L’IMPRESA DEL PASCOLI LATINO: VALGIMIGLI, QUASIMODO E LA QUESTIONE DEI MODI DEL TRADURRE

Abstract

The essay analyses Quasimodo’s translation of Veianius, the poem by Giovanni Pascoli, gold medal winner in 1891 at the Certamen hoeufftianum. The translation was commissioned by Manara Valgimigli in view of the project for a new edition of Pascoli’s Carmina, launched in 1940 for the Mondadori series «I classici contemporanei italiani». On the basis of largely unpublished epistolary material, preserved in the Castelvecchio Pascoli Archive, the genesis of the publishing operation and the criteria that inspired the editors are retraced in the context of the twentieth-century debate on translation techniques and in general on the translatability of poetry.