Tuesday, November 26, 2013

New Project Announcement

As Dario Rivarossa says in his blog today, International Authors is embarking on a new book project, perhaps our most ambitious to date: a contemporary translation of Torquato Tasso's Il Mondo Creato. The translation will be handled by Dante and C. S. Lewis scholar Salwa Khoddam, and Dario Rivarossa, whose English-language edition of Dante was a Fantasy Writer was published by International Authors.

In his announcement, Mr. Rivarossa describes the unusual characteristics of Tasso's poem:
Though based on Genesis 1, the poem in fact has no plot, no protagonists, no dialogues, no structure, sort of a stream of consciousness, or a movie made with scattered footage from documentaries. A surprising mix of descriptions and theories, theology and doubts, Renaissance culture/history (the Discovery of America) and biology, translations and autobiography, imagination and despair, and whatnot.
Watch this space for news as this exciting project develops.

A depiction of Tasso from a German encyclopedia, 1905.

2 comments:

ilTassista Marino said...

Carter, I thank you once again, together with Salwa who encouraged me greatly.

Already working very hard on the translation, but it's definitely worth it. With a lot of notes, too, on many sides of Renaissance (and not only Renaissance) culture, as well as references to Tasso's usage of Italian, and his sources, and cross references to Dante, Milton, etc.

I will let you have the first - say - 300 verses as a sample, as soon as Salwa has checked them.

ilTassista Marino said...

. . . The translation will be handled by Dante . . .

ha ha, I had missed this! of good omen, anyway :-)