Author: Dante Alighieri
Biography:
DANTE, Alighieri (1265-1321: EB)
Born in Florence, Italy, in May or June of 1265, Dante died in Ravenna in 1321. The best-known of the Italian poets, his presence in this bibliography is owing to the popularity of his works—particularly The Divine Comedy—for translation during the period 1770-1835. A number of the translators were poets in their own right and are given biographical headnotes in this database. These include Henry Boyd, Henry Francis Cary, and Nathaniel Howard (qq.v.). Other translators of Dante are Charles Rogers (1711-84: ODNB), Henry Constantine Jennings (1731-1819: ODNB), Jonathan Trevanion Hatfield (1793-1840: ACAD); Ichabod Charles Wright (1795-1871: ODNB), and Charles Lyell (1769-1849: ODNB). Several of these translators were collectors. Undoubtedly the most eccentric was Henry Constantine Jennings, known as “Dog Jennings” because of a marble dog statue he purchased in Rome and sold in 1778 for sixteen hundred guineas when he experienced one of his many bouts of bankruptcy. For Jennings, translating Dante was a way of showcasing his intellectual agility. Charles Lyell, father of Sir Charles Lyell the geologist, published the first translation in English of selections from Dante’s Il Convito, written in about 1307. The same volume includes his translations of selections from Dante’s La Vita Nuova (1294). (EB; ODNB 19 July 2024; ACAD 19 July 2024) SR
Other Names:
- Dante