What's the best English translation of Dante's Paradiso?

>>9626921
allen mandelbaum /thread

>>9626921
>how should one prepare to get the most out of The Divine Comedy?
what im trying to do now, i guess lots of Greek myths, homer, and some well known biblical references. brush up on the bible my man.

>>9627162
Be familiar with The Bible, Virgil's Aeneid, and Thomas Aquinas. You should also read up on the politics of Florence at the time.

>>9626951
Don't listen to him.

It depends on what you want in your translation. I've read Mandelbaum and Ciardi (which are the two most people have encountered and are both arguably the best), Mandelbaum is more accurate to the text, Ciardi to the feeling. This works sometimes and sometimes not, for either of them. I feel that some of Mandelbaum's translations are absolute shit in terms of how they sound or flow, while at other times I feel Ciardi's is too simple and pared down. So it's been a tradeoff for me, really. I'll give you a comparison and you can decide which sounds better to you (and go with that one - you'll enjoy it more):

>The glory of the One who moves all things
>permeates the universe and glows
>in one part more and in another less.
Mandelbaum, Canto I

>The glory of Him who moves all things rays forth
>through all the universe, and is reflected
>from each thing in proportion to its worth.
Ciardi, Canto I

Decide for yourself, OP.

Not OP, but I want one with specifically the Italian text

>>9627181
I'm not a die hard fan of literal translations, but looking at the third line there it's clear that Ciardi pulled it out of his ass.

>>9627252
Eh. Like I said, it's a trade. I think Mandelbaum's comes off flat in that passage personally - I'd encourage you to read both translator's introductions about the process they took as it explains their goals better, which I only passingly mentioned in my previous post and I think it would be more fair to either of them for you to do this. In hindsight, I should have said that immediately instead of dawdling until this moment. Oh well.

I've often considered reading through the both of them and taking the best stanzas of each and combining them together so I can get the Dante I want, even if someone else reading it thought it was incredibly bizarre and (probably) tonally insane.

>>9627252
La gloria di colui che tutto move
per l’universo penetra, e risplende
in una parte più e meno altrove.

The italian one for reference, Paradiso I.
The first may be more literally accurate but knowing Dante I suppose the second one get the sense; it's arguably something that Dante could write in one of its doctrinal passages

>>9627181
Longfellow
>The glory of Him who moveth everything
>Doth penetrate the universe, and shine
>In one part more and in another less.
Hollander
>The glory of Him who moves all things
>pervades the universe and shines
>in one part more and in another less.

File: IMG_2843.jpg (3MB, 2000x7594px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 2000x7594px

Decide for yourself in the next 5 minutes and dont come back to lit until youve finished

>>9627304
Hollander is indistinguishable from Mandelbaum and Longfellow too, except he uses the antiquated verb conjugation. So far Ciardi stands out for less literality but better flow.

>>9627275
"in una parte più e meno altrove."
"in one part more and less (in an)other"
is an inherently flat line, since it consists of extremely common structural words. There's no need to re-upholster it.

>>9627308
Well I already have the Durling translation of Inferno, which seems to be well regarded, so voila. This is actually the chart I was looking for though so thanks.