So I bought Robin Kirkpatrick’s translation by Penguin Classics. But I recently watched a farily knowledgeable and reliable person review different translations and called this translation “bad”. And I did some research and saw the Hollander one being recommended the most, but I can’t really find a complete edition of the 3 parts of the Divine comedy translated by Hollander. So I was wondering does the translation (or this translation in particular if you have any knowledge about it) really matter that much to someone like me who is not super picky?
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I saved this chart from a previous thread, you might find it helpful.
I read the Hollander translation and loved it but I did an entire class on it at college so it was a very academic exercise.
Translation can make a huge difference. I’m not an expert on the Divine Comedy, but for example the first translation of The Tale Of Genji (which is advertised as just that, “the first translation”) cuts the entire text down from ~1300 pages to less than 400. That’s not so much a “translation”, that’s a translation of a heavily edited, reduced and recompiled version. But they don’t tell you that - they call it “the first translation”.
Other translations were made in times when massive cultural chauvinism was the norm. My translation of the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius has constant references to god, because the good christian fellow who translated it back in 18something decided that when Aurelius speaks of “the gods”, he means capital g God of course. It’s also full of insanely pompous language that was archaic and weird even back then. This is not uncommon with Victorian Age and earlier translations of classics - they just feel like they need to talk all biblical because the work is old, and “forsooth” and “nay” and “thee and thine” are great old words. Nevermind the fact that Marcus Aurelius wrote perfectly normal contemporary (to him) Latin.
So yeah, different translations of the same work can vary massively. I recommend googling around a bit and seeing if there are one or two consensus translations, and going with those.