Problems of translating poetry from Russian into Italian Cover Image

Проблемы стихотворного перевода с русского на итальянский
Problems of translating poetry from Russian into Italian

Author(s): Maurizia Calusio
Subject(s): Philology
Published by: Новосибирский государственный педагогический университет
Keywords: Poetry translation; rhyme; A. S. Pushkin; R. Poggioli; T. Landolfi; E. Lo Gatto; S. Vitale

Summary/Abstract: The present article deals with some of the problems of translating poetry from Russian in-to Italian. On the basis of the first six verses of the Hymn in Honour of the Plague, from Push-kin's A Feast in Time of Plague, the author shows how Italian translators render rhythm and me-tre when translating Russian classical authors. In 60 years (1936–1996) The Hymn in Honour of the Plague was translated six times, respectively by R. Küfferle, R. Poggioli, T. Landolfi, E. Lo Gatto, S. Vitale, and S. De Vidovich. Lo Gatto is the only translator who uses a rhymed hendec-asyllable. All other translators (with the exception of De Vidovich, whose translation is prosaic) use 9-syllable verse with or without rhyme. Küfferle, Poggioli and Lo Gatto somehow sacrifice not only the syntax, but also the lexicon and the images (and, as a consequence, the rhythm) of the original in order to keep the rhyme. This is the reason why today their translations have be-come irremediably obsolete.