An Encounter in a Forest : Dante Alighieri, Nimi Wariboko and Myself : Purpose, Inspiration, Methods

 Purpose

The poem henceforth titled ''An Encounter in a Forest: Dante Alighieri, Nimi Wariboko and Myself," of which I have published two parts on various platforms, is  a reworking of English translations of 12^th/13^th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s The  Divine Comedy in relation to the work of the 21^st century Nigerian/US philosopher Nimi Wariboko in the context of my  life's journey.

This conjunction is employed in assisting my exploration of my own existential and interpretive growth. This exploration is carried out by working out relationships between the engagements with the voyage of human life by Dante, Wariboko and myself.

The  Divine Comedy is a sublime poetic text of spiritual and philosophical travelling, one of the world's greatest creations  and perhaps the greatest work of Western literature outside the Bible.

Nimi Wariboko is a scholar of far reaching conceptual power, imaginative force and varieties of expressive potency,  whose work in his various books at the intersection of autobiography, Christian theology, Kalabari thought, Continental philosophy and economics may be  interpreted in terms of ideas of human life as a creative progression.

Dante uses the Roman poet Virgil as his first guide in the Commedia, his title for his poem. I replace the figure of Virgil with that of Wariboko. I become the persona  led by the mentoring figure in the poem.

Why Bring Dante, Wariboko and Myself into Dialogue with Each Other?

 

Within our diverse spatial, temporal and ideational configurations, Dante, Wariboko  and I aspire to a cosmic vision that integrates the details of human life and  the march of history  in a metaphysical synthesis, expressed in terms of the unity of imagination and the elegantly soaring fire of language within reflective depth.

 

My goal is that of rewriting Dante and Wariboko in a manner that projects their imaginative and reflective voices, their distinctive identities as artistic and critical thinkers, in tandem with my own aspirations in recreative, evocative and critical thought and expression, seeking, through this effort, to  grow with the masters by speaking their words, while modifying them to suit myself, along with adding my own verbal formulations to the text.

 

These modifications are meant to transform the poem into one  that speaks in a voice that is a combination of Dante’s,  Wariboko’s  and my own. They are meant to generate resonance between Dante,  the  adept of Florence  in exile in Ravenna, ranging in study, reflection and writing over the entire scope of medieval European creativity and life,   and the Nigerian, myself,  living in exile in England and later returning to Nigeria, intercontinental journeys pursued in exploring convergences between the visual and verbal arts, philosophy and spirituality  within intersections of Africa, Asia and the West and the Nigerian, Wariboko, who, in the US, develops correlations between his cognitive roots in Nigeria’s Kalabari thought, Pentecostalism as he was initiated into it in Nigeria, the larger world of Christian theology and Continental philosophy in relation to literature, urban philosophy and other bodies of knowledge.

The adaptation looks out to the world through a balance of mind and method that integrates Dante’s vision, perennial in its immediacy, depth and range, though developed in 12^th to 13^th century Florence and Ravenna, cities of what later became Italy, and mine, developed in 20th and 21^st century Nigeria and England, where I moved to from Nigeria and later returning to Nigeria,  as Dante lived in exile in Ravenna from his native Florence at some point in the mid 1300s, a political exile, unlike my academically motivated exile as  a student and scholar, contexts integrated with those of Wariboko in his biographical and cognitive journeys across fields of study and work spanning his native Nigeria and his adopted USA, where he currently pursues his scholarly vocation.

                                                                           

                 Sources

 

The central translation I am using in this piece is that from Dante’s old Italian to modern English by Dorothy Sayers for the first two volumes and by Barbara Reynolds for the last volume, first published by Penguin in 1949, this being the translation I am best acquainted with.

 

I am complementing this with Henry Cary’s The Divine Comedy: The Vision of Dante, John Ciardi’s The Inferno: Dante’s Immortal Drama of a Personal Journey through Hell, John Sinclair’s Dante: The Divine Comedy and Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders’ Dante’s Divine Comedy, along with  Robin Kirkpatrick and Mark Musa's  translations of the complete work,  these  being the print translations  in my library. A good number of others are also freely accessible online.

 

Cary’s translation is marked by an uncompromising intensity of formulation. Sayers’ and Reynolds' is both lyrically forceful and limpid in expression, with superb notes, like Kirkpatrick, Sinclair and Mark Musa are also excellent guides to Dante's meaning.  

These translators, except Cary, are directed at writing English in a manner close to modern everyday use while embodying Dante’s rhythm and imagery. Sandow and Birk go out of their way  to transpose Dante into an informal 20th century Euro-American idiom in terms of imagery, idiomatic expressions and visual  illustrations. 

 

I admire Sandow and Birk's  achievement in demonstrating that Dante can be successfully interpreted and adapted in terms of  any social context, from  any time and place, and in terms  of the various forms of development of any language across space and time.

            Method

 

My method is that of following  the translations, making modifications as I see fit, retaining Dante’s magnificent figures of speech, his glorious imagery and most of his compelling narrative sequence, though emphasizing prose rather than Dante’s verse structure, adding  lines from other texts which I understand as enriching the text by amplifying or clarifying its meaning and adding my own verbal expressions in order to steer the story in my intended direction within Dante’s general framework.

 

I use expressions from other translations and my own restatements of the same ideas when I prefer these to Sayers’ version or in order to generate  a more lively and more contemporary idiom, all in the spirit of building, with Dante’s help, a dynamic structure that is both Dante and yet not fully Dante. In the process, I integrate Wariboko's thought in the text, at times quoting him.

 

The imaginative sophistication, ideational scope and range of reference of  the poem, encompassing various disciplines and breadth of historical allusion, has often made notes necessary for a full understanding of the work. My goal in this reworking is to integrate central interpretive possibilities vital to understanding  the poem within its structure, reducing as much as possible the need for explanatory notes to grasp the immediate meaning of the words on the page.