“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 REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40153045?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. 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Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to World Literature Today 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 Translating Dialect Literature 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.