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list price: $16.99
edition:eBook
also available: Paperback
category: Poetry
published: Mar 2012
ISBN:9781926836867
publisher: Athabasca University Press
imprint: AU Press

The Metabolism of Desire

The Poetry of Guido Cavalcanti

by Guido Cavalcanti, translated by David R Slavitt

tagged: ancient, classical & medieval
Description

The fact that Cavlacanti’s friend, Dante Alighieri, was a supremely fine poet ought not blind us to Cavalcanti’s own, rather different excellence. Both men were attracted to the dolce stil nuovo, the “sweet new style” that emerged in thirteenth-century Florence. While Dante’s poetry was devoted to his childhood sweetheart, Beatrice, Cavalcanti’s poetry had more the tang of real-world experience: he struggled against unruly passions and sought instead to overcome love – a source of torment and despair.

It is chiefly through the translations of Rossetti and Pound that English-speaking readers have encountered Cavalcanti’s work. Pound’s famous translation, now viewed by some as antiquated, is remarkably different from the translation provided here in the graceful voice of poet David Slavitt. Working under the significant restraints of Cavalcanti’s elaborate formal structures, Slavitt renders an English translation faithful to the original poetry in both rhyme and rhythm.

About the Authors
Guido Cavalcanti (ca. 1255-1300) was, after Dante, the most important Italian poet of the thirteenth century. Adapting the courtly traditions of Provencal poetry into the dolce stil nuovo (sweet new style), Cavalcanti’s shorter poems broke fresh ground - creating models that influenced Petrarch and most other poets of the renaissance.

David R. Slavitt is a widely known poet, novelist, critic, and translator who prepared these English versions of the poems because he loved them.
Contributor Notes

David R. Slavitt is a widely known poet, novelist, critic, and translator who prepared these English versions of the poems because he loved them.

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