Peter Hughes has taken Guido Cavalcanti's groundbreaking poems and used them as springboards for his own creative versions. Cavalcanti was a 13th-century Tuscan poet who brought an extraordinary intensity and craft to his explorations of the social and psychological dimensions of love. He employed the Tuscan vernacular and helped create a new poetry which belonged to the city rather than the court. He has had a significant influence on English poetry through the translations of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (first published in 1861) and then through the work of Ezra Pound. Cavalcanti remained a guiding light for Pound through his career. Channeling his enthusiasm for alternative 'translation methods' in the spirit of Spicer, Blackburn and Rodefer Peter Hughes now follows Rossetti and Pound by inviting us to consider these texts afresh, providing an exciting modern vision of Cavalcanti for the 21st century.
Cavalcanty