Tag Archives: Dante

“Scorn not the Sonnet” by William Wordsworth [w/ Audio]

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British (English) School; William Wordsworth (1770-1850) ; National Trust, Wordsworth House; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/william-wordsworth-17701850-130624
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned,
  Mindless of its just honours; with this key
  Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody
  Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound;
 A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound;
  With it Camöens soothed an exile's grief;
  The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf
  Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned
 His visionary brow: a glow-worm lamp,
  It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land
  To struggle through dark ways, and, when a damp
  Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand
 The thing became a trumpet; whence he blew
 Soul-animating strains -- alas, too few!

BOOK REVIEW: The Translations of Seamus Heaney by various [Trans. by Seamus Heaney / Ed. by Marco Sonzogi]

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The Translations of Seamus HeaneyThe Translations of Seamus Heaney by Seamus Heaney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Release Date: March 21, 2023 [for the reviewed edition]

I’d read Heaney’s approachable yet linguistically elegant translation of Beowulf long ago, and was excited to see this collection of his translations coming out. The one hundred pieces gathered make for a diverse work, from single stanza poems to epic narratives and timed from Ancient Greece through modernity. The pieces include works from well-known poets such as Baudelaire, Cavafy, Dante, Brodsky, Horace, Sophocles, Ovid, Pushkin, Rilke, and Virgil. But most readers will find new loves among the many poets who aren’t as well-known in the English-reading world, including Irish and Old English poets. I was floored by the pieces by Ana Blandiana, a prolific Romanian poet who’s a household name in Bucharest, though not so well-known beyond.

I’d highly recommend this anthology for poetry readers. Besides gorgeous and clever use of language, the power of story wasn’t lost on Heaney and his tellings of Antigone (titled herein as “The Burial at Thebes,) Beowulf, Philoctetes (titled “The Cure at Troy,”) and others are gripping and well-told.


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