Dante’s best friend and a major exponent of the
dolce stil novo,
Guido Cavalcanti has had a lasting influence upon Italian poetry and is best known to English readers through the essays, translations and adaptations of Ezra Pound. Born from the cultural ferment of thirteenth-century Florence, Cavalcanti’s poetry is an extraordinary blend of unorthodox philosophy, sharp psychological insight and dazzling formal mastery.
Anthony Mortimer, acclaimed for his versions of Petrarch and Michelangelo, provides a new verse translation complete with notes, critical comment and biographical material: following in the footsteps of Rossetti and Pound he presents a Cavalcanti who speaks for his own time and to ours.
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'With all his gravity, he has the secret of lightness.'
Italo Calvino
'Anthony Mortimer's translations are both sensible and sensitive, avoiding the pitfalls of cod-medieval cliche in favour of a lucidity and precision in tune with the poet's style'.
TLS
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