POETRY/ Galassi’s Translation of Leopardi: Reviews

Reviews are out for the new English edition of Giacomo Leopardi's Canti, translated and annotated by Jonathan Galassi. When it comes to translating Leopardi, I recall that translator J.G. Nichols cited a warning from Leopardi himself: "Those foolish poets who, seeing that descriptions are pleasing in poetry, have reduced poetry to continual descriptions, have taken away the pleasure, and substituted boredom for it." Nichols noted that in English poetry is highly descriptive, so that's what readers expect and translators tend to deliver.

What do I want in a translation? Accuracy above all, but also an enrichment of English poetics. Having read Nichols's translations of Petrarch and Leopardi, I'm interested in the learning more about the relationship between the two Italian poets...

The poet Peter Campion reviews the new translation in the New York Times, acclaiming Galassi's balance between poetry and scholarship. Campion highlights Galassi's ability to communicate the beauty and originality of the original:

"The 41 poems in Leopardi’s collected 'Canti' are distinct, and beautiful, for dwelling on a threshold between feeling and thought, between the sensuous world and the mind, between presence and absence. [...] What makes Jonathan Galassi’s translation of Leopardi’s poetry so superb is that he understands, and renders, that delicate movement of thought and feeling."

The Washington Post's Michael Dirda calls Galassi's translation moving, summarizes the life and significance of Leopardi, and gives a helpful overview of the contents as an example of great publishing:

"Galassi's own rich edition of the 'Canti,' prefaced by a long introduction, Italian originals and his English translations on facing pages, an annotated timeline of Leopardi's life and a hundred pages of often-detailed textual commentary. The last is particularly valuable for its citations from Italian scholarship"