L’arte del tradurre secondo Wilamowitz

Abstract

This article – which is a reelaborated and increased version of the
Introduction to U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, L’arte del tradurre (ed. by
E. Simeone) Napoli 2012 – deals with the long-standing problem of
translation, and in particular with the question of translating any ancient
Greek text in a modern language in the perspective of Wilamowitz, the so
called princeps philologorum, considered the greatest classical scholar of all
time. He partook to the burning debate between cibilistes and sourcieres (one
of the most import of these was the great Italian poet G. Pascoli) and sided
with the former ones especially against the German theorists and translators
of XIII-XIX centuries.