Faithful in My Fashion : Essays on the Translation of Poetry

Faithful in My Fashion collects eleven urbane and witty essays on the art of translation and on literary companionship, plus an interview with the author, whose many translations of Italian poetry include two prize-winning volumes with Princeton University Press and a fully rhymed version of Dante's Inferno. In the seven essays that make up the first of its three sections, Palma discusses such subjects as his Italian heritage and its relationship to his becoming a translator, the qualities he looks for in choosing a poet to translate, the comparative merits of translations of the same Shakespeare sonnet by two giants of modern Italian poetry, and his own intentions and techniques in the rendering of poetry from one language to another. Wide-ranging as they are, these essays are unified by a commonsense yet somewhat controversial approach to poetry translation. The second section consists of tributes to four friends and mentors, including the distinguished poet-translators John Frederick Nims and Daniel Hoffman. The third and final section is an interview with the author conducted in 2009 by Marc Alan Di Martino. Book jacket.