Play

Here I’d love to have some discussion, with everyone and anyone at all interested in any of the ideas in this site, about what sort of textual works we might think of as generative , and in what ways. I’d be so pleased if anyone would like to post pieces or comment. I’ll start by offering three texts below that I think might qualify as generative – all Dante-related (of course).

And in the section entitled 100 Voices, I’ll post a piece of my own original writing inspired by the 58th line of each canto of the Commedia, so 100 pieces in all. Each post will be a first draft piece of automatic writing with just three rules: (1) to always write in the first person and to try to access a different narrative voice each time; (2) to write for only 15 minutes; (3) to always take line 58 as a starting point. (I chose the 58th line for my third rule because I love Paradiso 31.58, arguably the biggest narrative shock in the poem, where Beatrice is replaced by St Bernard).

But to return to the items for play: these are: Dante’s Lord’s Prayer in Purgatorio 11, Majena Mafe’s Via Error, and a third one to follow.

 

Dante’s Lord’s Prayer (Purgatorio 11. 1-24)

On the terrace of the Proud, eyes downcast as they labour under the weight of giant rocks on their backs, the shadows pray a version of the Lord’s Prayer, “a sé e noi” (25), for themselves and us:

 

“O Padre nostro, che ne’ cieli stai,
non circunscritto, ma per più amore
ch’ai primi effetti di là sù tu hai,

laudato sia ’l tuo nome e ’l tuo valore
da ogne creatura, com’ è degno
di render grazie al tuo dolce vapore.

Vegna ver’ noi la pace del tuo regno,
ché noi ad essa non potem da noi,
s’ella non vien, con tutto nostro ingegno.

Come del suo voler li angeli tuoi
fan sacrificio a te, cantando osanna,
così facciano li uomini de’ suoi.

Dà oggi a noi la cotidiana manna,
sanza la qual per questo aspro diserto
a retro va chi più di gir s’affanna.

E come noi lo mal ch’avem sofferto
perdoniamo a ciascuno, e tu perdona
benigno, e non guardar lo nostro merto.

Nostra virtù che di legger s’adona,
non spermentar con l’antico avversaro,
ma libera da lui che sì la sprona.

Quest’ ultima preghiera, segnor caro,
già non si fa per noi, ché non bisogna,
ma per color che dietro a noi restaro.”
(Purg. 11. 1-24).

 

In re-writing, embellishing or expanding a holy prayer laid out in Matthew 6. 9-13 (in the context of Jesus’ speech about how to pray), is Dante here, as many critics have written, drawing attention to his own pride in his intellect and poetic skill, for his own purgation? Or is there something generative going on?

 

 

Majena Mafe: Via Error

In her work Via (in Fig, 2005, Salt Publishing), poet Caroline Bergvall took the first three lines of the Commedia, tracked down as many translations as she could find (47), and recorded herself reading each in turn, with the name of the translator. If you’re interested, you can also hear Caroline discuss the processes behind it here.

In 2010, Majena Mafe took Bergvall’s work and attempted to transcribe each translation from memory, resulting in her glorious work, Via Error. Speaking of artists and their reflections on the production processes, the note at the end of Mafe’s work reads:

“Caroline Bergvall’s arrangement of Dante’s The Divine Comedy-Pt. 1 Inferno-Canto’s 1-(1-3) as translated by [47 translators enumerated and named]. Transcripted without asking or checking by Majena Mafe 2008, after reading each passage once, typing it down out along the path with one finger by the light of the dark without looking head…whilst sitting halfway in a dark-tree’d place halfway along. Repeaten the repeat repeatedly [sic].”

I love this work. Is it generative?

 

Robin Kirkpatrick’s invitation: Digital Ouija

Leading Dante critic, translator and poet Robin Kirkpatrick offered a poem to online poetry journal Gadabout in 2014, inviting responses and participation. Robin says: “This trifle was written on the [probably ignorant] assumption that those who know how to use computers would be able to improvise on and enrich the colours, shapes and progressions suggested by the text.”

Is this generative? Would anyone reading this like to remix/sample/centonise/translate/transcribe/mediate?