Global Dante

Course objectives

Questo corso presenta un ritratto globale della storia della traduzione della Divina Commedia di Dante. Le studentesse e gli studenti saranno esposti alle principali teorie di tre diverse discipline utilizzate nell'approccio a questo testo, vale a dire la letteratura italiana, la letteratura comparata e Translation Studies. Esamineremo le traduzioni composte dal XV secolo ad oggi, sia in lingue occidentali che non occidentali. Vedremo come le traduzioni del testo dantesco siano state influenzate da molteplici diversi fattori di carattere letterario e culturale. Secondo i descrittori di Dublino, il corso fornisce allo studente conoscenza e comprensione degli aspetti metodologici, critico-problematici e applicativi di tre discipline (la letteratura italiana, la letteratura comparata, e i translation studies); propone prospettive generali e specifiche in termini globali; sviluppa l’autonoma capacità della studentessa/dello studente di porre in relazione quanto appreso con altri SSD; mette la studentessa/lo studente in grado di utilizzare le conoscenze acquisite e il linguaggio specifico appreso per le cosiddette “competenze trasversali”.

Channel 1
JACOB DEUTSCH BLAKESLEY Lecturers' profile

Program - Frequency - Exams

Course program
In Italian universities, Dante’s Commedia is always taught as a work of Italian literature. Yet, as even Italian philologists know, Dante’s work is among the most translated in the entire world. What happens then if we decide to study the Commedia not in its Italian edition but in translation? And not only in its English, French, German, and Spanish translations, but also in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Farsi, Japanese, Korean, and Turkish translations? How might the rich, multilayered Italian text be translated and rewritten in other languages, cultures, and societies? How does the fundamental theological framework of the poem, with the Catholic notions of Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, get transferred into languages without such religious concepts, for instance? We will also examine the reception of Dante’s text in Wikipedia editions as well as in libraries across the world.
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites
Books
Dante, Inferno [This text can be read either in translation or in Italian]; The Cambridge Companion to Dante’s ‘Commedia' (Cambridge University Press, 2018), read in its entirety; Lawrence Venuti, Contra Instrumentalism (University of Nebraska, 2019), pp. ix-40; Lawrence Venuti, ‘Introduction: Conditions of Possibility’, in The Translator’s Invisibility (Routledge, 2018); Jacob Blakesley, ‘Comparing Translations of Dante’s Commedia’, CCS 20.2-3 (2023), pp. 293-318; Jacob Blakesley, ‘The global popularity of Dante’s Divina Commedia: translations, libraries, Wikipedia’, Bibliotheca Dantesca 5 (2022), pp. 153-181; Jeffrey Einboden, ‘Voicing an Islamic Dante: The Problem of Translating the Commedia into Arabic’, Neophilologus 92 (2008), pp. 77–91.
Frequency
In person classes
Exam mode
The oral exam will deal with the assigned texts.
Bibliography
This will be given during the course.
Lesson mode
There will be many lectures, but there will also be some seminars
  • Lesson code10616104
  • Academic year2025/2026
  • CourseGlobal Humanities
  • CurriculumSingle curriculum
  • Year1st year
  • Semester2nd semester
  • SSDL-FIL-LET/10
  • CFU6