Alejandro Miguel Justino Crawford

Bright arrogance #8

Intersemiotic Dante and expanded translation

Diagram of The Malebolge (from Alexandre Masseron's 1947 French translation of the Divine Comedy)

In the last column, I speculated that Mary Jo Bang’s translation of the Inferno was initially seduced by but ultimately rejected the more corrosive qualities of Flarf. However, in the baroque-brut line of Henrik Drescher’s accompanying illustrations, there seems to be a corrective, drawing us into visceral mess of hell’s innards, albeit with high artisanal flare.[1] These illustratings seem to outdo (or undo) Gustave Doré's engravings from his popular Dante volumes of the 19th century, in that they are at once more terrifying and more cuddly — open to being in an loose relation with the text they accompany. In contrast, Doré's engravings are so aesthetically overpowering that, existing in volumes that were kept around the house more as a marker of status than for reading, the illustrator’s name is more commonly associated with this Divine Comedy than that of its proper translator (Henry Francis Cary, who for the longest time, because of a C with an overgrown serif, I thought was merely “Gary” — like some anonymous Cher or Prince of a forgotten poetry scene).

Into the Field: Alejandro Crawford

LISTEN TO THE SHOW 
Alejandro Miguel Justino Crawford is a poet and video artist of the first degree. I spoke with him in Athens, Georgia on a muggy July afternoon just over a year ago. These days Alejandro makes a living as a professional VJ, touring the world regularly with the band MGMT.

Syndicate content