The book is the culmination of 10 years of evening-and-weekend work for Harris, who is doing post-doctoral studies in NC State\u2019s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The project began in an undergraduate literature class, when the instructor allowed Harris to translate part of Inferno<\/em> in lieu of a final essay. \u201cI didn\u2019t really know anything about Dante when I took that course,\u201d Harris says. \u201cI thought it would be fun to try a translation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s the twist: When Harris started his epic quest, he didn\u2019t know a word of Italian. So he went at the task like an engineer, breaking down each chunk of text to its component parts, using Italian-English dictionaries to translate words and phrases, then reassembling the poem in English from the ground up. \u201cIt was almost like working with [computer] code,\u201d Harris says. \u201cI also read a number of existing translations to make sure I was getting the overall sense of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Harris\u2019 translation is especially ambitious because he preserves the poem\u2019s terza rima<\/em> rhyme scheme, a sequence of interlocking triplets. \u201cMost modern translations don\u2019t even attempt that,\u201d Harris says. \u201cI really tried to carry over the poetry of Dante\u2019s writing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book is essentially a labor of love, available for purchase via Amazon\u2019s print-on-demand self-publishing service. But there\u2019s a chance his translation could catch on in the wider world of Dante scholarship and wind up in professional publications or textbooks. In any case, Harris isn\u2019t slowing down. He\u2019s already started working on his next project, Homer\u2019s ancient Greek epic poem The Iliad<\/em>. \u201cYeah, that one\u2019s even harder, because it uses the Greek alphabet,\u201d Harris says. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be really fun!\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"\n\n\n\n\n Some people garden for a hobby. Some people play golf. J. Simon Harris \u201909, \u201910, \u201915 MS, \u201919 PHD translates 700-year-old Italian narrative poems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s not just noodling around either. Earlier this year, Harris published his own original English translation of Inferno<\/em>, the epic poem by 14th-century Italian writer Dante Alighieri. It\u2019s the first part of Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy<\/em>, which explores Hell, Purgatory, Heaven and other medieval concepts of the afterlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book is the culmination of 10 years of evening-and-weekend work for Harris, who is doing post-doctoral studies in NC State\u2019s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The project began in an undergraduate literature class, when the instructor allowed Harris to translate part of Inferno<\/em> in lieu of a final essay. \u201cI didn\u2019t really know anything about Dante when I took that course,\u201d Harris says. \u201cI thought it would be fun to try a translation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s the twist: When Harris started his epic quest, he didn\u2019t know a word of Italian. So he went at the task like an engineer, breaking down each chunk of text to its component parts, using Italian-English dictionaries to translate words and phrases, then reassembling the poem in English from the ground up. \u201cIt was almost like working with [computer] code,\u201d Harris says. \u201cI also read a number of existing translations to make sure I was getting the overall sense of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harris\u2019 translation is especially ambitious because he preserves the poem\u2019s terza rima<\/em> rhyme scheme, a sequence of interlocking triplets. \u201cMost modern translations don\u2019t even attempt that,\u201d Harris says. \u201cI really tried to carry over the poetry of Dante\u2019s writing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book is essentially a labor of love, available for purchase via Amazon\u2019s print-on-demand self-publishing service. But there\u2019s a chance his translation could catch on in the wider world of Dante scholarship and wind up in professional publications or textbooks. In any case, Harris isn\u2019t slowing down. He\u2019s already started working on his next project, Homer\u2019s ancient Greek epic poem The Iliad<\/em>. \u201cYeah, that one\u2019s even harder, because it uses the Greek alphabet,\u201d Harris says. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be really fun!\u201d <\/p>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An NC State engineer spent 10 years translating Dante\u2019s underworld epic, Inferno.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"showAuthor\":true,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false,\"subtitle\":\"An NC State engineer spent 10 years translating Dante\u2019s underworld epic, Inferno<\/em>.\",\"displayCategoryID\":5,\"caption\":\"Photograph courtesy of J. Simon Harris \u201910, \u201915 MS, \u201919 PHD.\"}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[303,345,354,478,529,544,553,1148],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"class_list":["post-4791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-class-act","category-stories","tag-dante-alighieri","tag-department-of-materials-science-and-engineering","tag-divine-comedy","tag-glenn-mcdonald","tag-homer","tag-inferno","tag-j-simon-harris","tag-the-illiad"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":5,"name":"Best Bets","slug":"best-bets","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":52,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4791"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4791"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5018,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4791\/revisions\/5018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4791"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=4791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/magazine.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Harris_DanteBookCover_rgb.jpg\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nBy Glenn McDonald<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n