In 1996 Dacia Maraini published a collection of essays whose Conradian title, Un clandestino a bordo. Le donne/la maternità negata/il corpo sognato, obliquely refers to abortion as the main focus of the author’s attention. In the first – and perhaps most significant – of the eight essays, “Lettera sull’aborto”, addressed to Enzo Siciliano, Maraini herself explained that the maritime image employed to metaphorize the peculiar relationship linking mother and child during pregnancy was drawn from Conrad, namely from The Secret Sharer, the tale she was translating during the same period and which also appeared in 1996 for Rizzoli with the title Il compagno segreto. The paper analyzes Maraini’s translation in the light of her psychoanalytical-Oedipal reading of Conrad’s text, pointing out stylistic, linguistic and syntactical choices ‒ also by drawing parallels with other Italian translations - that can be directly referred to this particular interpretation of the source text. Maraini’s rendering of Conrad’s prose provides a very good example of translation-as-transformation, a rewriting of the source text according to the translator's sensibility and ideology.
Translating/Transforming: Dacia Maraini's Reading of The Secret Sharer
FERRARI, ROBERTA
2005-01-01
Abstract
In 1996 Dacia Maraini published a collection of essays whose Conradian title, Un clandestino a bordo. Le donne/la maternità negata/il corpo sognato, obliquely refers to abortion as the main focus of the author’s attention. In the first – and perhaps most significant – of the eight essays, “Lettera sull’aborto”, addressed to Enzo Siciliano, Maraini herself explained that the maritime image employed to metaphorize the peculiar relationship linking mother and child during pregnancy was drawn from Conrad, namely from The Secret Sharer, the tale she was translating during the same period and which also appeared in 1996 for Rizzoli with the title Il compagno segreto. The paper analyzes Maraini’s translation in the light of her psychoanalytical-Oedipal reading of Conrad’s text, pointing out stylistic, linguistic and syntactical choices ‒ also by drawing parallels with other Italian translations - that can be directly referred to this particular interpretation of the source text. Maraini’s rendering of Conrad’s prose provides a very good example of translation-as-transformation, a rewriting of the source text according to the translator's sensibility and ideology.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.