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"Lovers of the English language will be delighted by this eloquently accomplished enterprise." 內容簡介
This splendid verse translation by Allen Mandelbaum provides an entirely fresh experience of Dante's great poem of penance and hope. As Dante ascends the Mount of Purgatory toward the Earthly Paradise and his beloved Beatrice, through "that second kingdom in which the human soul is cleansed of sin," all the passion and suffering, poetry and philosophy are rendered with the immediacy of a poet of our own age. With extensive notes and commentary prepared especially for this edition. 作者簡介
Dante Alighieri was born in Florence, Italy in 1265. His early poetry falls into the tradition of love poetry that passed from the Provencal to such Italian poets as Guido Cavalcanti, Dante's friend and mentor. Dante's first major work is the Vita Nuova, 1293-1294. This sequence of lyrics, sonnets, and prose narrative describes his love, first earthly, then spiritual, for Beatrice, whom he had first seen as a child of nine, and who had died when Dante was 25. Dante married about 1285, served Florence in battle, and rose to a position of leadership in the bitter factional politics of the city-state. As one of the city's magistrates, he found it necessary to banish leaders of the so-called "Black" faction, and his friend Cavalcanti, who like Dante was a prominent "White." But after the Blacks seized control of Florence in 1301, Dante himself was tried in absentia and was banished from the city on pain of death. He never returned to Florence. We know little about Dante's life in exile. Legend has it that he studied at Paris, but if so, he returned to Italy, for his last years were spent in Verona and Ravenna. In exile he wrote his Convivio, kind of poetic compendium of medieval philosophy, as well as a political treatise, Monarchia. He began his Comedy (later to be called the Divine Comedy) around 1307-1308. On a diplomatic mission to Venice in 1321, Dante fell ill, and returned to Ravenna, where he died.
Allen Mendelbaum's five verse volumes are: Chelmaxions; The Savantasse of Montparnasse; Journeyman; Leaves of Absence; and A Lied of Letterpress. His volumes of verse translation include The Aeneid of Virgil, a University of California Press volume (now available from Bantam) for which he won a National Book Award; the Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso volumes of the California Dante (now available from Bantam); The Odyssey of Homer (now available from Bantam); The Metamorphoses of Ovid, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry; Ovid in Sicily; Selected Poems of Giuseppe Ungaretti; Selected Writings of Salvatore Quasimodo; and David Maria Turoldo. Mandelbaum is co-editor with Robert Richardson Jr. of Three Centuries of American Poetry (Bantam Books) and, with Yehuda Amichai, of the eight volumes of the JPS Jewish Poetry Series. After receiving his Ph.D. from Columbia, he was in the Society of Fellows at Harvard. While chairman of the Ph.D. program in English at the Graduate Center of CUNY, he was a visiting professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and at the universities of Houston, Denver, Colorado, and Purdue. His honorary degrees are from Notre Dame University, Purdue University, the University of Assino, and the University of Torino. He received the Gold Medal of Honor from the city of Florence in 2000, celebrating the 735th anniversary of Dante's birth, the only translator to be so honored; and in 2003 he received the President of Italy's award for translation. He is now Professor of the History of Literary Criticism at the University of Turin and the W.R. Kenan Professor of Humanities at Wake Forest University.
跨越時空的文學迴響:一部關於人性、救贖與永恒追尋的史詩巨著 書名: 《星辰之徑:塞壬的挽歌》 作者: 伊萊亞斯·凡德爾 譯者: 林芷薇 裝幀: 精裝典藏版 頁數: 780頁 --- 內容簡介 《星辰之徑:塞壬的挽歌》並非一部描繪地獄或審判的敘事,它是一部深入人類心靈最幽暗角落,同時又描繪齣對光明不懈追求的宏大史詩。這部作品以其磅礴的想象力、錯綜復雜的人物關係和對存在主義哲學的深刻探討,構建瞭一個既熟悉又全然陌生的世界——阿卡迪亞的破碎維度。 故事背景:迷失的維度與古老的契約 故事設定在一個被稱為“蒼穹之柱”的失落文明遺址之上。數韆年前,一個高度發達的國度因過度依賴一種被稱為“以太”的神秘能源而自我毀滅。如今,殘存的人類生活在漂浮於無盡虛空中的七大浮空城中,它們各自遵循著不同的律法與信仰,卻共享著一個共同的秘密:維持浮空城穩定的“平衡石”正在衰竭。 主角卡西烏斯·萊恩,一位曾是“編織者”(掌握古代科技與能量流動的學者)的後裔,生活在最保守、最壓抑的浮空城“鐵砧堡”。他偶然間發現瞭一本傢族世代守護的古老手稿,其中記載瞭關於“塞壬之歌”——一種能夠重塑空間結構,但也可能導緻徹底崩塌的終極理論。 核心衝突:探尋與禁忌的邊界 卡西烏斯的世界觀被徹底顛覆。他意識到,維持現狀不過是苟延殘喘,真正的希望在於理解並修復導緻文明覆滅的根本原因。他的追尋將他引嚮瞭禁忌之地——位於虛空深處的“無光之海”。 他踏上瞭一條充滿危險的旅程,途中結識瞭幾個至關重要的同伴: 1. 莉婭·索倫: 來自浮空城“水鏡城”的流亡航海傢。她精通星象學和舊世界的航海術,性格堅韌、行事果決,是卡西烏斯在技術和情感上的重要支撐。她對“塞壬之歌”的理解,更多是基於對海洋和潮汐的直覺感知,與卡西烏斯偏嚮物理學的分析形成鮮明對比。 2. 澤諾: 一位來自神秘遊牧民族“影族”的沉默戰士。影族人似乎擁有預知危險的能力,他們拒絕依賴任何浮空城的科技,隻信奉自然界的“迴響”。澤諾的加入為團隊帶來瞭生存智慧和對道德睏境的冷峻視角。 他們的目標是找到傳說中的“源頭之塔”,據說那裏保存著“平衡石”的真正設計圖,以及阻止“塞壬之歌”被惡意釋放的終極方法。 對立麵:秩序的維護者與狂熱的信徒 然而,他們的行動並非沒有阻礙。最大的威脅來自於鐵砧堡的統治階層——“審判議會”。議會堅信,任何對舊日科技的深度探究都將引緻災難,他們奉行嚴苛的“靜默教條”,主張通過限製資源和信息來維持錶麵的和平。議會的首席執行官,執政官馬庫斯·凡德爾,對卡西烏斯展開瞭無情的追捕,他深信卡西烏斯的探索會喚醒沉睡的“混沌之靈”。 與此同時,一支名為“純化者”的宗教狂熱團體也浮齣水麵。他們認為“以太”的衰竭是神祇對人類墮落的懲罰,他們並非想修復,而是想主動引爆“塞壬之歌”,以求得一次徹底的、痛苦的“重生”。 主題的深度:記憶、自由意誌與代價 《星辰之徑》的核心在於探討記憶與遺忘的悖論。蒼穹之柱的文明之所以毀滅,正是因為他們試圖通過科技手段“抹去”痛苦的記憶,追求一種永恒的、靜態的“完美”。卡西烏斯必須麵對一個終極選擇:是選擇一個虛假的、被強加的和平(由執政官提供),還是冒著毀滅的風險,去擁抱一個充滿不確定性但可能帶來真正自由的未來(由“塞壬之歌”的真相揭示)。 作品細膩地描繪瞭每位角色在麵對絕境時的人性掙紮:莉婭對逝去傢人的愧疚,澤諾對部族傳統的堅守,以及卡西烏斯在知識的重壓下對自我身份的迷失。他們的情感綫索如同星辰軌跡般交織,揭示瞭人類在極端環境下對愛、忠誠和自我犧牲的理解。 高潮:源頭之塔的幻象與抉擇 故事的高潮發生在源頭之塔的內部。塔內並非是冰冷的機械室,而是一個由殘留的以太能量構成的“集體潛意識迴廊”。在這裏,卡西烏斯見證瞭舊文明毀滅的真實場景——那並非是一場災難,而是一場精心策劃的“逃離”,舊日的人們試圖逃離他們自己創造的完美牢籠。 “塞壬之歌”的真相揭曉:它不是武器,而是一種“重塑現實的基礎算法”。掌握它的人可以定義世界的物理法則。純化者試圖用它來製造“純淨的虛無”,而執政官馬庫斯則想用它來加固鐵砧堡的統治。 最終,卡西烏斯、莉婭和澤諾必須聯手,利用他們各自不同的知識(科技、直覺與哲學),修改這個算法。他們沒有選擇重啓文明,也沒有選擇毀滅,而是選擇瞭一種極其微妙的乾預——他們將算法設定為一個“開放式結構”,允許未來的世代去定義和修改自己的命運,承認瞭混亂(熵增)是生命持續的必要條件。 尾聲:未盡的旅途 故事以一種充滿希望卻又開放式的結局收尾。浮空城沒有立即獲得永恒的穩定,但它們之間的隔離壁開始變薄,星光第一次穿透瞭長久的迷霧。卡西烏斯與同伴們並沒有成為救世主,他們隻是為後來者打開瞭一扇門。他們選擇離開浮空城的喧囂,踏上瞭探索“無光之海”更深處的旅程,去尋找那些被舊文明遺棄的、真正自由的角落。 《星辰之徑:塞壬的挽歌》是一部關於“在不完美中尋找真理”的史詩,它超越瞭簡單的奇幻冒險,深入探討瞭人類文明的循環、科技的倫理邊界,以及個體在麵對不可抗拒的命運洪流時所展現齣的勇氣和人性光輝。這部作品細膩的筆觸,宏大的敘事結構,以及對哲學命題的反復叩問,必將給予讀者長久的迴味與思考。