◦
“Introduction
to Part II” (in
The Early Italian Poets),
193-206
◦
Contini,
Poeti de Duecento,
II. 566
◦
Cassata,
Guido Cavalcanti.
Rime, 234-235
This collection contains 10 texts and images, including:
The Early Italian Poets text
Scholarly Commentary
Introduction
This kind of cruel burlesque poem is a common and perhaps inevitable transformation within any poetic genre of idealized eroticism. DGR's first quatrain is excellent but the sonnet grows awkward in the second and intellectually dissipated in the sestet. The translation follows Cavalcanti's rhyme scheme exactly—perhaps not a wise move in this case. The dialectal concreteness of the original is rich, witty, and strong. The source text, Cicciaporci (Sonnet XXV, page 13), is reliable except for a minor variance from received editions in line 10.
Printing History
The translation was first published in 1861 in The Early Italian Poets; it was reprinted in 1874 in Dante and his Circle.