OT: Don Quixote

[Laurel]

I have Edith Grossman's translation, which contains both parts. I'm think we should probably spend most of our time reading Part 1 together and leave a week at the end for people to begin reading Part 2 on their own if they want. I can be persuaded otherwise, though, by exceptionally quixotic afficionados.

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Everyman wrote:

We'll be taking a sabbatical in September. Then I'm thinking that October and ovember would be good months for reading Cervantes's Don Quixote.

Laurel -- Are you planning to read both books 1 and 2 of DQ, or only Book 1, which is what many people think is the whole book?  I have heard that Book 2 is of much lower quality; the story I've read is that Cervantes heard that some other author was planning to bring out a sequel to DQ, and rushed one out himself to beat the competition.  It makes a difference as we get closer to choosing editions to read. 

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[Peppermill]

Ran into this about Robert Pinksy today and wondered if anyone here is reading his translation of 

The Inferno of Dante .

"Robert Pinsky is the author of many books of poetry, including Gulf Music and The Figured Wheel, and of the award-winning translation The Inferno of Dante. His prose works include The Situation of Poetry and The Sounds of Poetry. He teaches at Boston University and lives in Massachusetts."

I had to check Wikipedia to verify this factoid:  "From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress."

[Laurel]

I have Pinsky's version in audio, read by George Guidall, and I think Bernard does also. I've enjoyed it very much. I saw him give a televised lecture on poetry a few months ago. Very impressive!

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Peppermill wrote:

Ran into this about Robert Pinksy today and wondered if anyone here is reading his translation of 

The Inferno of Dante .

"Robert Pinsky is the author of many books of poetry, including Gulf Music and The Figured Wheel, and of the award-winning translation The Inferno of Dante. His prose works include The Situation of Poetry and The Sounds of Poetry. He teaches at Boston University and lives in Massachusetts."

I had to check Wikipedia to verify this factoid:  "From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress."

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[rbehr]

After reading Choisya's post referencing Stacy Esch, I looked up her web page and found a thought provoking article on Dante that included discussions of what goes on inside the brain when decisions are made.  I did a quick search on the web to see if his comments on the brain made sense - they did (If any board members know otherwise, please let us know).

According to this author, the upper brain, that houses consicous thinking, has about 500 milliseconds to censor the middle brain, that houses emotions and memory, when an inappropriate thought is sent up for action.  (No wonder we can get can get in trouble so fast)  Here are a couple of exerpts from the article:

1. The science of free will.  Current science suggests that voluntary acts originate in the unconscious. Experiments have shown that brain activity exists 500 milliseconds prior to conscious desire to undertake an act (Benjamin Libet, Mind Time. Harvard: 2004).  These findings have raised questions about free will, since at the time of its formation we are unaware that an intention has been formed. However, there is also a delay between the consciousness of an intent and the initiation of the intended act. Our ability to choose not to act on an intent is evidence that free will indeed exists.

2. Between our lower brains and the cortex above, communications primarily take place across a network of two-way, single lane pathways, where the message traffic going up can block and overpower the messages going down, at least temporarily. This efficient wiring helps to explain what the newspapers and history books often show: individuals very often lapse into unintelligent, unforeseeing states that result in terrible suffering for themselves and others. The first third of Dante's Inferno attempts to describe these painful compulsions which seem so avoidable from the detached perspective of rational hindsight. 

More originally, the rest of Inferno deals with a different, darker and more dangerous brain problem that Dante describes as malice. (See Virgil's discussion of circles 7-9, Inf  11:1-66.) The intellect that lets individuals limit impulsive behavior also enables premeditated murder, robbery, fraud, graft and many other entirely voluntary forms of hostility and deceit. Unlike non-cerebral animals, human beings consciously intend and devise harm to others, to themselves, and to the world in general. The cortex not only plans and executes this destruction; it cleans up the mess afterward by sanitizing the story. It makes excuses or justifications that explain away the horrors.

It is fitting that guide Virgil and pilgrim Dante spend most of their time among the malicious intellects.

More food for thought - The author says in a related article:

The dominant mode of description before the Middle Ages is sensory. Actors don't make things happen. Things happen to them. They are possessed and driven. In terms of the creative creature paradox [recall Lesson 1], they have creative moments, but they basically are creatures. Their behavior is caused by an alien hero, god, voice or other power that they believe to be external, not within the self.

The Middle Ages (our name for the time between the ancient and modern worlds) marks a transition toward motor or active description, toward the magical "creative" side of the creative creature. Human behavior no longer reflects the intervention of meddling gods, ghosts or other spirits; instead it is understood to be driven by forces within the individual self, personal feelings, internal urges or impulses toward sins and virtues. These new internal drives are more controllable than the external drives of the ancients, but they come at a steep price. Selves are accountable for actions and may be punished for them, as in the Inferno and Purgatorio of Dante Alighieri's Commedia (usually misnamed in modern editions as "The Divine Comedy," c. 1313-1321 AD).

[Laurel]

Fascinating, Rae. Thanks!

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rbehr wrote:

After reading Choisya's post referencing Stacy Esch, I looked up her web page and found a thought provoking article on Dante that included discussions of what goes on inside the brain when decisions are made.  I did a quick search on the web to see if his comments on the brain made sense - they did (If any board members know otherwise, please let us know).

[Peppermill]

Since I certainly have not followed all the links provided here, this one may be a duplicate, but if you haven't looked here before, you might find this site at Notre Dame of interest:

"Renaissance Dante in Print"

"THIS EXHIBITION presents Renaissance editions of Dante's Divine Comedy from the John A. Zahm, C.S.C., Dante Collection at the University of Notre Dame, together with selected treasures from The Newberry Library. The Zahm collection ranks among the top Dante collections in North America. Purchased for the most part by Zahm in 1902 from the Italian Dantophile Giulio Acquaticci, the 15th- and 16th- century imprints presented here form the heart of Zahm's collection, which totals nearly 3,000 volumes, including rare editions and critical studies from the Renaissance to the present. The nine incunable editions and nearly complete series of 16th-century imprints featured in this exhibit constitute essential primary sources for both the history of Dante's reception during the Renaissance and the early history of the printed book.

"The concentrated Dante collection at Notre Dame is nicely complemented by the wide-ranging holdings of The Newberry Library in Renaissance literature and history, and especially for the history of printing and publishing. These two rich and varied collections have often been used by Dantists in the Midwest and from abroad. The complementarity of the collections is mirrored in the formal cooperation of Notre Dame and The Newberry Library through the consortium of The Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies, of which Notre Dame has been an active member since 1983..."

Anyone want to speculate on why The Divine Comedy dwindled  in readership during the Enlightenment only to increase again in the 19th and 20th centuries?

[rbehr]

In a couple of footnotes, it's been noted that Dante may not have read some of the literary works he's uses in the poem - Homer's work comes to mind.  I've wondered why he wouldn't be familiar with some of the works.  The link in Peppermills note sheds light on this.  Here's a quote from that site:

"The size of an edition was an important consideration for early printers since a successful publisher had to gauge correctly how many copies the market could bear. Thus it is not surprising that publishers adhered primarily to the "bestsellers," namely religious books, textbooks, legal works and the classics. The number of copies printed during the incunable period was usually small, rarely exceeding 300 copies. Around 1500, when the size of the normal book was reduced from folio to quarto 500 copies became standard."

With only 300+ printed copies plus manuscripts copied by scribes, I guess Dante couldn't order the books from BN on-line or pop over to the local library to check out his sources. 

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Peppermill wrote:

Since I certainly have not followed all the links provided here, this one may be a duplicate, but if you haven't looked here before, you might find this site at Notre Dame of interest:

"Renaissance Dante in Print"

... <snipped>

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[Laurel]

Good point. Also, if he could not read Greek it would be difficult for him to read Homer's works.

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rbehr wrote:

In a couple of footnotes, it's been noted that Dante may not have read some of the literary works he's uses in the poem - Homer's work comes to mind.  I've wondered why he wouldn't be familiar with some of the works.  The link in Peppermills note sheds light on this.  Here's a quote from that site:

"The size of an edition was an important consideration for early printers since a successful publisher had to gauge correctly how many copies the market could bear. Thus it is not surprising that publishers adhered primarily to the "bestsellers," namely religious books, textbooks, legal works and the classics. The number of copies printed during the incunable period was usually small, rarely exceeding 300 copies. Around 1500, when the size of the normal book was reduced from folio to quarto 500 copies became standard."

With only 300+ printed copies plus manuscripts copied by scribes, I guess Dante couldn't order the books from BN on-line or pop over to the local library to check out his sources. 

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Peppermill wrote:

Since I certainly have not followed all the links provided here, this one may be a duplicate, but if you haven't looked here before, you might find this site at Notre Dame of interest:

"Renaissance Dante in Print"

... <snipped>

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[rbehr]

I read Dante's introduction to the Commedia (The English translation follows the Latin)It struck me that it was a wordy intro, not at all like the text we're now reading where so much is packed into a few lines with the historical, psychological, and religious references and implications. 

I've been looking at this epic from more of a theological viewpoint because of the subject matter, but now I'm wondering if today Dante is more recognized from the literary or theological viewpoint.  I'm leaning toward the literary viewpoint from today's perspective, although, in Dante's time the theological perspective may have been more important.  What are others thoughts?

[Laurel]

There is some dispute over whether that letter was actually written by Dante.

I look at The Divine Comedy as more literary than theological,  similar to Ben Hur, Quo Vadis, Paradise Lost, or The Pilgrim's Progress. These  books start with some things from the Bible or theology and then add in an abundance of imagination in order to express how things could be or how we should think about something, etc.

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rbehr wrote:
I read Dante's introduction to the Commedia (The English translation follows the Latin)It struck me that it was a wordy intro, not at all like the text we're now reading where so much is packed into a few lines with the historical, psychological, and religious references and implications. 

I've been looking at this epic from more of a theological viewpoint because of the subject matter, but now I'm wondering if today Dante is more recognized from the literary or theological viewpoint.  I'm leaning toward the literary viewpoint from today's perspective, although, in Dante's time the theological perspective may have been more important.  What are others thoughts?

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[Peppermill]

Here are the illustrations of The Inferno done by Salvador Dali.

Some comments on Dali and the Divine Comedy are here.

This location will link an image with the Longfellow translation of the text.

Ebay responds here to questions about the woodcuts.

[rbehr]

Thanks for these links.  Viewing art, particularly linked with the text, as well as reading the piece helps me remember more of the details of the material. 

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Peppermill wrote:

Here are the illustrations of The Inferno done by Salvador Dali.

Some comments on Dali and the Divine Comedy are here.

This location will link an image with the Longfellow translation of the text.

Ebay responds here to questions about the woodcuts.

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[Peppermill]

Thanks, Rae!

Here are some links to Sandro Botticelli 's work.  I find it better if I spread the comparisons out, so I decided not to put these up yesterday.

I didn't do as much searching for the "good" links, so have not found a single good site for the some 92 extant works of Botticelli for the entire Commedia, as described on this first article, when they were brought together from the Vatican (8) and the Kupferstichkabinett (84) in Berlin for a tour including the Royal Academy in London in 2001.

These Inferno drawings by Botticelli can be viewed as a slide show. The images, however, are rather small.  I find the slide show pace a little slow and prefer to set my own, tarrying over some more than others.  The thumbnails here can be enlarged quite well, but not as many are presented.

For other works, try the Divine Comedy Gallery. I just enjoyed the manuscripts and flipping through the Dali images again, noting the titles and details that I had missed previously.  This site is produced by ELF -- Electronic Literature Foundation. I find this: "Since we do this on a volunteer basis in our spare time, it [feedback] is the only currency we have by which we judge the success of our project," but not much more about the organization.

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rbehr wrote:

Thanks for these links.  Viewing art, particularly linked with the text, as well as reading the piece helps me remember more of the details of the material. 

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Peppermill wrote:

Here are the illustrations of The Inferno done by Salvador Dali. Some comments on Dali and the Divine Comedy are here.  This location will link an image with the Longfellow translation of the text.  Ebay responds here to questions about the woodcuts.

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[Choisya]

Thanks for these Pepper.   Dali was a tortured soul, supposedly schizophrenic - illustrating the Inferno must have strangely suited him.  Here are some amusing Spanish adverts he 'performed' in the 60s.  I went to several exhibitions of his art in the 60s and was an admirer of his surrealism but I could never have 'lived' with any of his paintings, they were disturbing images.  His autobiography is fascinating:

The Secret Life of Salvador Dali 

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Peppermill wrote:

Here are the illustrations of The Inferno done by Salvador Dali.

Some comments on Dali and the Divine Comedy are here.

This location will link an image with the Longfellow translation of the text.

Ebay responds here to questions about the woodcuts.

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[Peppermill]

That is quite a post you have put together on Dali!  Thanks, Choisya.

(See above.)

Pepper

[bud12]

Is Don Quixote the choice for October?

[Peppermill]

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bud12 wrote:

Is Don Quixote the choice for October?

Jo

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Since Laurel has said she is going to take at least a sabbatical from moderating this board and since she is on vacation this week, you may want to place that question in a PM (private message) to Jon_B -- or in a Community Room post.

I am wondering, too.

[Choisya]

It would be interesting to read Don Quixote straight after reading Madame Bovary P because the two have often been compared - both characters tilted at windmills.

Flaubert and Don Quijote 

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Peppermill wrote:

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bud12 wrote:

Is Don Quixote the choice for October?

Jo

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Since Laurel has said she is going to take at least a sabbatical from moderating this board and since she is on vacation this week, you may want to place that question in a PM (private message) to Jon_B -- or in a Community Room post.

I am wondering, too.

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