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“Introduction
to Part II” (in
The Early Italian Poets),
193-206
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Contini, Poeti de Duecento,
II. 545
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Cassata, Guido Cavalcanti. Rime, 182-184
This collection contains 10 texts and images, including:
The Early Italian Poets text.
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
The sonnet is Cavalcanti's dark rejoinder to Dante's sonnet inviting his friend to join him on a perpetual voyage of love. The translation is considerably less successful than the original, partly because DGR's source text, if not precisely corrupt, offers weaker readings than scholars accept as authoritative (the source was Cicciaporci's Rime di Guido Cavalcanti (Sonnet XXVII, page 14). So, for example, in line 4 DGR's source has “segno” instead of the now accepted and much less abstract reading “legno”. Or consider line 3, where DGR renders “altra sembianza” as “another brow”: here he clearly is trying to introduce a realistic detail that will index the ground of Cavalcanti's critical reflection on Dante's idealistic sonnet, but the detail is only formally “realistic”. It's actual force is rather more “poetical” than otherwise.
The translation adheres strictly to the source's rhyme scheme.
Textual History: Composition
This is an early translation, late 1840s.
Printing History
The translation was first published in 1861 in The Early Italian Poets; it was reprinted in 1874 in Dante and his Circle.