ISBN The Complete Poetry of Giacomo da Lentini book English 208 pages

This volume presents the first translation in English of the complete poetry of Giacomo da Lentini, the first major lyric poet of the Italian vernacular. He was the leading exponent of the Sicilian School (c.1220-1270) as well as the inventor of the sonnet. Featuring illustrations and new English translations of some forty lyrics, Richard Lansing revives the work of a pioneer of Italian literature, a poet who helped pave the way for later writers such as Dante and Petrarch. Giacomo da Lentini is hailed as the earliest poet to import the Occitan tradition of love poetry into the Italian vernacular. This edition of Giacomo fills a gap in the canon of translations of Italian literature in English and serves as a vital reference source for students as well as scholars and teachers interested in the literature of the romance languages.

Giacomo da Lentini was an Italian poet of the 13th century and a member of the Sicilian School during the reign of Frederick II. The topics of his poetry primarily concerned courtly and chivalrous love.Akash Kumar is visiting assistant professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz.Richard Lansing is a Professor Emeritus of Italian Studies and Comparative Literature at Brandeis University.

"Most scholars do not know very much, if anything, about the inventor of the sonnet, preferring to refer to Dante and Petrarch as the major writers of sonnets in the early centuries of Italian literature. To be sure, Giacomo’s sonnets do not have all the artistic flourishes or refined language of these later masters, but they do present a large corpus of fascinating verses that are not only elegant in themselves, but also point to later developments in the history of the sonnet. In this regard, this translation will be of great interest to students and scholars of poetry, no matter what literary tradition they study, be it Italian, French, English, and so on, for it will open their eyes to Giacomo’s poetic talents and rich inventiveness and will make them aware of the importance of the pre-Dantean lyric tradition."Christopher Kleinhenz, Department of French and Italian Italian, University of Wisconsin-Madison"The Complete Poetry of Giacomo da Lentini is a timely and necessary book that presents Giacomo's lyrical production in its entirety in an elegant and faithful English verse translation with a simple and clear critical introduction. Both the introduction and the translations are informed by some of the most accredited scholarship in the field. It is about time that the vast lyric production in the vernacular that predates Dante's poetry is made available to an English speaking audience."Antonello Borra, Department of Romance Languages and Linguistics, University of Vermont