The Complete Poems of Michelangelo (Paperback, 2nd Ed.)

Italian readers have long known that Michelangelo's poetry is far more than a footnote to his long career as an artist, but few English language translators have managed to render all three hundred or so poems by the famous Florentine. Wordsworth, Longfellow, and Emerson made half-hearted attempts, but John Addington Symonds's late Victorian versions - full of ornate poetic diction - were the standard until these wonderful translations by Nims, himself a master craftsman, whose "blunt, direct, plainspoken" diction perfectly matches Michelangelo's rough-talking poems and their formal complexities. With his biographical introductions, based on the well-documented lives of the artist, and his scholarly notes, Nims gives us Michelangelo whole: the polymorphus love sonneteer, the political allegorist, and the solitary singer of madrigals. (Kirkus Reviews)

There is no artist more celebrated than Michelangelo. Yet the magnificence of his achievements as a visual artist often overshadow his devotion to poetry. Michelangelo used poetry to express what was too personal to display in sculpture or painting. John Frederick Nims has brought the entire body of Michelangelo's verse, from the artist's ardent twenties to his anguished and turbulent eighties, to life in English in this unprecedented collection. The result is a tantalizing glimpse into a most fascinating mind.
"Wonderful. . . . Nims gives us Michelangelo whole: the polymorphous love sonneteer, the political allegorist, and the solitary singer of madrigals."--"Kirkus Reviews"
"A splendid, fresh and eloquent translation. . . . Nims, an eminent poet and among the best translators of our time, conveys the full meaning and message of Michelangelo's love sonnets and religious poems in fluently rhymed, metrical forms."--"St. Louis Post-Dispatch"
"The best so far. . . . Nims is best at capturing the sound and sense of Michelangelo's poetic vocabulary."--"Choice"
"Surely the most compelling translations of Michelangelo currently available in English."--Ronald L. Martinez, "Washington Times"
John Frederick Nims (1913-1999) was the author of eight books of poetry, including Knowledge of the Evening, which was nominated for a National Book Award. Among his many translations is "The Poems of Saint John of the Cross," also published by the University of Chicago Press.

General

Imprint:	University of Chicago Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	April 2000
First published:	April 2000
Authors:	Michelangelo
Translators:	John Frederick Nims
Dimensions:	151 x 226 x 5mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	208
Edition:	2nd Ed.
ISBN-13:	978-0-226-08030-7
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > Poetry texts & anthologies > General
LSN:	0-226-08030-7
Barcode:	9780226080307

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