The sonnet is one of the three most famous response/interpretations of
the Vita
Nuova
The reading of Dante's sonnet is notably clear and benevolent. DGR seems to have marked his own sense of this quality of the original Italian sonnet when he translates “la visione” as “strange vision”. What is most “strange” in the Italian sonnet is precisely its failure to register the strangeness of Dante's sonnet.
DGR's source text was Ciampi's edition of
Vita
e Poesie di Messer Cino da Pistoia
Probably early, late 1840s.
The translation was first published in 1861 in
The
Early Italian Poets
Dante
and his Circle
The Early Italian Poets)Dante's Lyric Poetry
Poeti del dolce stil nuovo