Episode #5 - A Conversation Between Henry Weinfield and David Bentley Hart

On poetry, translation, art & transcendence, Ronsard, Leopardi, Dante, consciousness, mind & being, the Last Men, universalism...

I recently enjoyed a conversation with the very eminent poet and translator Henry Weinfield. It ranged freely over many topics, most of which are listed above; but there were others as well (Hölderlin, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, for instance, all dropped by). My first acquaintance with Weinfield’s work came by way of his magisterial rendering of the complete poems of Mallarmé nearly thirty years ago and I have been an admirer ever since; but we became friends only in recent years.

Weinfield truly is a writer of extraordinary gifts; he is also a humane and generous soul.