Josep María Micó. Barcelona, 1961. Just published, in Cliff of a new translation of the ‘Comedy’ of Dante, a feat philological that, this time, unlike when he translated the ‘Orlando Furioso’ of Ariosto, has not caused any physical injury.
Every time you need their translations of the classics, and for decades the divine Comedy of Dante had not been re-translated into Spanish. Why she believed that it was a good time to do so?I had the idea of translating Dante from 2010 or 2011, although in reality it was an idea that haunted me since youth. The Comedy struck me so much when I read it, in Italian, that I knew Italian, and the translation of Angel Crespo of the 70’s. And I said to myself: when you know Italian, I hope to translate it. So there was a need autobiographical that has been filled with magic not planned, because I’ve finished the 56-year-old, that is the age at which he died Dante.How did you learn Italian?I’ve been self-taught. At the beginning, I wanted to learn enough to understand the lyrics of songs that I liked. I am a big fan of Mine, for example, and of course, you want to understand what it says… Reading a lot and learning words, at the end you have a base with which you defend.How is that given to translate Dante?Logically, no. There is more work. One thing that I did to learn was to read in Italian all the literature that was not in Spanish. For example, to Dostoyevsky I’ve read this in Italian. It also helped me very much to read the Spanish classics in Italian translation, as the tag-along, or don Quixote, which as you already know what were going, I could follow the text by discovering the meaning of many words. It has been a process of many years.The translation of Ángel Crespo, who is 70, might seem to be canonical, because it preserves the rhyme consonant of Dante and the tercets chained. But it is not one hundred percent faithful to the text, because I had the need to rhyme. How it grieved him much that already exists that translation?Although there are translations, you must continue making them. It is an obligation. In the 80’s also appeared in the Luis Martínez de Merlo, in the Chair, which I think is noticeable, and part of criteria similar to my own. The hotfix a few years ago. I haven’t done a translation in rhymed because it already has been before: is the of Crespo, but also some of the NINETEENTH century, such as Bartolomé Mitre or Abilio Echeverría. The thing about those translations is that, with independence of the hits that they have, the respect Dante was not sustained, but rather occasional, because the rhyming is forced to find words that Dante did not say, or said in another way. You sacrifice the rhyme consonant, and looking rather asonancias, and fidelity to the text.Yes, because the first criterion of my translation is that the respect Dante has to be sustained, and devote to all the passages the same attention. If you wanted to do that, find rhymes became a burden, because in addition, in many cases, would have ended by now coincide with the solutions of Crespo, which is a translation beautiful, but that he (it) betrayed the literal sense, and had a color former. Dante, for example, said, “paura”, which I translate as “fear”, but he used “pavura”, which is an archaism.Where he found the greatest difficulty? What became of the translation a daunting task, and forgive me the joke?In specific passages, where there are many figures of speech complicated. For example, the song of Ulysses, that the number XXVI of Hell. Dante and Virgil arrive at a valley and see a few little lights that compares with fireflies. Crespo, by the way, translated it as “worms of light”. There are nine verses that gave me a week of work, and as eight or ten versions of the translation. There are games of words, alliteration, calambures, small riddles…I have told students of his from the university also translated in class.In the last five years is when I’ve gotten to the background in the translation. Above all I dedicated the time of vacations, summer and christmas. But although I am a professor of Spanish Literature, I have also taught classes on Dante, and working with the students songs that have not yet been translated, if you left me a endecasílabo, a possible solution or a fix, of course, the scoring.Where do you think is the effect of the Comedy of Dante in the XXI century?In something that I don’t say in the preface of the book, and that I would have liked to say: the Divine Comedy is the only book of which we are all characters even without knowing it. There are other books about the human condition, but Dante is about emblems of vices and virtues of humanity, and we all recognize ourselves as potential characters and occasional protagonists, because the ” I ” of Dante is a universal self, he is our emissary in a world of the unknown.It has also begun to be published a new translation of the Comedy into English, the of Alasdair Grey, which coincides in time with yours. Is this a coincidence, or is there a fashion Dante?There is a date approaching that is very important, and the italians are already starting to influence a lot of people. In 2021 it will be the seventh centenary of the death of Dante, and this is giving rise to new translations and a critical edition of monuments of all Dante is being prepared in Italy, and that has not yet left the volume corresponding to the Divine Comedy. But it has also grown the dantismo in many languages. The dantología in Spain is very good, both at the University of Barcelona and in the universidad Complutense, where they are preparing work very serious.Do you know the translations into Catalan of Dante? Have you been able to help you in your version?I know and I have consulted, and that pays a little bit of what I said at the beginning, that the translations are complementary to each other. Is Josep Maria de Sagarra, which is the classic translation that you made in your exile golden in Tahiti, or Haiti, I don’t remember very well where, supported by a scholarship, and that keeps the rhyme with a tongue in a neoclassic style, typical of the Catalan of the 30’s and 40’s, and then of Joan F. Mira, which is more colloquial and contemporary, and gives preponderance to the narrative thread, something to which Dante gave a lot of importance also. At the end, Dante in Catalan is the sum of these two translations, as in Spanish, what could be the of Crespo and mine.In his edition, the work is called Comedy. But as we speak, do not stop saying “Divine Comedy”, I can’t avoid to say, is the form of colloquial know the book, and is an epithet that is well put, because it unites the three parts and goes beyond the Hell, and integrates the Purgatory and the Paradise. The word “divine” appears for the first time in an edition of the SIXTEENTH-century… I’ve seen it and the word “divine” is very well advertised on the cover, away from “comedy”, so that the two concepts shine. All escapes us, but the only word next that Dante understood as a title for her book was Comedy.Before translating Dante, dared with a poem even greater, the Orlando Furioso of Ludivico Ariosto, and for which he won the National Translation Award. What we took advantage of that experience?I served as the training. In this type of work there is a component masochist, and if you’re not prepared for the pain, to translate something so it becomes unbearable. The Orlando Furioso has the double extension to the Comedy: that it was suffering because the days of work, and the chants did not stop never. I ended up with a herniated disk! Dante has been easier, because he planned very well the work, and that allows you to plan also much better translation. There have been four intensive years, but comparatively has been more easy.And what will be next? What the Jerusalem Liberated from Tasso?But well… do you have a crystal ball or something? I have a song translated from Jerusalem, but I did it for years… crystal Ball no, man, but it is the third great epic poem of Italian. A matter of odds.The natural consequence of translating Ariosto, and Dante would also do The Jerusalem, and perhaps within a few years. What I have is resting in a drawer, but I think that sooner or later she will leave, because it is necessary. The Jerusalem Liberated is in a painful situation, is not translated since the NINETEENTH century. I have an edition in verse, precisely in the NINETEENTH century. I struggled to find it.There are several… I Guess that will be the Count of Cheste, which was that in the NINETEENTH century it meant everything. It is a pity that a book of such beauty it is not translated into Spanish in a modern way, and that is not in circulation. If I do, it would be a last act of service philological.You also played guitar and composed songs. How song lyrics are poetry?Good lyrics can be. I published a book called Letters to sing, inspired by the tango and the singer-songwriters. There are tango lyrics that are comparable to some of the poems argentine of that time. Some of the demands of poetry are: rhyme, melody, rhythm, memorability, appeal to the feeling… The culmination of this type of writing is to put on a suit musical. Singer-songwriters such as Serrat, Sabina, or Atahualpa Yupanqui have written letters of a great literary dignity. Without music, not all of these lyrics are poems, but have many conditions of the poetic language. I have done the trip in reverse: I’ve written poems, and I have been able to convert in song, with stanzas and rhymes, I have tried to put music on.
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