“A Body” by Thomas Bernhard

A lonely country road in Upper Bavaria. Two women are walking home after rosary prayers at church. It is kind of sinister.

First woman Stops short.

Look Look come and look something’s lying there a body

Pulls her companion towards her. look. a person look it’s a person look there there. between those two trees. look. look there.

Both of them stare ahead of them.

That must have just happened and there’s no traffic looks behind her and then back at the spot between the two trees

Imagine that when we past here earlier nothing was lying there absolutely nothing absolutely no traffic

Second woman But he’s covered up

First woman with packing paper someone covered him up.

She wants to take a step closer, but her prayer book makes it difficult.

Here take my prayer book can’t you take it take it

The second woman takes the first woman’s prayer book.

First Woman When we past here nothing was lying there nothing Or did you see something when we past here

Second Woman Na

First Woman Absolutely nothing I swear to that that must have just happened or did you see something maybe you saw something

Second Woman Na

First Woman I didn’t see anything at all

Second Woman And no traffic

First Woman That must have just happened when we were sitting at church Say he’s covered up someone covered him up

Second Woman With packing paper

First Woman They’re always covered up the dead with packing paper

Second Woman With packing paper First Woman He’s covered up with packing paper imagine that come come

She pulls her companion to her

No need to be scared The dead can’t do anything

Second woman hesitates at first, then gets closer to the crime scene, albeit reluctantly

First Woman I’ve already seen so many dead in my life I’m not afraid Look he’s covered with packing paper But why did they just leave him lying there if they bothered to cover him Someone covered him up look

Second Woman Yes

First Woman With packing paper

Second Woman Yes

First Woman Someone must have seen him otherwise he wouldn’t be covered someone ran him over and then covered him up

Second Woman With packing paper Look

First Woman Ah such a big piece of packing paper

Second Woman Yes

First Woman Someone came by with packing paper

Second Woman They ran him over and then someone came by with packing paper a big piece of packing paper

First Woman Look Look at the feet there the feet look there look down there at the feet

Second Woman Yes

First It’s a man It’s a man It’s a man

Second Woman Yes a man

First Woman It’s a man come come don’t be afraid of the man

Second Woman A man

First Woman Indeed

Second Woman Maybe we know him

First Woman Come come on Second Woman Maybe we know him the man But a body is something eerie

First Woman Yeah but I have already seen so many dead come No need to be afraid come on

She pulls the second woman towards her

You have to look death in the face That’s what my father always said come on No need to be afraid just come with me

Second Woman And absolutely no traffic

First Woman […?] well then

she looks around her to make sure that no car is coming that could run the two of them over.

Nothing nothing is coming absolutely no traffic

sie graps her companion and rushes with her courageously towards the body, disappointed

That’s not a body

she lets go of her companion

Well I’ll be look it’s a roll of paper someone lost it from a truck look a roll of paper she touches the roll of paper with her black shoe a roll of paper a roll of paper and nothing more look look look a roll of paper and I thought it was a body and it’s just a roll of paper indeed she bends down and looks at the large roll of paper more carefully

It’s a roll of paper she wants to unroll the roll of paper, but the roll of paper suddeny unrolls by itself

Second Woman screaming Indeed nothing but swastikas

First Woman Indeed Those are posters that’s what my husband wanted to hang up in the night the swastika posters, understand

Second Woman Nothing but swas Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Translating Dialect Literature Author(s): Luigi Bonaffini Source: World Literature Today, Vol. 71, No. 2, Italian Literature Today (Spring, 1997), pp. 279-288 Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40153045 Accessed: 15-01-2019 16:45 UTC

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By LUIGI BONAFFINI Any critical discussion hence the recovery of personal history, of personal of works written in di- roots, which the impersonal language of the mass alect is destined to run media cannot recognize or transcribe. This also up against the heavy legacy of prejudices and means mis- the recovery of one's native place, the place understandings that has historically weighed of upon origin, as an alternative to a monotonous and literature in dialect, often considered a "minor," meaningless reality. subaltern, marginal language, even coarse and ple-Perhaps the role of the dialect poet, as Franco beian. These are misconceptions that the recent Brevini and notes,1 reveals its deepest meaning in the in many respects exceptional flowering of dialect struggle (or against the imposition of a superlanguage, neodialect) poetry in Italy has put into a much English dif- (this is particularly relevant in the case of ferent perspective, so that the absolute parity of poets ver- who live in the United States and also write in nacular poetry with that in standard Italian, English,long such as Giose Rimanelli and Joseph Tu- maintained by several enlightened critics (Croce siani) is aand, at the national level, of a standard ema- case in point), has gradually gained universal accep-nating from the productive industrial centers of the tance, to the extent that it is now an established North.and Dialect is posited, then, as the language of irrefutable tenet of contemporary criticism. Dialectconcreteness and difference, in direct opposition to poetry has even been able to penetrate those presti- the flat homogeneity of the language of television gious editorial circuits from which it had always and advertising, and therefore offers a greater po- been excluded, bolstered by the recognition and tential en- for individual creativity. The strength of di- couragement of influential critics, even vying alect, with in fact, lies in its essential "otherness," in its Italian poetry for the attention of a readership that position is of eccentricity with respect to the national no longer local or regional but instead national language, and in its different history, predominantly international. Very significant, in this respect, oral, was which has saved it from the process of erosion the recent Nobel candidacy of two poets who and in usuraa which always attends literary languages. way embody this fundamental dichotomy of ItalianFor this reason, contemporary dialect poets have letters, Mario Luzi and Albino Pierro, a develop- tended to accentuate this difference in many ways, ment all the more remarkable considering that usually the opting for more archaic forms, farther re- latter wrote in one of the most archaic dialects in moved from standard Italian, even in spelling (Pier- Italy, that of his native Tursi (which Gianfranco ro, Bandini, Loi). Contini defined as "proto-romance"), one without Along with sociocultural factors, there are psy- any literary tradition and extremely limited in its chological motivations that account for the choice of diffusion. dialect - and not only dialect as a maternal tongue, There are many reasons why so many contempo- as in Pasolini and Zanzotto, but also as a forgotten rary Italian poets (the neodialect poets) are nowa- truth, a sacred, archaic language which is capable of days turning to dialect rather than to standard Ital- revealing one's hidden being. Through dialect the ian as their medium of expression, reasons which poet represents not only the places and events of his carry far-reaching and deeply rooted implications memory, but also a conception of the world closer (literary, psychological, political, existential, anthro- to his own personal experience. To contemporary pological): recent dialect poetry is part of a broader men and women in danger of being swallowed up reaction to the alienating effects of postwar industri- and obliterated by postindustrial society, dialect can al society, which especially in the seventies meant offer the support of a culture which, while threat- the rehabilitation of ethnic history and memory. Inened with obliteration, is radically different from the the face of an increasingly complex reality, one re- dominant culture. Dialect, then, as the linguistic discovers the universal potential in every man; testimony of a cultural heritage, of a collective patri- mony and an anthropological condition condemned to extinction. De Benedetti has called dialect "the Luigi Bonaffini was born in Isernia (Italy) and is Professor of Italian at Brooklyn College. He has translated the verse ofpainful Dino conscience of history," because only dialect, Campana (1992), Mario Luzi (1992), Giose Rimanelli (1991,as opposed to the language of the ruling class, can 1996), Giuseppe Jovine (1994), and Achille Serrao (1995), bear as witness to the injustices of history and give well as Eugenio Cirese, Albino Pierro, and other dialect voice poets. to the excluded and the oppressed. He coedited Dialect Poetry from Molise (1993) and has just fin- ished editing a trilingual anthology of the dialect poetry of south- It was again Contini, recognizing the importance ern Italy. of dialects for Italian literature, who pointed out

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that Italian literature is the only great in fact national rather more litera- complex than it might at first ap- ture for which dialect literature is pear an fromintegral the author's part; preface, because the charac- yet dialect poetry, for reasons stemming ters' vernacular from its speech tra- is dynamic, not static; that ditional condition of subalternity andis, it tendslimited to adapt diffu- itself to different situations, and sion but also due to objective difficulties its use is inherentcomplicated inby a moralization of the lin- translation itself, given the scant guisticknowledge act, which of privileges di- some varieties over oth- alects outside of Italy, has been mostly ers. The hypotheticalignored byItalian or Spanish translator of translators until very recently, with Huckleberry the result Finn that who it wished to reproduce the mul- remains largely untranslated, particularly tiplicity of local its linguistic most forms would be forced to recent output. There are, nevertheless, let the characters some no- speak Neapolitan, Sicilian, Gali- table exceptions. Since the 1986 publication cian, or Catalan, of with the all the resulting problems of landmark anthology of dialect poetry incongruity The andHidden misplacement. It is not surprising, Italy, edited by Hermann Haller, onethen, otherif the complexity antholo- and semantic richness of the gy in translation has appeared, and language another appear is sharplyabout diminished in the Italian to be published;2 in the last few years translations, alone where several the local and individual varieties dialect poets have been translated are (Jovine, in effect Serrao,erased and supplanted by a generically Rimanelli, Guerra, Pascarella, Di Giacomo,Trilus- colloquial and idiomatic form of speech, as in the sa, Ancona, Martoglio),3 and more are currently following declaration by Jim (chapter 7), cited from being translated (Giacomini, Zanzotto) - a clear in- the bilingual edition with Giovanni Baldi's transla- dication that interest in dialect poetry is growing tion:6 outside Italy as well. Undoubtedly, the translation I tuck out en shin down de hill, en 'spec to steal a skift of dialect poetry poses peculiar problems which go 'long de sho' som'ers 'bove de town, but dey wuz peo- beyond those encountered in translating from Ital- ple a-stirring yit, so I hid in de ole tumbledown cooper ian, and each translator adopts a somewhat different shop on de bank to wait for everybody to go away. approach, providing several possible methods and techniques to which we can refer. Mi sbatto giu dalla collina e penso di sgraffignare una It should be noted, first of all, that the problem of barca lungo la riva sopra la citta, ma c'era ancora in giro della gente, e allora mi nascondo nel vecchio ne- dialect does not concern Italy alone, although in gozio del bottaio, quello tutto a pezzi che sta sulla Italy the phenomenon is much more extensive than sponda del fiume, per aspettare che se ne vanno. in any other Western country. A good starting point, since most of this essay is devoted to transla- Jim's dialect, strongly characterizing and quite dif- tion from Italian dialects, might be an American ferent from the speech of the other characters, is writer well versed in vernacular speech, Mark thoroughly flattened in the translation, which in fact Twain, who prefaces his masterpiece, Huckleberry eliminates the most markedly idiomatic and vernac- Finn, with the following remark: ular elements by transferring it to an area of uncer- tain colloquialism. Moreover, the idiomatic word In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: The Missouri Negro dialect, the extremest form of the sgraffignare translates almost incongruously one of backwoods Southwestern dialect, the ordinary "Pike the few standard words in the passage, "steal," County" dialect, and four modified varieties of this last. while all other linguistic peculiarities, which are The shadings have not been done in an haphazard fash- phonetic as well as grammatical and syntactic, com- ion or by guesswork, but painstakingly and with the pletely disappear from the Italian text. trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiari- Mark Twain himself criticizes the French transla- ty with the several forms of speech. tor of his famous tale "The Jumping Frog" for hav- I make this distinction for the reason that without it ing used standard French, seemingly without any many readers would suppose that all these characters understanding of the importance and the implica- were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.4 tions of the use of vernacular: "Benzon has not John Du Val, who has translated both Trilussa and translated the story at all: he has simply mixed it all Pascarella from Romanesco, in an article in which up; it is no more like the Jumping Frog when he he discusses Miller Williams's translation of Belli's gets through with it than I am like a meridian of sonnets and which begins with the above quotation longitude."7 In other words, translating into a stan- from Mark Twain,5 advises any hypothetical transla- dard language, the translator cannot capture the ec- tor of Huckleberry Finn not to tackle the author's centricity ex- of vernacular speech, its function as an al- planation at all; this of course would not solve ternative,the a non-normative deviation from the norm. problem of translating all the varieties of dialect While reflecting on this concept of deviation, in- mentioned by the author, which not only pertain escapable to in any discussion of dialect literature, one the depiction of local color but also play a key must, role however, take into account the considerable in distinguishing and individualizing the various variation in meaning that the very term dialect un- characters. The use of dialect in Huckleberry Finn dergoes is in anglophone areas, where in effect it

This content downloaded from 152.23.251.224 on Tue, 15 Jan 2019 16:45:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms BONAFFINI 281 stands for anormality, a departure gence from from athe well-de- national standard but as an au- fined linguistic standard, so that eventonomous a linguisticlocal or system, re- historically determined gional pronunciation can be regarded through as well-knowna form ofmechanisms, as all linguists dialect. The "vernacular" style is therefore recognize. On thedesignat- other hand, as we shall see further ed by the deviation from a standard, on, several where translators there acknowledge is the inevitable no multiplicity of autonomous idioms validity as of in this Italy. principle; and not only do they reject the notion of dialect as a deviant and eccentric lan- Vernacular style may, of course, be defined in a num- ber of ways, but in the following I shall guage, take but itthey to considermean it instead the site of natu- a special category of "substandard" or "common" ralness and spontaneity, the linguistic norm of a de- usage that serves as a marker of class, regional, or age- termined community and therefore - in keeping group affiliation and that includes such speech-oriented with a seemingly paradoxical methodological criteri- lexical and grammatical features as colloquial formulas on - the exact opposite of deviation. and epithets, slang, obscenities, and other vulgarisms, The anglophone world, with its countless vari- and certain kinds of allusive or elliptical morphological eties of English, is of course not alone in being pro- and syntactic arrangements.8 foundly affected by the question of vernaculars. For This definition could be suitable for the various the West, we should at least mention the franco- American "dialects," but it would be absolutely phone in- universe, just as rich in particular local and adequate to describe the phenomenon of vernacu- regional types in so many parts of the world. It lars - and thus related questions of style - inwould Italy, suffice to mention one instance among the where dialect is understood not as a simple less diver- obvious: the influence of dialect in Canadian

Giuseppe Jovine

This content downloaded from 152.23.251.224 on Tue, 15 Jan 2019 16:45:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 282 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY fiction and its consequences for interactiontranslation, of the various exam- dialects but also their ex- ined by Henry Schoght in his study pressive of andseveral structural Cana- function as well, as in Mark dian novels, including La sagouine Twain. by ItAntoine would be impossible Mail- to re-create the indi- let, in which a few characters speak the dialecte vidualization of the characters through language acadien of the province of New Brunswick. carried out in Quer Pasticciaccio by assigning each, say, an American vernacular variety, and the trans- The emphatic characterization of the heroine who re- cites the monologue rests on dialect traits as well as on lator, William Weaver, does not even try, with the the content of what she is saying. One could wonder if same effect of expressive impoverishment and de- the book's appeal for many readers is due to a feeling of preciation noted above. In an essay on the English condescension awakened by the simplicity and naivete translation of Gadda,10 Brian Altano takes the trans- of the protagonist and by the so-called color of dialect. lator to task for not having used a sufficiently collo- Be it as it may, the translator Luis Cespedes tried to quial, vernacular language in the translation, citing preserve a little of the flavor of the original text which as an example the following passage describing a . . . utilizes only one register and does not create any seller of porchetta in a market: internal opposition in the text. Since the geographic factor did not permit him to replace the dialect of La "La porca, la porca! Ciavemo la porchetta, signori! la sagouine with an equally marked dialect of a village of bella porca de l'Ariccio con un bosco de rosmarino in English or Scottish fishermen, he opted for a process of de la panza! Co le patatine de staggione! . . . V'oo dico compensation by substituting the dialecte acadien with a io. Asssaggiatele!" Posava un attimo a riprender fiato. E geographically neutral popular sociolect. Unfortunate- poi a scoppio: "Uno e novanta l'etto, la porca. E' 'na ly, the sagouine of the translation speaks more or less miseria, signori! a chi venne e a chi compra! Uno e no- like Holden Caulfield in Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, vanta l'etto, piu mejo fatto che detto. Famese avanti co so that the compensation is not really successful. (34; li bajocchi a la mano, sore spose! Chi nun magna nun my translation.)9 guadagna." E poi sottovoce a una belloccia: "A voi ve do er mejo boccone, v'o giuro! Me piacete troppo! Sete The solution adopted by the translator, in choosing troppo bona!"11 a sociolect which is geographically neutral and with- out oppositions within the text, is not much differ- In rendering this passage, according to Altano, the ent from the one chosen by the Italian translator. translator should consider three important factors: But the totality of the linguistic context in which di- 1) the lively jargon used by the youth to attract the alect appears is crucial for the various compensatory crowd; 2) the sense of breathless excitement of the strategies available to translators, because if it is original; and 3) the nuances of tone, especially the possible to speak of naturalness in a monolingual spicy allusions of a fourteen-year-old. context, in which only dialect is spoken, and the Weaver's translation is quoted in its entirety in perennial opposition between standard language note 1 1 below, but here it will suffice to repeat the and dialect is kept below the threshold of conflict, final sentence, namely "A voi ve do er mejo boc- this becomes practically impossible the instant the cone, v'o giuro! Me piacete troppo! Sete troppo standard language is introduced, in whose presence bona!" Weaver renders this as "I'll give you the best the vernacular must necessarily become eccentric part, that's a promise. You're my type, all right. and deviant. It is the multilingual context, then, rife You're too pretty!" "You're too pretty!" has nothing with internal frictions and contrasts, that further of the sensuality of the original, perhaps because the complicates the task of the translator, who is forced translator is not aware of the erotic connotation of to adopt compensating, inevitably reductive strata- the adjective bona, the spicy allusion mentioned by gems, incapable of expressing that diversity which is Altano. The latter proposes his own translation of fully manifested only in the presence of the standard the passage, using a much more colloquial and id- language. iomatic language: "I'll give you the best mouthful, I An Italian example of the use of multiple dialects really swear. I really like ya a lot! You're really good in a work of fiction bears the prestigious signature of lookin'!"12 Even here, however, something is clearly Carlo Emilio Gadda in Quer Pasticciaccio brutto de missing, and the tone of the original, its expressive Via Merulana. In this expressionistic and baroque specificity, remains remote, beyond reach. detective story, Gadda mixes Romanesco, Neapoli- Huckleberry Finn and Quer pasticciaccio, though, tan, Venetian, Milanese, Molisan, and Sicilian with are extreme examples of the literary use of multiple the bureaucratese of the various offices, with police vernacular codes; the norm is instead the use of one jargon, and with several other sectorial languages. In vernacular - Belli's Romanesco, Meli's Sicilian, De order to guarantee the authenticity of the various di- Filippo's Neapolitan - which can nevertheless be ar- alects, Gadda consulted several people; for Ro- ticulated in several expressive registers that indicate manesco, for instance, he turned to the dialect poet social position, cultural level, place of origin, and so Mario dell'Arco. Quer Pasticciaccio is at least as re- on. All dialectophones are aware of these linguistic fractory to translation as Huckleberry Finn: the trans- levels in their dialect and can immediately distin- lator must take into account not only the complex guish forms that are slightly more archaic or periph-

This content downloaded from 152.23.251.224 on Tue, 15 Jan 2019 16:45:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms BONAFFINI 283 eral. It must also be added that the same dialect is popular perspective. These other subversive ele- not necessarily identical for all, and can be em-ments, in fact, come to the translator's aid, because ployed in very dissimilar ways by various authors: they tend to retain their iconoclastic force in the Basile's Neapolitan is quite different both from new linguisticDi context as well, where they can sound Giacomo's and from Serrao's more recent version, just as out of place and irreverent, especially in the and Trilussa's Romanesco is different - much more dignified literary garb of the sonnet. A few examples neutral and closer to Italian - from Belli's. Return- of Williams's translation cited in Du Val's article ing to Belli, here is the preface by his translator, will suffice: the pope "fiddles around, snacks, de- Miller Williams: bauches a bit"; "instead of making a tower they There is in some quarters an assumption that because made a mess"; "one of the angels had a charley Romanesco is looked upon as a dialect by those who horse," and so on. It is more difficult, Du Val points don't speak it, Belli's poems can't be truly translated out again,15 to render the complex play of words unless they are rendered into some sort of patois, some that often mixes obscenity and religion. He cites as special language spoken by a people outside the center an example the following closing tercet of a sonnet: of culture and mostly deprived of whatever the culture "San Giuseppe tratando s'ariscarda: / Doppo leva ar offers - people, that is, like the Romani of Trastevere. somaro la bbardella, / E appoggeno tre mmesi la lib- The truth, of course, is exactly the contrary. If we ren-barda." The last line literally means "for three der the poems into any kind of dialect, slang, or jivemonths they put away the halberd," which indicates talk, we hear them only as the middle- and upper-class Roman would have heard them and hears them now. If that they sponge or freeload for three months; but we are to come to them as the people of Trastevere did, also implicit is the idea of sexual abstinence and then we have to hear them as they did, in the plain lan- therefore a negation of the Catholic doctrine of guage of our own conversation. The simple fact is, to Mary's perpetual virginity. Williams translates the those who live in Trastevere, the language spoken in tercet thus: "Saint Joseph, meanwhile, rubbed away Trastevere is the way people talk.13 the cold / beside the fire and saddled up the ass / and put his tools away for a long time."16 The final If it is true that every dialect, as Williams notes, is line remains a strongly ironic comment on the Vir- merely the natural way of speaking for people who gin's chastity, therefore retaining the subversive speak dialect, then the problem of translating dialect force of the original. poetry is made considerably simpler, because it does As for his own translations of Pascarella, Du Val not require the translator to employ a strongly con- recognizes the differences that distinguish the vari- noted language, something other than and different ous Romanesco poets: Trilussa, since the poetic from the language of ordinary conversation. Yet the voice of most of his sonnets belongs to the common fact remains that dialect is by nature a distinct and people of Trastevere, adopts another of Williams's marginal language with respect to a standard lan- expedients in order to reproduce the estranging ef- guage, and all speakers of dialect consider it such -fect of their speech - that is, he systematically vio- that is, they are conscious of speaking a language lates the meter of the iambic pentameter, so that the which in some way is in opposition to another, more constant violation of the canonical verse may reflect widespread and important, even if they are in a to- Romanesco 's deviation from Italian. But in the fa- tally dialect-speaking setting where the opposition is bles, since Trilussa's voice remains above the action only virtual. This means that translation from di- and comments upon it with ironic detachment, the alect must in some way reflect its uniqueness and way La Fontaine judges his animals, with barely a diversity, even if the various solutions may take very smidgen of Romanesco's insolence, the translator different forms. Du Val points out, for instance, that adopts other criteria: "In translating, I felt that I had the political and cultural power in Rome in Belli's to aim for a modified elegance and a slightly time belonged to those who spoke Latin and Italian, smoother rhythm than would be appropriate in the and that the sonnet was the literary form par excel- sonnets." For Pascarella, the problem is of a differ- lence; writing sonnets in Romanesco was in fact aent nature: unlike Belli, who larded his poetry with violation of the traditional sonnet, and therefore obscenities, Pascarella's language is relatively sober, Belli's Roman readers saw in every sonnet an act of within the limits allowed by Romanesco. "A conflict literary and linguistic impertinence as well as politi- I am having," the translator observes, "whether it is cal impertinence.14 In order to translate dialect as it from the dramatic enthusiasm of this speaker or was perceived by those who spoke it, Williams was from his obvious kinship with the characters of Bel- obliged to translate its impertinence, its potential for li's great work or simply from my own warped imag- sedition. ination, is that with every sonnet, some obscene ex- Besides the use of dialect, Belli desecrates the pletive strikes me as the perfect solution to a sonnet with obscenities, with the depiction of popu- rhyming difficulty, and in each case, I must decide lar scenes, with comments on the church, philoso- whether to express the modesty of the author or the phy, theology, and biblical history, all from a low, enthusiasm of his tough Romanesco."17

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But if Romanesco impresses translators He goes on in this with vein for its quite a while, at the same impertinence, what should one say time of examining Neapolitan, the previous of English translations its uncontainable expressive richness, and finally of concluding its pro- that in fact Croce misread teiform embodiments not only in poetrythe text and and that theater zimmaro really means "billy goat"; but in narrative as well? One of the first works in he then proceeds to reveal his own translation of Neapolitan dialect to be translated was // Pen- "sautariello de zimmaro," namely "jumping he- tamerone of Giambattista Basile, published in 1634 goat." The same meticulous analysis is applied to and translated for the first time in 1713 - curiously "pettola a culo," which Croce demurely renders as not into Italian but into the Bolognese dialect, by "falda pendente di dietro" (flap hanging behind), Maddalena and Teresa Manfredi, and then anony- diluting much of the expressive power of the origi- mously into Italian in 1754. It was later translated nal. By studying Neapolitan dictionaries, Penzer into German in 1946 and into English in 1848, discovers that the expression "cu 'a pettola 'nculo" 1893, and 1932. In his long introduction to the means "wet behind the ears, inexperienced"; but 1925 translation of the Pentamerone, Benedetto then, realizing that the concept is already implicit in Croce finds the German and English translations the word frasca that appears just before he decides generally better than the Bolognese or Italian ones, that it is better after all to translate "pettola a culo" then explains the criteria adopted for his own trans- with a vulgar expression such as "ass flap." Having lation. demonstrated his knowledge of dialect, at least the- oretically, Penzer states his methodological criteria, I have been very faithful to the words of the text, trying which in a way place him in the same line as not to diminish the quantity, and to alter as little as Williams and Du Val: possible the quality, of the images they contain; but I have acted freely in reworking the syntax, which in In the present edition I have decided to employ mod- Basile is defective and often very bad, mainly perhaps ern rather than archaic Chaucerian or Elizabethan Eng- because the work was published while still unfinished lish, which might be supposed to be the equivalent of and in many parts still in the draft stage. I resisted the seventeenth-century Neapolitan. My theory is that the temptation, to which someone else would have given modern reader in reading modern English will obtain a in, to substitute Neapolitan idioms with equivalent much better idea of what the Neapolitan book meant to words and phrases of current Florentine usage; and I the Seventeenth-Century reader than if I attempted to preserve a mock-archaic atmosphere by dragging in have tried to preserve not only the baroque adorn- early English words and phrases.20 ments, but also a certain Neapolitan flavor of the book.18 What is lacking here is any reference to the unique- ness of dialect, to the latent dialectical tension be- The English translation by Norman Mosley Penzer tween dialect and standard language, so that Penzer of 1932 is based largely, but not exclusively, on does not attribute any specific difficulty to the trans- Croce's Italian translation. In his preface the trans- lation of Neapolitan that could not be resolved with lator wishes to display a certain familiarity with the a good dictionary. complex relationship between standard Italian and In the sixteenth century, the most renowned di- dialect, taking care to convince the reader that he alect poet of his time was a Sicilian, Giovanni Meli. also knows the original in dialect and going so far as Meli's Sicilian is a very particular language, one to criticize some of Croce's renderings. which shows how the question of dialect is intimate- I have endeavored to keep two main objects constantly ly connected to Italian literature and requires a spe- in view - first to translate literally, taking noun for noun cific treatment, as Gaetano Cipolla explains in his and verb for verb, and secondly to preserve all the introduction to his translation of Don Chisciotti e puns, local allusions, similes and metaphors of the orig- Sanciu Panza, first published in 1787. inal. Before speaking of the style of language adopted, I While Meli may have intended to create an "illustrious would like to give a few examples of the difficulties of Sicilian," the result of his efforts was a mixture of the translation. Take, for instance, the string of vile abuse literary idiom of Italy, that is, Tuscan, especially in its that pours out of the old woman's throat when her Arcadian tradition, and of Sicilian. The interrelation- pitcher is smashed by the court page (the introductory ship between these two components represents an es- tale). She starts off as follows: "Ah zaccaro, frasca, sential feature of Meli's language. This interrelation- merduso, piscialietto, sautariello de zimmaro, pettola a ship may be articulated along an axis that includes a culo, chiappo de mpiso, mulo canzirro!" The first four highly literary Tuscan (a direct quotation from Pe- words present little difficulty, but what is the meaning trarch, for example), passing through a line of expres- of "sautariello de zimmaro"? Croce gives it in modern sion that is structurally Tuscan but with Sicilian super- Italian as "salterello di cembalo" and "martellino de imposed on it. A third point of the axis might consist of cembalo," something moving very quickly and "illustriouscausing Sicilian," that is, purified from its local a lot of noise, possibly our "madcap." But figuratively Palermitan dress and distilled from a variety of idioms "martellino" can mean "torment," and "cembalo" can spoken in Sicily, and finally there might be a line or ex- mean "ugly."19 pression which comes from the every day jargon of the

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streets. I have tried to reproduce such The sliding untranslatableness along the of dialect - that is, its se- axis whenever possible. . . . Consonant mantic with opacity the - istone proportional of to the idiomatic use the original, which obtains comic relief of words, by slang, mixing and jargon a limited to local color. highly dignified language with popular On the speech, question of I thehave untranslatableness of dialect, tried to maintain the same combination in English, al- Hermann Haller, who translated into English the lowing myself to slide in the direction of archaic terms or slang, according to the situation.21 poems of his important anthology The Hidden Italy, opting for a literal rather than literary rendition, in- I have quoted Cipolla at length because, sists, "I have unlike chosen aPen- literal prose translation at the zer, he takes on directly the problem cost of ofsome the stylistic various and rhythmic elegance, aware expressive registers, of the tension ofgenerated the difficulty by of translating the the unique expressive- relationship between language and ness dialect, of each of thebetween dialects."23 Further on, he adds: dialect and dialect, between popular "The language result of this andpluralistic operation is a poetry literary language, proposing various that can concrete barely be translated. solu- Words such as the Mi- tions in his translation. Consider, for instance, the lanese cagabizet or cagoni, the Piedmontese brandev, mixture of styles in Sanciu's answer to the lofty "bel or the Triestine povaro can cannot be rendered ac- morir tutta la vita onora": curately. . . . The sound of each dialect is different, "Comu! rispusi Sanciu, e chi scacciati! the phonosymbolism of each adding a special musi- Ch'aju a muriri pr'esseri onoratu? cal effect: the rather somber, melancholy sounds of Pirdunatimi, e grossa asinitati; Sicilian; the happy tonality of Neapolitan, express- mi sentu megghiu eu vivu, sbrigugnatu, ing love for life; the cordial timbre of Romanesco chi Achilli e Ulissi morti, decantati; and the airiness of Venetian; the powerful gallic in- pirchi eu, o tintu o pintu, avennu ciatu, tonations of Milanese."24 la cinniri di st'omini valenti On the other hand, the translatableness of dialect, la scarpisu, e percio su chiu potenti." (Canto I, 1 1) as Franco Brevini points out in a fundamental study "What are you telling me?" then Sanciu asked, of dialect poetry, Le parole perdute: Dialetti e poesia "Am I to die so honor can be mine? nel nostro secolo25 depends precisely on the elimina- Forgive me, but that's really asinine! tion of the more strictly vernacular elements, the Alive, though in disgrace, I feel much better overly pronounced idiomatic peaks, as is the case than both Achilles and Ulysses, for with Giotti, Marin, Noventa, and finally Rimanelli. they're honored but quite dead, and since I breathe, Take as an example the very first stanza of the first good man or bad - I am the stronger, then, for I can tread the dust of those brave men." poem in Moliseide: Quanne t'ezziccche a i vrite du penziere In more recent times, one of the most interesting e fore chiagne u sole, ze fa' notte, phenomena in contemporary Italian literature is un- u sanghe te ze chiatre, sie' streniere: doubtedly the current flourishing of neodialect poet- a vije da terre tije donde sta'? ry, exceptional in so many ways. I would like to dwell briefly on two of the best neodialect poets, When you get near the glasspanes of your thoughts and outside the sun weeps, and darkness falls, Giose Rimanelli and Achille Serrao, whose work I your blood turns into ice, you are a stranger; have translated into English. Rimanelli recently the road back to your land, where can it be? published Moliseide,22 a book of poems in the Molisan dialect with my English translations, in It should be noted that in this stanza there is no which the problem of dialect is complicated by the word or expression which presents any particular extreme literariness of the text and is systematically difficulties for the translator; instead, they are hid- contaminated by references to troubadour poetry, den in the tone, in the rhythmic modulation and the medieval Latin poetry, American and French poet- metrical structure, so that in the translation I was ry, jazz, and blues. It is a text characterized by di- forced to leave out the rhyme, which would have verse languages and styles, and by a rich variety of considerably affected the possibility of following the meter, from free verse to the ballad, from hendeca- subtle musical patterning of the text. syllables to double seven-syllable lines, with an Quite different is the case of Achille Serrao from abundance of rhyme and assonance. The dialect is Campania, who in his book 'A canniatura I The therefore the trunk on which are grafted multiple Crevice, also accompanied by my English translation, linguistic and literary experiences. The search for does not use the Neapolitan dialect but rather the dialect thus becomes a search for the poetic word, peripheral dialect of Caivano, much blunter and with the awareness that the greatest difficulty lies harsher than Neapolitan. The resistance of the lin- more in the cultural and literary layering of the text guistic medium is compounded by the programmatic and in the pursuit of a rhythm suited to the internal avoidance of sentimentality and subjectivity by Ser- movement of the verse than in the peculiarity of di- rao, whose text therefore appears extremely concen- alect. trated, deliberately antimelodic, refractory, granular,

This content downloaded from 152.23.251.224 on Tue, 15 Jan 2019 16:45:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 286 WORLD LITERATURE TODAY aiming at more subtle, more secret might harmonies. be that of theTo bilingual writer who translates try to render into English the harshness himself, as ofwe shallSerrao's see in Zanzotto's case. For diction would lead to a forced quest Michael for Palma, consonantal the translator of Gozzano and Va- tones and broken, antimelodic rhythms, which leri, who dealt with Neapolitan and Calabrese would sound artificial in English. My strategy in this poems for the anthology, a poor knowledge of di- case was instead to attempt to capture the basic alect is a determining factor. tonality of the text, the melancholic intensity that I would point out two immediate problems that I subtends the apparent impersonality of the poetic have encountered in translating dialect poetry. The first persona. Moreover, there is the question of Serrao's is my unfamiliarity with the dialects in question. There philological precision, evident in the glossary he ap- is always a concern with what is lost in the translation pended in order to explain his linguistic choices. I process; under these circumstances, there is a concern cite the poem "Nu tiempo c'e stato" as an example: over a potentially double loss. . . . The other problem occurs at the other end of the Nu tiempo c'e stato ch"e pparole translation process. Obviously, there is no equivalent in nun cagnavano 11' aria, addu nuje English for the Italian tradition of dialect poetry. frievano cu' ll'uoglio Translating into slang or any other non-normative Eng- d"a jacuvella areto 'a vocca, attenute lish dialect - "So I says to him, I says," or some such pe' ppaura, cummenienza che ssaccio . . . thing - would be totally inappropriate; it would fail to There was a time when words catch the spirit of the original and it would make for didn't change the air, around these parts some rather bizarre-sounding English poetry. The only they fried in the oil real solution was to translate these poems in the same of cunning, held in the mouth idiom as any others: if there was any concession to the by fear, expedience maybe . . . supposed flavor of the originals (and even this notion of "flavor" is debatable, if the dialects are in fact the nor- Anyone familiar with Neapolitan will probably have mal language of their speakers), it was a slightly greater difficulty only with jacuvella, which is explained tendency as at moments toward more informal expres- follows in the glossary: sion.26 s.f.: "intrigue, cunning, blandishments, fondling." Palma's remarks are along the same line as those Etym.: from the French Jacques = Giacomo (James), made by Miller Williams, who considers dialect the which has the metaphorical meaning of "fool, simple- norm for dialect speakers, so that translating into ton," at least since the XlVth Cent, (in fact, in 1358 slang re- - that is, deviating from the norm - would be bellious farmers were disparagingly called Jacques inappropriateBon- and out of place. A similar course is homme; the personal name "Giacomo," in its Latin followed by Anthony Molino, translator of Magrelli form Jacobus gave Jdcovo in Neapolitan; the expression and De Filippo,27 who translated the poetry from Jdcovo Jdcovo ("to waver") is derived from the name "Giacomo": the name Coviello, a mask from the Abruzzo for the anthology. Neapolitan farce that stands for "buffoon, oaf," is aMany people have asked me how does one manage to diminutive form of "Giacomo." translate from the Neapolitan - apparently implying that the rendition of a "dialect" into English can pose Given the impossibility of rendering in translation more or different problems than would a more widely even part of the connotative richness of the word, I known language. I've always believed that a translation had no choice but settle for the generic and unsatis- is successful to the extent that the culture and language fying "oil of cunning," betting instead on the econo- that nurture a text can be fully assumed, indeed known, my and compactness of the diction. by the translator. In this, there is something of an an- Due to be published soon - to remain in the area thropological dimension, something akin to the ethnog- of contemporary dialect verse - is a trilingual an- rapher's capacity for "going native." Though not of thology of the dialect poetry of southern Italy, a vol- Neapolitan origins, I'd been exposed to a number of ume which I myself have edited. I asked some of Southernthe Italian dialects and traditions, first as a child translators who collaborated in this project to pro- and later via my own experience in the Abruzzi, Rome, Sicily and Matera, where altogether I've spent ten years vide a few observations on the difficulties they en- of my adult life.28 countered in translating dialect. It must be noted first that from the translator's perspective the prob- Here Molino touches on another, extremely impor- lem of translation is affected by his knowledge of tant the question concerning the problem of dialect, dialect in question. Those who do not know the taken di- up by another translator, Justin Vitiello, who alect are forced to avail themselves of the Italian translated from Sicilian and Apulian. Vitiello enu- translation and, as a consequence, remain essential- merates some of the most important factors in the ly outside the dialect experience. The best situation translation from dialect: 1) "A work of conservation is that of the dialectophone who is also perfectly of disappearingan- cultures" (and here Vitiello gives a glophone and can therefore deal with dialect fromglobal perspective on the problem); 2) "The transla- the inside; or, to go even further, the ideal situation tion of dialect poetry gives back a cultural-global

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voice to the excluded, those whom Frantz Fanon simplification, rationalization, downplaying (anti- calls the damned of the earth"; and 3) "Is this a po- theatricality) with respect to the original text. litically correct discourse? No, look at Dante, father As for the greater literariness of the Italian text, Dante, even he is rooted, in his revolution of literary Zilio concludes that while the original is taken from language, in a dialect."29 the dialect folklore of Treviso, in the Italian text the Vitiello's observations are very much to the point author is less conditioned by the psycholinguistic and beg to be expounded and clarified, but that and sociolinguistic forms with which that folkloric would take us too far afield. It must be noted, material was handed down. But there is another though, and this is one of the aspects of dialect thatmechanism at work, one "which acts more or less in cannot be ignored - that dialect has a tragic core, all dialect speakers when they go from dialect to the because the anthropological universe it expresses national language. It can be articulated, with various has almost entirely disappeared. As Luigi Mene- results, under the label of hypercorrectionism (stylis- ghello, whose understanding of the dialectal condi- tic, in this case), and it consists, as is well known, in tion is uncommonly profound (see his books Libera a psycholinguistic reaction that produces effects of nos a malo and Jura), reminds us, things disappear excessive self-censure toward the natural tendency but words remain. Dialect is a tragic language be- for contamination."31 It should be noted that this cause its referents have vanished. This is precisely difference in literariness between Italian and dialect its inner contradiction: on the one hand, dialect is texts in Zanzotto occurs in the translation rather seen almost universally as the language of concrete- ness and corporality; on the other, its external refer- than in the original writings, since his dialect poetry ence points have been concretely erased, so that the is no less literary than the Italian. substance of dialect is in fact manifested as a ghost This essay does not deal with the inverse opera- of memory, as inner resonance. The specific diffi- tion, perhaps even more problematic and in need of culty in translating from dialect, therefore, also critical study - that is, the translation from standard hinges on the fact that the dialectal word has been language into dialect, which has produced various torn out of its original humus of determinateness, of versions of the Divine Comedy, a Calabrese version total identification with the object. of Jerusalem Delivered, a Neapolitan Aeneid in ottava The ideal situation, it was noted before, perhaps rima, and so on. I would like to mention, however, occurs only when the bilingual writer becomes a at least one recent attempt by a dialect poet, translator of himself. In an essay on Zanzotto as a Giuseppe Jovine, to render in dialect an author as translator, Giovanni Meo Zilio remarks that "the complex as Montale.32 I mention this also for the translator of someone else's text, even in the best of methodological clarity with which the author under- cases, namely when he is perfectly bilingual and ef- takes an apparently unfeasible task. fectively possesses the 'internal form' of the lan- With respect to the translation of Montale, which could guage from which he is translating (which is not be contested on the pretext of the untranslatableness of very frequent), runs into every kind of semantic dif- elaborate and psychologically complex texts into a ver- ficulties (which are added to stylistic and melodic nacular that is assumed to be lacking stylistic complexi- difficulties), such as polysemy, ambiguity, intention- ty and refinement, it must be noted that Montale's al obscurity, contextual reference of a historical, so- great themes of life and beyond, of the search for the ciocultural, biographical nature, et cetera, which do ultimate form of being, of the "word that scans from not exist for the translator of oneself."30 every side our shapeless soul," of human passing, can Zilio provides a long and very detailed analysis of well find a place in the vernacular. All those themes Zanzotto's Italian translation of one of his stories in have a linguistic equivalent in dialect, if it is true, as I the Venetian dialect, "La storia del barba zhucon / believe, that folklore encompasses all the surviving and La storia dello zio tonto" (The Story of the Witless contaminated documents of all the conceptions of the Uncle). He concludes that Zanzotto adopts a crite- world and of life that have been held throughout histo- rion of rigorous faithfulness, but that within this ry, as Gramsci observes.33 fundamental faithfulness there are here and there in As for the results, once one is past the initial disori- his translation certain stylistic choices (lexical, syn- entation and estrangement, the very least one can tactic, melodic, and so on) which depart from the say is that the attempt is undoubtedly interesting original text and which, in such a careful and con- and provocative. trolled writer, cannot be accidental. These differ- ences are grouped into two categories: a) deviations Come Zaccheo from literariness, in the sense of choice of words or Si tratta di arrampicarsi sul sicomoro syntagms (less familiar or less plebeian or less rural per vedere il Signore se mai passi. than those of the original text); and b) deviations Ahime, non sono un rampicante ed anche from essentialness, in the sense of a greater sobriety stando in punta di piedi non l'ho mai visto. (restraint, expressive discretion), which includes (from Diario del '71 e del 72)

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Chi sa se passa u' Patraterne 6 Le avventure di Huckleberry Finn, Milan, Garzanti, 1992. 7 David R. Sewell, Mark Twain's Languages: Discourse, Dia- Ze tratta da 'nghiana logue, and Linguistic Variety, Berkeley, University of California 'ncopp'a n'albere de chiuppe Press, 1987, p. 67. Nze po sape! Pessotte po passa 8Judson Rosengrant, "Toads in the Garden: On Translating da nu prichinde all'atre u' Patraterne. Vernacular Style in Eduard Limonov," Translation Review, 38-39 Ma se mmanche na' luna 1'anne viste (1992), p. 16. 'gna le pozze vede se nen m'arrizze 9 Henry G. Schogt, "Langue etrangere et dialecte et leurs rap- manche 'npunte de pede pe le calle? ports avec le texte principal: Un probleme de traduction," Con- (from Chi sa se passa u' Patraterne) trastes, 17 December 1988, pp. 21-38. 10 Brian Altano, "Translating Dialect Literature: The Paradigm Who Knows If the Almighty Will Go By of Carlo Emilio Gadda," Babel, 34:3 (1988), pp. 152-56. 11 The following is Weaver's translation, as quoted by Altano, You have to climb on a poplar tree. p. 155: "'Get your roast pork here! Pork straight from the Areca You never know! The Almighty with a whole tree of rosemary in its belly! With fresh, new pota- could go by at any moment. toes, too, right in season! . . . I'm here to tell you. Taste them for But if he hasn't been seen even on the moon, yourselves.' He rested for a moment to catch his breath. And how can I see him if I can't stand then, exploding: 'One-ninety the slice, roast pork! We're giving it on the tip of my toes because of calluses. away, ladies! It's a crying shame, that's what it is, ladies! You ought to be ashamed to buy it so cheap. One-ninety, easier done It would be useful, in further studies, to analyze than said! Step right up, cash in hand, ladies! If you don't eat you the texts in translation in order to measure and eval- can't work.' . . . Then, to a local beauty, lowering his tone: 'What about you, pretty girl?' The girl, at that tone of authority, could- uate their literary and stylistic rendition in a con- n't restrain her laughter. 'A half pound of pork?' and, sotto voce, crete manner. In the end, however, we are forced to to her, but with a glance at the penniless tooth-puller: 'I'll give acknowledge the obvious: namely, that it is impossi- you the best part, that's a promise. You're my type, all right. ble to find a conclusive answer to the problems of You're too pretty!'" 12 Altano, p. 156. translating dialect. I have pointed out some possible 13 Sonnets of Giuseppe Belli, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State Uni- paths to explore, but the success of any attempt can versity Press, 1981, p. xxii. ultimately depend only on the linguistic and literary 14 Du Val, pp. 27-28. sensibility of the translator. 15 Ibid., p. 28. 16 Ibid. Brooklyn College 17 Ibid., p. 31. 18 Giambattista Basile, // Pentamerone, tr. Benedetto Croce, 1 Franco Brevini, Poeti dialettali del Novecento, Turin, Einaudi, Bari, Laterza, 1925, pp. xxx-xxxi. 1987, p. x. 19 The Pentamerone of Giambattista Basile, London/New York, 2 Poesia dialettale del Molise: Testi e critica I Dialect Poetry from Dutton, 1932, p. viii. Molise: Texts and Criticism (trilingual edition), eds. Luigi Bonaffi- 20 Ibid. ni, Giambattista Faralli, and Sebastiano Martelli, Isernia, 21 Don Chisciotti and Sanciu Panza, Ottawa, Canadian Society Marinelli, 1993; and Dialect Poetry of Southern Italy, ed. Luigi for Italian Studies, 1986, p. xxxi. Bonaffini, New York, Legas, 1997. 22 Giose Rimanelli, Moliseide, New York, Peter Lang, 1992. 3 Tonino Guerra, Abandoned Places, ed. & tr. Adria Bernardi, 23 The Hidden Italy, ed. Hermann Haller, Detroit, Wayne State Toronto, Guernica, 1997; Salvatore Di Giacomo, Love Poems, tr. University Press, 1986, p. 22. Frank Palescandolo, Toronto, Guernica, 1997; Achille Serrao, 'A 24 Ibid., p. 45. canniatura I The Crevice (trilingual edition), ed. & tr. Luigi 25 Franco Brevini, Le parole perdute: Dialetti e poesia nel nostro se- Bonaffini, New York, Peter Lang, 1995; Giuseppe Jovine, Lu colo, Turin, Einaudi, 1990. pavone and La sdrenga (trilingual edition), ed. & tr. Luigi Bonaffi- 26 In a letter to me, answering a few questions on translating ni, New York, Peter Lang, 1994; The Poetry of Nino Martoglio, ed. from the dialect. & tr. Gaetano Cipolla, New York, Legas, 1993; Giose Rimanelli, 27 Eduardo De Filippo, The Nativity Scene, Toronto, Guernica, Moliseide (trilingual edition), ed. & tr. Luigi Bonaffini, New York, 1997. Peter Lang, 1992; The Discovery of America, ed. & tr. John Du 28 In a letter to me, answering a few questions on translating Val, Fayetteville, University of Arkansas Press, 1991; Vincenzo from the dialect. Ancona, Malidittu la lingua I Damned Language, ed. & tr. Gaetano 29 In a letter to me, answering a few questions on translating Cipolla, New York, Legas, 1990; Tales of Trilussa, ed. & tr. John from the dialect. Du Val, Fayetteville, University of Arkansas Press, 1990. 30 Giovanni Meo Zilio, "Come Zanzotto traduce se stesso," 4 The Portable Mark Twain, ed. Bernard De Voto, New York, Quaderni Veneti, 14 (December 1991), pp. 95-107. Viking, 1968, p. 193. 31 Ibid., p. 106. John Du Val, "Translating the Dialect: Miller Williams' Ro- 32 Giuseppe Jovine, Chi sa se passa uy Patraterne, Rome, II Ven- manesco," Translation Review, 32-33 (1990), p. 27. Mark taglio, 1992. Twain's comment appears at the beginning of the article. 33 Ibid., pp. 9-10.

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