The Complete Poems of Michelangelo

By Michelangelo Buonarroti

Book Overview

There is no artist more celebrated than Michelangelo. Yet the magnificence of his achievements as a visual artist often overshadow his devotion to poetry. Michelangelo used poetry to express what was too personal to display in sculpture or painting. John Frederick Nims has brought the entire body of Michelangelo's verse, from the artist's ardent twenties to his anguished and turbulent eighties, to life in English in this unprecedented collection. The result is a tantalizing glimpse into a most fascinating mind.

"Wonderful. . . . Nims gives us Michelangelo whole: the polymorphous love sonneteer, the political allegorist, and the solitary singer of madrigals."--Kirkus Reviews

"A splendid, fresh and eloquent translation. . . . Nims, an eminent poet and among the best translators of our time, conveys the full meaning and message of Michelangelo's love sonnets and religious poems in fluently rhymed, metrical forms."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"The best so far. . . . Nims is best at capturing the sound and sense of Michelangelo's poetic vocabulary."--Choice

"Surely the most compelling translations of Michelangelo currently available in English."--Ronald L. Martinez, Washington Times

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226080331
• ISBN13: 9780226080338
• Release Date: October 1998
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

"[Michelanglo's] beauty,new to me,spurs,goads me on"

I must confess that I am not a mushy person, I hate lovey dovey music. But the first time I ever read Michelangelo's poems directed towards Vittoria Colonna I knew that I was in love. The intensity and the beauty of it is so touching especially considering he was an old man when they were penned. Make it much more real, like a man who is truly pouring out his heart as opposed to someone who is just spouting words to gain the "favors" of a lady. Michelanglo is one of the few artists who have ever lived who have shown the true meaning of beauty. "My lady, these eyes see vividly-far, near-/your radiant face, wherever it is here,there."-absolutely.