When at last the task of translating, revising and re-revision, weighin and re-weighting, criticising and re-criticising every phrase, every possible interpretation, and every allusion was done,–first in the seclusion of his own study, and then with the sympathetic aid of his friends, Charles Eliot Norton, James Russell Lowell and others, the work was sent tot he printer in 1864. The basis of the work with its copious, information and illuminating notes, expositions and illustrations was his courses of Lecutre on Dante given in many places during many years in these Lecture it was his early custom to read in translation, the whole or parts of the poem chosen for his subject, with his notes, expositions and illustrations interspersed._With what infinite pains and conscientious care the work was done, and how thoroughly he was penetrated with the thought and expression of the poet, his Diaries, his Life and his Letters abundantlyu show, and the work as it stands is a Masterpiece of scholarly and sympathetic rendering, interpretation and exposition. Naturally enough, ever since Longfellow’s first visit to Europe (1826-1829), and no doubt from an eariler date still, he had been interested in Dante’s great work, but though the period of the incubation of his translation was a long one, the actual time engaged in it, was as he himself informs us, exactly two years. The three volumes of “The Divine Comedy” were printed for private purposes, as will be described later, in 1865-18, but they were not actually given to the public until the year last named.
Henry Frances Carey, M.A., in his well-known version, and also his chronological view of the age of Dante under the title of What was happening in the World while Dante Lived.Ī lady who knew Italy and the Italian people well, some thirty years ago, once remarked to the writer that Longfellow must have lived in every city in that county for almost all the educated Italians “talk as if they owned him.”Īnd they have certainly a right to a sense of possessing him, to be proud of him, and to be grateful to him, for the work which he did for the spread of the knowledge of Italian Literature in the article in the tenth volume on Dante as a Translator. It includes the arguments prefixed to the Cantos by the Rev. This is all of Longfellow’s Dante translation of Inferno minus the illustrations.
WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD WHILE DANTE LIVED.
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