I have not read Pound’s poetry much, but his literary criticism is sometimes baffling. The things he says about Chinese make Sinologists cry, and some of his comments about Greek authors make me wonder how well he knew Greek.
Back to Dante… one of my interests is Old Occitan, a.k.a Old Provençal, and the literature of the Troubadors. Dante himself drops into OOc in a few places in the Divine Comedy. One nice selection of works is The Troubadours of Dante which has an intro, text selections, a grammar and vocabulary. OOc should present no trouble to anyone who already knows a Romance language, except perhaps the seemingly random spelling fluctuations.
I doubt he knew either very well, not as professional scholars would know them. The monograph on Chinese character script is truly weird to professionals, but poets can still learn things from it (just not very much about Chinese). I imagine that his Greek was whatever Hamilton College offered at that time. Again, his linguistic abilities may be suspect, but his critical canon is sound at core and rather conservative. After all, nobody ever got fired for recommending Homer.
Gratias multas ago tibi! I spent a couple of hours yesterday going through the Blast material, it had been a long time since I last saw those editions. My sincere (and belated) thanks for posting those links.
Nevermind, Cantator. It´s a pleasure indeed. I love those avant-garde movements and I myself have translated some manifestos of thenet.futurism present movement. Take a look here.
And, by the way, I am reading besides Italo Svevo (I´ve began “Una vita” and when I finish it I want to read “La coscienza di Zeno”), also Dante´s Comedia and this page is being really useful because offers great introductions and commentaries. I have a Spanish-Italian edition which I bought last week and I read three or four chants per day. First I read the Spanish one and then the Italian one. I think that Dante´s Italian is much more easy to me than Modern Italian (I did Assimil + Pimsleur and now I have a good skill on it) because Dante´s Italian or fiorentino is very similar to Spanish. As we are in a Classics forum, take a look at this beautiful article by Italo Calvino: Perché leggere i classici. I have enjoyed it.
Whoa, what Ørberg version of the Eclogues? or cantos? say again?
And yes, on Dante, an annotated Commedia with Italian notes is what you want — full immersion, baby, and just as good as what the modern Florentines get. I fear I have no such book in mind, but doubtless a trip to an Italian bookstore online could yield the desired result.
