The Poetry of Michelangelo

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An Annotated Translation

James M. Saslow

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This is the only available bilingual edition of the more than three hundred sonnets, madrigals, and other poems produced by Michelangelo over his long career. The poems are invaluable for what they reveal of the artist's innermost feelings about such universal themes as love, death, and redemption.

"A superb introduction to Michelangelo's life, a masterful bilingual presentation of his written work, commentaries, and an annotated bibliography. . . . A handsome volume of pure scholarship that will find a permanent place in one's library, to be dipped into from time to time as a source of deep enjoyment."—Virginia Quarterly Review

"For educated readers who want to know what Michelangelo's poetry manages to do, who want a guide through the Italian and even more through the conventions that enabled Michelangelo to write at all, this is an indispensable book."—Richard Howard

"The exceptionally difficult task of translating Michelangelo's poetry has been accomplished with aplomb: equally successful is the no less difficult task of placing the poems within their biographical, social, intellectual, and artistic context. Saslow's annotated translation will be the standard critical edition of Michelangelo's poetry."—William E. Wallace

"The exceptionally difficult task of translating Michelangelo's poetry has been accomplished with aplomb: equally successful is the no less difficult task of placing the poems within their biographical, social, intellectual, and artistic context. Saslow's annotated translation will be the standard critical edition of Michelangelo's poetry."—William E. Wallace, Washington University, St. Louis

"The annotations, both historical and textual, are very complete and elucidate the more difficult passages. The introduction provides a good critical appreciation of the dominant themes of the poems. Appropriate for upper-division undergraduates and general readers."—Choice

"Saslow has done a great service in providing a bilingual edition of Michelangelo's complete Rime, some 300 sonnets, madrigals, and other poems and fragments. . . . Thorough notes. . . . A lucid and balanced discussion of Michelangelo's life and art."—Library Journal

"[A] notable fraction of the work shows this non-poet wrestling the conventions into surprising shapes—i.e., into poetry. . . . Intelligently prefaced and generously annotated, Saslow's edition may offer the best available introduction to what the poet Eugenio Montale described as an 'intellectual passion that expresses itself in hammer blows.'"—James Marcus, Newsday

"This volume serves well those who are unfamiliar with Michelangelo's poetry, those who have read the poems in the original Italian, as well as scholars. Along with translations into English of the entire corpus of Michelangelo's poetry, it contains a cogent introductory essay by Saslow, a concordance to his drawings and an extensive bibliography that includes the Florentine's writings along with the traditionally most important and most recent secondary sources."—Joseph Francese, Quaderni d'italianistica

"Without overly idealizing Michelangelo's abilities as a poet, James Saslow presents us with a man who takes seriously the art of poetry, and who struggles to find within its traditions a means to a new kind of self- expression. . . . elegantly produced."—Bernadine Barnes, Renaissance Quarterly

"The translations themselves are not only accurate and clear, but direct and contemporary in their language in a way that is close to the feeling of Michelangelo-s Italian. . . . Scholars and lovers of poetry will find these translations and notes an invaluable guide through
the poems and their relation to the life and work, and a sheer pleasure to read in their own right."—Clare Carroll, Renaissance Quarterly

"Like his subject, Saslow takes these poems very seriously, while remaining sufficiently critical to grasp their limitations; this, coupled with a deep sensitivity to the author's complicated sense of integrity, enables what becomes—something more than a translation—a superlative act of recovery. . . . Saslow opens these lines effectively to a generation of English readers eager to undertake a fresh assessment of Michelangelo's poetic; he will be a long time entertaining their grateful acknowledgments"—Christopher Martin, Sixteenth Century Journal

"All scholars of Renaissance art and literature, and especially of Michelangelo, should be grateful for this edition of Michelangelo's poetry, . . . the only complete bilingual edition in English now available. . . . Saslow's work will be indispensable to scholars. . . . An attractive introduction to Michelangelo's poetry that will surely invite the interests of students."—Paul Barolsky, Southeastern College Art Conference Review

"This volume will, for many years to come, be indispensable to all serious students of the poetry of Michelangelo. . . . Handsomely produced, typographically very attractive and well illustrated, one's recommendation of it can be absolute. To both specialist and 'general reader' this marvellous volume will surely give great and enduring delight."—Thomas Perkins, Swansea Review

"Saslow's volume is beautifully organized, annotated with great thoroughness, scrupulously cross-referenced, and illustrated both richly and relevantly."—P. N. Furbank, The European

"In a sense, Saslow has freed the poems. . . . The result is moving and in no way a betrayal."—John Shepley, The Nation

"In every regard a beautiful book: beautiful in content, in presentation, and in the depth and subtlety of the (never obtrusive) scholarship with which the poems are rendered and the supporting matter shaped."—Martin Fagg, Times Educational Supplement

ISBN: 9780300055092
Publication Date: January 27, 1993

574 pages, 6 x 9

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