Replying to Avatar The Ben Gunn

The masculine urge to learn Italian and German to better understand their literature.

Dante's Divine Comedy in English doesn't even touch the original work. The attempts to match the verse are structurally impossible, and the prose-only translations are as literal and ugly as a photocopied Polaroid picture of a wedding.

Italian is not even talking, its a way of singing. It's ancient and beautiful. Matchless. If you have a native understanding of Italian - you are blessed.

William Blake and Gustave Dore did the best justice to Dante as a artist by illustrating the works. Translations are a disaster. Makes me look at the English Bible differently. It's utterly limited by the individual translator.

To think you understand the direct word of God directly through a literal interpretation of a story translated 2 or 3 times by fallible humans is a very limited perspective.
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mleku 2y ago

all of the modern versions of the languages themselves even are photocopies of photocopies of the older languages too. most of them minced up through the machinery of imperialism.

the only bright side to it is that once you have a firm grasp on a few distinct varieties of european languages you practically acquire the entire continent's stems and variants of modifiers and learning more of them (either other languages or deeper in each) gets easier.

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The Ben Gunn 2y ago

The translator has an impossible task imo. They are a blind censor. Only what they understand of the original work can pass through their own filter - but they are capped by not being able to add their own value.