Dorothy L. Sayers
English Crime Novelist, Playwright
Born: June 1893
Died: December 1957 (64 years old)
Languages: Latin, French, Italian, German
Dorothy L Sayers was an avid reader by the age of 4. An only child, her father was a headmaster at a boy’s prep school and her mother wrote for Punch- a satirical weekly magazine circulating around Oxford . Sayers did not go to school with the other children until the age of 11 which left her feeling socially awkward until she enrolled at Somerville College, Oxford. Somerville was an all-women’s college and most importantly a non-denominational and liberal leaning College. Sayers had been raised in Christianity but struggled to fit in to the structure of her previous school, calling it “drab”1. Dorothy’s first publication were two small editions of religious poetry. Sayers remained faithful to her religion until death, but frequently spoke out against the structure of the Church and the corruption inside of it.
Graduating with high honors, Sayers was able to support herself teaching modern languages, and copy writing until she was able to make enough writing novels. Sayers rarely wrote about true crime and instead preferred to craft mysteries like her colleagues whom she dubbed her fellow “Queens of Crime” including Agatha Christie and Margery Allingham.
Sayers became interested in Inferno during World War II after seeing the similarities between Dante’s writing and the state of events surrounding the war. She saw the lack of religion and morality as contemporary themes and wanted to make Dante’s work more accessible,
She alone, of all his modern commentators, took him seriously. Thus it was that when she came to write notes of her translation of Inferno she considered it essential for the sake of general, uninformed readers…to interpret the sins in terms of present-day corruptions. It is only the words that are out-of-date (Reynolds)
Dorothy Sayers makes a point to include the original texts that she translated from, as well as keeping scrupulous notes on choices regarding word choice and rhyming schemes -something that other writers in her time did not do.
Key Points Regarding Sayers Translation:
Sayers did what she could to retain the rhyming structure of Inferno but was more dedicated to the theology and culture of the times behind the translations. Sayers had published poetry through her career focusing on Christianity but was more comfortable in novel writing.
Sayers passed away before she could finish the translation for Paradiso and it was finished by Barbara Reynolds. Reynolds was a close friend and wrote her biography.