Dante Alighieri paved the way for modern literature, while creating verse and prose that remain unparalleled for formal elegance, intellectual depth, and emotional grandeur. The Portable Dante contains complete verse translations of Dante's two masterworks, The Divine Comedy and La Vita Nuova, as well as a bibliography, notes, and an introduction by eminent scholar and translator Mark Musa.

This entirely new translation includes Petrarch's short autobiographical prose works, The Letter to Posterity and The Ascent of Mount Ventoux , and a selection of twenty-seven poems from the Canzoniere , Petrarch's best-known work in Italian. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The acclaimed translation of the Inferno that retains all of the style, power, and meaning of the original.

This vigorous translation of the Inferno preserves Dante's simple, natural style, and captures the swift movement of the original Italian verse. Mark Musa's blank verse rendition of the poet's jouney through the circles of Hell re-creates for the modern reader the rich meanings that Dante's poem had for his contemporaries. Musa's Introduction and commentaries on each of the cantos brilliantly illuminate the text.

 

Pirandello (1867-1936) is the founding architect of twentieth-century drama, brilliantly innovatory in his forms and themes, and in the combined energy, imagination and visual colours of his theatre.

This volume of plays, translated from the Italian by Mark Musa, opens with Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello's most popular and controversial work in which six characters invade the stage and demand to be included in the play. The tragedy Henry IV dramatizes the lucid madness of a man who may be King. In So It Is (If You Think So) the townspeople exercise a morbid curiosity attempting to discover 'the truth' about the Ponza family. Each of these plays can lay claim to being Pirandello's masterpiece, and in exploring the nature of human personality each one stretches the resources of drama to their limits.

Set against the background of the Black Death of 1348, Boccaccio's undisputed masterpiece recaptures both the tragedies and comedies of medieval life and is surely one of the greatest achievements in the history of literature. Revised reissue.

"Mark Musa, in editing and translating Petrarch s Canzoniere, has performed a wonderful service to the English-speaking reader. Here, in one volume, are included the poet s own selection of the best lyric verse he wrote throughout his life, accompanied by brief but useful notes... " Chronicles

"As well as skillful and fluent verse renderings of the 366 lyrics that make up this milestone in the development of Western poetic tradition, Musa offers copious and up-to-date annotation to each poem... along with a substantial, sensitive, and intelligent introduction that is genuinely helpful for the first-time reader and thought provoking for Petrarch scholars and other medievalists." Choice

The 366 poems of Petrarch s Canzoniere represent one of the most influential works in Western literature. Varied in form, style, and subject matter, these "scattered rhymes" contains metaphors and conceits that have been absorbed into the literature and language of love. In this bilingual edition, Mark Musa provides verse translations, annotations, and an introduction co-authored with Barbara Manfredi."

This new critical edition, including Mark Musa s classic translation, provides students with a clear, readable verse translation accompanied by ten innovative interpretations of Dante s masterpiece."

The publication of the first two volumes of the six-volume "Divine Comedy" brings readers Mark Musa's vivid verse translation of the "Inferno". Musa has revised his earlier version, long cited as the most accessible and reliable of the English translations. The dual-language first volume presents Musa's translation with facing Italian text. Students of translation theory and comparative literature-and the general reader-will delight in the opportunity to read this fresh, crisp translation against the original Italian verse. Musa's lifetime study of the "Inferno" has been compiled in the second volume, an extensive Commentary, where Musa examines and discusses the critical commentary of other Dante scholars and presents his own ideas and interpretations, shedding light on Dante's text as well as on his own translation.

Edited and translated by Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa, "The Portable Machiavelli" not only gives the casual reader a chance to read different personal and professional works of Machiavelli, but also strives to do away with many of the myths that have plagued the man's posthumous fame. For example, the famous "the ends justifies the means" quote is actually a gross exaggeration of what Machiavelli originally wrote, which was "in the actions of all men...when there is no impartial arbiter, one must consider the final result." The biggest counterargument Bondanella and Musa can supply is the simple fact that they include a less famous piece Machiavelli did called "The Discourses." This piece is often not mentioned or even casually footnoted because it presents the true Machiavelli - a man who was supportive of a Republic government run by the citizens. Any one who believes Machiavelli is a supporter of despots will be surprised to read him speaking in support for fair and public trials and a balance of power between rulers and their people.

The Paradise, which Dante called the sublime canticle, is perhaps the most ambitious book of The Divine Comedy. In this climactic segment, Dante's pilgrim reaches Paradise and encounters the Divine Will. The poet's mystical interpretation of the religious life is a complex and exquisite conclusion to his magnificent trilogy. Mark Musa's powerful and sensitive translation preserves the intricacy of the work while rendering it in clear, rhythmic English. His extensive notes and introductions to each canto make accessible to all readers the diverse and often abstruse ingredients of Dante's unparalleled vision of the Absolute: elements of Ptolemaic astronomy, medieval astrology and science, theological dogma, and the poet's own personal experiences.

Mark Musa again brings his poetic sensitivity and his skill as a translator to the difficult task of making Dante's masterpiece live for English-speaking readers. His rendering of the Purgatory is distinguished by the same flexible iambic verse, the same dignified understatement, and the same elegant clarity that characterizes Dante's own lofty and complex style. Musa's extensive annotation as well as his prose introduction to each of the cantos reveal the hand of the careful scholar and craftsman.

In this new edition Musa views Dante's intention as one of cruel andcomic commentary on the shallowness and self-pity of his protagonist, who onlyoccasionally glimpses the true nature of love.

..". theexplication de texte which accompanies [Musa's] translation is instructively novel, always admirable.... This present work offers English readers a lengthy appraisalwhich should figure in future scholarly discussions." -- Choice

Volume 5. Paradise: Italian Text with Verse Translation
Volume 6. Paradise: Notes and Commentary

Mark Musa s vivid two-volume verse translation of and commentary on the Paradiso completes Indiana s six-volume edition of the Divine Comedy. Musa has revised his earlier version, long cited as the most accessible and reliable of the English translations. The first volume presents his translation and the Italian text on facing pages; the second volume comprises his lifetime study of the Paradiso, in which Musa examines and discusses the critical commentary of other Dante scholars and presents his own ideas and interpretations."