Poetic Translations of the Latin Classics in the work of Italian Poet Edoardo Sanguineti (1930-2010)

Abstract

This thesis addresses the gap in the scholarship on poetic translations and Sanguineti by examining what type of relationship with the Latin Classics emerges in these types of works. This gap either fails to recognise, or specifically neglects, the coexistence of two ethical approaches in Sanguineti’s work, those of foreignization and domestication and the consequent relationship with the Latin texts that emerges. Beginning with a brief overview on poetic translations, the thesis then examines the work of Italian poet, academic, and writer Edoardo Sanguineti (1930-2010) as a case study to illustrate the way in which the Latin Classics have been conceived in Italy during the second half of the twentieth century. I have employed as a methodological framework the concepts of foreignization and domestication (Venuti 1995) and those of identity and alterity, two criteria that elucidate the way we approach the ‘other’ from ourselves. I illustrate the manner in which a multifaceted author such as Sanguineti can adopt a multiperspective approach that can include both foreignization and domestication to show how, ultimately, the most discernible relationship with the Latin Classics is that of identity (self-identification).
By proceeding with a meticulous close reading of the translated texts and analysis of the translating strategies, I demonstrate how Sanguineti’s approach sometimes is in contestation with his claim to be a Marxist intellectual. Indeed, due to the exhibition of the translator’s existence and the constant cross-references to other works of literature, his translations are meant either for a bourgeois readership or for someone who is profoundly accustomed to Sanguineti’s idiolect and style — as if the translations were meant for Sanguineti himself. I observe that the translations reveal a deep relationship of self-identification with the source text, overlooking that historical distance that a Marxist translation should always aim at. The historical distance is wiped out by a systematic appropriation of the source text that makes the translations act as if they were Sanguineti’s new creations. Although this is line with Sanguineti’s claim of being a traditore (as someone that, when translating, always betrays the source text) it is conversely an operation of deep appropriation of the source both text and culture, which reveals how in Sanguineti the Italian cultural identity is still rooted in a strong relationship with Roman antiquity. My considerations are rooted in a deep analysis of the socio-cultural context, thus revealing how certain approaches were in line with the major trends in translation in Italy during the second half of the twentieth century. Sanguineti is a multifaceted author and investigating his poetics also requires reinterpreting an entire century and shedding new light on an overlooked element of the reception.