In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Mary Jo Bang’s translation of Dante’s Paradiso is both modern and alive.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
“This will be the Dante for the next generation.
In her own words, here is Mary Jo Bang’s Book Notes music playlist for her translation of Dante’s Paradiso:
I began working on a translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy in 2005. Inferno, illustrated by Henrik Drescher, was published by Graywolf Press in 2012, Purgatorio in 2021. When Paradiso, the final volume, comes out in 2025, it will mean the entire translation has taken a total of thirty years. Music has played a role in all three of the books. Dante’s wrote his poem not in literary Latin, the language in which long poems were usually written in the 1300s, but in the Tuscan vernacular. He gave specific reasons for his choice: Latin was so sublime it would diminish the impact of what he was saying; he wanted the language to have the warmth and intimacy of the language with which we speak to our family and friends; he wanted everyone to be able to read the poem, “even women”; he wanted the language to change over time—which it couldn’t if it were written in Latin because Latin is never-changing, the Latin of yesterday will be the Latin of tomorrow.
Most translators of the poem pitch the language above the register of the vernacular, presumably to gesture to the fact that the poem was written long ago. The elevated language, which often makes the poem seem as if it had been written in literary Latin, risks making the poem seem as if it’s a quaint literary artifact that only speaks about Dante’s medieval era. I translated the poem into the American contemporary vernacular not only because it was originally written in the vernacular but because I wanted the language to reflect the present, so that it would speak not only about Dante’s time but also about ours. The fact is, human nature is remarkably steadfast. Both his time and ours are defined by partisan divides and bickering factions, by lapses in compassion and the withholding of understanding. Dante mirrored his own era by including lines from poets and songwriters who were important to him and who would have been known to his original readers. To reflect the contemporary era, when the English was compatible with the Italian, I incorporated lines from poets and songwriters that today’s readers would recognize. Below are the songs that either appear in the poem itself, or in the notes that provide the context for names, places, and ideas, that occur in the cantos.
“Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long Long Time)”
In the first canto of Paradiso (I.49–51), Dante describes how the secondary reflection from an initial ray of light bounces back up “like a pilgrim who wishes to return.” While a pilgrim can be a religious visitor to a shrine, the term can also be used figuratively to describe any traveler to a distant land. Since today’s dominate mode of distant travel is space travel, and the goal of my translation is to translate Dante’s vernacular Italian into contemporary American English, I translated pelegrin as a “rocket man” who longs to come back. “Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long Long Time),” composed by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, appeared on Elton John’s 1972 album Honky Château. The title was taken from a Ray Bradbury story, “The Rocket Man,” first published in Maclean’s on March 1, 1951. The 2019 film based on John’s life was titled Rocketman.
“Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”
In Canto II.23–24, Dante uses an ancient rhetorical device known as hysteron proteron, a figure of speech where the last comes first, used to describe the near-simultaneity with which multiple events take place—Beatrice looks up at the sun; Dante looks at her; he instantly realizes they are no longer in the old Garden of Eden at the top of Mount Purgatory but inside the moon, the first of the ten heavens. In the notes to this canto, I provide Bob Dylan’s “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream” as a modern-day example of the hysteron proteron:
When I was leavin’ the bay
I saw three ships a-sailin’
They were all heading my way
I asked the captain what his name was
And how come he didn’t drive a truck
He said his name was Columbus
I just said, “Good luck”
“How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)”
In Canto III.3, Dante notes that Beatrice has made him aware of the error of his earlier thinking and has proved the beautiful truth that they are now inside the moon, which he calls “the eternal pearl”; he then says that that truth appeared so sweet. The song “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You),” written by Lamont Dozier and Brian and Eddie Holland, appeared on Marvin Gaye’s fifth studio album, released in 1965 with the same title.
“All My Love”
In Canto V.74, Dante uses the simile “like a feather in the wind.” A feather in the wind is a frequent metaphor of inconstancy in poetry and songs. Shakespeare, in The Winter’s Tale (II.iii.153), has Leontes say, “I am a feather for each wind that blows.” A more recent example is the Led Zeppelin song “All My Love,” written by Robert Plant and John Paul Jones for the 1979 album In Through the Out Door: “To chase a feather in the wind . . . There moves a thread that has no end.”
“Fortunate Son”
In Canto V.115, Dante meets the Roman emperor Justinian I, who ruled from 527 to 565. Justinian refers to Dante as “a fortunate son,” since he’s been allowed to enter Heaven before he’s completed his life. “Fortunate Son” is the title of an anti-war song written and produced by John Fogerty of the American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival; it was released as a single in September 1969 and appeared two months later on the band’s album Willy and the Poor Boys.
“I’ll Keep It with Mine”
In Canto VI, Justinian surveys the history of the Holy Roman Empire, from Constantine’s establishment of Christianity as an approved religion to Dante’s politically contentious present, pointing out the triumphs of those who fought for the empire. In line 74, says he’ll keep the fame of those who were successful with his own fame. “I’ll Keep It with Mine” was written by Bob Dylan for a demo in 1964. The song was recorded as a solo piece in 1965 during a session for Bringing It All Back Home but wasn’t used on the album. It was released in 1965 as a single performed by Judy Collins. In 2010, it appeared on Dylan’s The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964.
“Heartbreak Hotel”
In Canto VI, Justinian describes how, after Octavian prevailed against supporters of Mark Antony in Perugia, and against Mark Antony himself in Modena, Modena and Perugia “were sad.” Octavian later conquered Antony and Cleopatra’s combined forces at the Battle of Actium in 30 BCE, after which the couple returned to Egypt and committed suicide. I’ve translated “Modena and Perugia were sad” as “for Modena / And Perugia, it was Heartbreak Hotel,” which I felt was a reasonable colloquial translation since “Heartbreak Hotel” is, according to the song lyrics, where “broken-hearted lovers” can always find room “To cry there in their gloom.” The song, written by Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden, was recorded and released by Elvis Presley as a single for RCA Victor in 1956.
“Crazy in Love”
In Canto VIII.3, Dante uses the phrase folle amore (literally, crazy (or deranged) love) to describe how in the pagan world, people thought that Venus, when it moved through the third epicycle, “radiated love that was crazy and deranged.” The phrase “crazy and deranged” appears in the pop/R&B/hip-hop song “Crazy in Love,” written by Beyoncé Knowles, Rich Harrison, Eugene Record, and Shawn Carter (Jay Z). It was the lead single on Beyoncé’s 2003 debut solo album, Dangerously in Love.
“Rock Steady”
In Canto XIII, Dante uses a detailed description of the arrangement of the stars in the night sky as a simile to describe how the souls formed two concentric circles around him and Beatrice. As he begins the elaborate description, he suggests that the reader should visualize the initial image and hold it “rock steady” as he continues to speak. “Rock Steady,” written and performed by the singer-songwriter Aretha Franklin, appeared on her eighteenth studio album, Young, Gifted, and Black (1972).
“The Chill of Death”
In Canto XIII.13–15, Dante compares the two circles (of twelve souls each) surrounding him and Beatrice as like the crown of nine stars that make up the Corona Borealis constellation. Myth had it that when Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, king of Crete, after having been abandoned by Theseus, married Bacchus, Bacchus took her crown and hurled it up to the sky where its nine jewels became the nine stars. “The Chill of Death,” a jazz composition for orchestra begins with a recited poem that was said to have been written by Charles Mingus in 1939 when he was seventeen; the piece was recorded in 1947 for Columbia Records but never released. Mingus reads the piece on his 1972 album Let My Children Hear the Music: “The chill of death as she clutched my hand / I knew she was coming, so I stood like a man / She drew up closer, close enough for me to look into her face.”
“I Fall to Pieces”
In Canto XV, Dante meets his great-great grandfather, Cacciaguida, who recounts how peaceful Florence was in his day, as compared to how fractious it is in Dante’s day. In XVI.76, Cacciaguida says Dante shouldn’t be surprised to find “how great families fall to pieces.” “I Fall to Pieces” is a country-pop song written by Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard and first recorded by Patsy Cline; it was released as a single in 1961. Cline died in a plane crash in 1963 at the age of thirty.
“Fools Rush In”
In Canto XVIII.101–102, Dante describes how a group of souls appears as points of bright light that spell out, in Latin, the beginning of the first sentence of the Book of Wisdom— Diligite justitiam qui judicatis terram (“Love justice, you who govern the earth”). Their appearance reminds him of thepractice of auguring based on the number of sparks that fly up when one scrapes a burning log, a practice which he says allow fools to rush in to tell fortunes. Dante’s view of divination is clear from the fact that in Inferno (Canto XX), he describes soothsayers and fortune tellers as having to walk backward with their heads twisted so that their faces are above their backsides. The phrase “For fools rush in where angels fear to tread” first appeared in Alexander Pope’s An Essay on Criticism (III.625).In 1940, songwriter Johnny Mercer used the line in the song “Fools Rush In” (music by Rube Bloom). The song has been covered countless times since.
“Thunder on the Mountain”
In Canto XXI.106–108, the ascetic Benedictine monk, Peter Damian, describes the hermitage where he once practiced as being at the top of cliffs so high “the thunder on the mountain is heard far below.” The song “Thunder on the Mountain,” written by Bob Dylan and produced by Bob Dylan (as Jack Frost), is the first track on Dylan’s 2006 album Modern Times.
“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”
In Canto XXX.28–30, Dante, speaking of Beatrice, says, “the first time ever I saw her face / In this life, until that sight of her now, the song / I followed her with has never been cut short.”In Vita Nuova, Dante’s book of poems accompanied by prose explications, written between 1292 and 1295, he describes first meeting Beatrice when he was nine, almost ten. “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” is a folk song written in 1957 by British singer-songwriter Ewan MacColl and covered by Roberta Flack in 1969. Flack’s version became an international hit, winning two Grammy Awards, and was played as the wake-up music on Apollo 17 on the final day of the lunar orbit (December 15, 1972) before the astronauts returned to Earth.
“Love Always Remains”
In Canto XXXI, Dante describes a host of angels that appear like a swarm of bees that go back and forth from flowers to their hive. In the Empyrean, the bee-like angels descend into the amphitheater that looks like a gigantic rose and then fly back to God, where “Love always remains.” “Love Always Remains,” written and performed by Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser, of the rock band MGMT, appears on Time to Pretend, their second EP, released in 2005 when they were known as the Management.
“Laléna”
In Canto XXXII.102, Dante asks Saint Bernard, who has come down from his place in the amphitheater where the saved sit on thrones and bask in the eternal light and love that is God’s mind, which angel is staring into the Virgin Mary’s eyes. (It’s the archangel Gabriel.) Dante notes that Bernard sits where he does because it’s his sorte or “lot in life.” “Laléna,” a 1968 single written and recorded by Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan, begins: “When the sun goes to bed / That’s the time you raise your head, / That’s your lot in life, Laléna.”
Mary Jo Bang is the author of nine books of poems—including A Film in Which I Play Everyone, A Doll for Throwing, and Elegy, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has published translations of Dante’s Inferno, illustrated by Henrik Drescher (Graywolf Press 2012), and Purgatorio (Graywolf Press 2021). Paradiso is forthcoming in 2025. She is the translator of Colonies of Paradise: Poems by Matthias Göritz and co-translator, with Yuki Tanaka, of A Kiss for the Absolute: Selected Poems of Shuzo Takiguchi—forthcoming from Princeton University Press (the Lockert Poetry in Translation Series) in 2024. She teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.