This brief essay attempts to shed light on some hitherto unnoticed aspects of Baretti’s approach to translation. A close analysis of his Dissertation upon the Italian Poetry, in fact, reveals that behind the Italian philosopher’s fierce reaction against Voltaire’s Essay on the Epic Poetry of All the European Nations from Homer down to Milton lies a profound analysis of the language and its evocative function. Baretti’s English translations of Italian masters such as Dante, as poor as they seem, become the most obvious demonstration of the unsurpassed beauty and force of the Italian poetic language, whose sounds are so potent and suggestive to hamper any translation effort. Therefore, without relinquishing his typically polemical vein, Baretti anticipates some of the most contemporary approaches towards translation, revealing, also in this aspect, his outstanding intellectual stature.
University of Padua, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0001-6605-2354
Titolo del capitolo
Baretti polemista e traduttore in A Dissertation upon the Italian Poetry
Autori
Omar Khalaf
Lingua
Italian
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0448-4.11
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2024
Copyright
© 2024 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Baretti’s England
Sottotitolo del libro
Figure e momenti del Settecento anglo-italiano
Curatori
Elisa Bianco, Alessandra Vicentini
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
200
Anno di pubblicazione
2024
Copyright
© 2024 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0448-4
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0447-7
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0448-4
eISBN (epub)
979-12-215-0449-1
Collana
Biblioteca di storia
ISSN della collana
2464-9007
e-ISSN della collana
2704-5986