talks a lot of this book but all he knows is the english translation, and even then he comments on the beauty of the prose and structure, so translations aren't that bad, translations here are most of the time treated as a meme anyway
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>>8442383
I mean, it surely must be better to read it in Italian. I imagine Italians can't read 700 years old literature but neither can English speakers (even if the gap is a few centuries smaller).
The same way we read an Arden Shakespeare or whatever, they must have Italian editions that explain archaic expressions.
If you can read Spanish and Modern English, there's a reason you go for Chaucer in English even if you can't read Middle English. Doesn't the same happen with Italian and Dante?
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Someone?
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Come one /lit/. I'm counting on you.
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>>8442330
I think you could call it a modernized alphabet, or maybe a regularized one. It would depend on the purpose and the typographical standard the text needed to meet. I don't think there's many letters or symbols in the earliest MSs of Chaucer or Shakespeare that would need to be replaced, though. I suppose some Latin letters hadn't been modernized (ie. vv for w) and punctuation was erratic at best. This is why they get edited, though the archaic spelling is preserved because it conveys something of the print history of the text.
I know that T S Eliot, though he knew modern Italian to some degree, found that it was easier to learn Dante coming from medieval Latin. I think your comparison works well enough, though. Someone more knowledgable than me could comment, though, on the influence of each text on their respective languages. I know, for example, that Chaucer is part of the reason that English is how it is now... it became a more unified literary language because of the Canterbury Tales and wasn't superseded entirely by French. What influence did Dante's italian have over modern italian?
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>>8444431
Dante is to Modern Italian what Chaucer is to Modern English
At least that's what I read.
I guess learning Italian to read Dante isn't a bad idea after all.
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>>8444469
I should think it a place to start, so long as you know the additional challenge it will require.
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>>8444484
As much as reading Chaucer today, right? Annotations for archaic expressions and a modernized alphab
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>>8444469
this isn't true, and I have no idea why this thread thinks otherwise. Dante's Tuscan dialect became standard Italian, and it is closer to modern Italian than it is comparing Chaucer to modern English. This is because of how written vernaculars developed differently in different countries across Europe. The reason >>8444431 talks about Eliot is because his Italian wasn't up to scratch compared to his Latin which was exceptional, so of course he found it easier though his knowledge of medieval Latin. In fact if we're making translinguistic comparisons I reckon Classical Latin:Medieval Latin::Dante's Tuscan:Modern Italian.
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>>8444554
So Dante's Tuscan isn't that far from Modern Italian? That's excellent news anon.
I didn't understand your last sentence though.
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>>8442349
I wrote that comment, and I agree that Chaucer is much further from modern English than Dante is from modern Italian. That's why I compared Dante to Shakespeare, because anyone who thoroughly knows modern English can read a Shakespeare play (with modernized standard spelling) and understand most of it, especially with a vocabulary gloss. Those two centuries between Chaucer and Shakespeare made a large difference!
I was just responding to someone who figured they could quickly learn a little modern Italian and be able to read Dante with complete comprehension. "Glossed text" is the word you're looking for, incidentally. BTW, this book is worth a read.
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>>8445870
Oh hi anon, glad you see this post. Care to tell me about that book? And do you have any idea about Italian editions of the Comedy?
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