Monday, March 16, 2015

Rhyme

The choice the translator made about rhyme in the Purgatorio and the Paradiso is really interesting to me, if not a little expected. In the Purgatorio, there were occasional rhymes, sometimes internal and sometimes at the end of lines. It gave the air of Purgatory a slightly more unified feeling than the Inferno gave to Hell, even if they were irregular and not exactly reliable.

In the Paradiso, the translator went to the trouble of making many rhymes, often multiple external rhymes on every page. Paradise feels much more often like poetry.

Of course the original Commedia was all in rhyme, but it must be very difficult to translate such a long work and retain both the subject and the rhyme scheme. It's really interesting, the occasional freedoms that this difficulty gives to a translator to add his own touches to how the realms are presented. It really does change how each world feels.

PS I commented on Kelli's post

1 comment:

  1. Good observation. It is always interesting to examine how the greats use rhyme and structure to create an even better picture of the world they are writing.

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