Waxing Vids Uncensored

'Othello' by William Shakespeare

Nicola D'Ugo

A question that arises in relation to the translation of a classic of twentieth-century translations that abound on the need for a new translation. Man culture, and also to the reader, not interested in editorial matters only marginally, who want a publisher Feltrinelli in this case, publish the entire works of a great writer of the past, in this case that Shakespeare, translated from distinguished scholar, Agostino Lombardo. He did so in recent decades with the translations of the Rizzoli Gabriele Baldini, opting for a solution, the prose, which, in some way, can leave the reader interdict the anglophone world, accustomed to rapid relay between blank verse and prose the English playwright, among the nobles speak in verse and prose betting jargon and slang and informality of the vulgar.

What the first poet, historian and literary critic and now always ask is based on the assumption that work and a work of translation should add something to progress towards a meaningful and a higher degree of significance. On these two principles of sensitivity and intelligence will play the big games that make an immortal work, and it is in the agony of survival that the translations mostly older and supersedes the original works at the time. And if he feels that only recently its importance in relation to the generally more popular, the novel is because it is the genre to be recent duplication and translation, still very low.

Another issue that affects the translation of a classic is given the penchant of some elements of the work to the detriment of others. It is what TS Eliot meant when he said that Shakespeare is one of Wyndham Lewis, as there is a Shakespeare of Coleridge and one of Johnson, an author is revisited, in various ages, from "critical imperfect" in a synthesis that at best, knows how to be more appropriate than any other taste, sensitivity, and the court's time.

The third question addresses the form of the work and its primary use, e in questo caso va notato che, trattandosi di un dramma, la destinazione dell’ Otello non è un libro ma un palcoscenico.

Tenuto conto di questi elementi, ci si avvede che la traduzione del prof. Lombardo punta su una immediatezza verbale, su una recitabilità e fruibilità altrettanto immediata dell’opera da parte dello spettatore, avendo a cuore i tempi di una battuta e il mezzo fisico di un teatro. I versi e i dialoghi in prosa vengono mantenuti fedelmente secondo l’originale, privilegiando per i primi, a fronte del blank verse originale, non il corrispettivo storico, l’endecasillabo sciolto, ma versi liberi (solitamente giambici) a base endecasillabica (Lengthened or shortened), and a wise adoption of dell'accapo Luziana finesse. This, of course, to give the reader (and actor) as indications of break that will enable them to recite the text depending on the situation and the emotions that cross.

The result is a translation philologicallybased that from time to time, privileges the expressive effect, abandoning the pedantic respect of any given vocabulary. It is an example of how the learning of a philologist of the first floor can be of service to everyone.

[posted in: Events No IX/31, August 21, 1996 . ]