Giuseppe Ungaretti is one of the most famous Italian poets of the XX century. He is popular for his shrunken lines, for the humanity each word he chooses bore in its contest. The uncanny depths of Ungaretti’s words make almost impossible a translation of his poems.
The versions of Veglia available on the Internet are forced attempts to a skinny transplant from the Italian language. They only mirror the original work. But the people who translated the poem have no fault whatsoever because a translation cannot fill the nuances each foreign word contain. To give an example, the word digrignata is translated into sneering, gnashing, or gnashed. Among these latter, gnashed is perhaps the closest dared translation, because the participle, an adjective in this case, has the same function digrignata has in the poem.
Now, neither these gerunds nor the participle conveys the meaning digrignata. In Italian, it has a visual effect that it seems it cannot be translated into English. A frustrating aspect of translating, in this case, is that digrignata bears the content of the entire poem. It is the key term to understand the poem; it is the leading word to which all the verses will converge on when the deed of understanding the poem is completed.
Maybe, a visual experience may help the translation of Veglia.
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1 comment:
The translations are very interesting, both in their similarities and their differences. I'm sure the English words stand as pale replicas of the original Italian, but the poem is undeniably moving in its forceful brevity. I would like to read more, and maybe put some Ungaretti links on my blog as well.
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