Stefano Termanini, Genova

Stefano Termanini, Genova

Apparentemente si tratta di due volumi piuttosto lontani nell’impostazione e negli scopi: il primo è una raccolta organica di saggi (tranne il primo tutti già pubblicati in altre sedi) su diversi aspetti dell’opera critica di Benedetto Croce; il secondo raccoglie le recensioni che l’autore è venuto pubblicando, per lo più in riviste americane, nel corso di un trentennio su studi di vario argomento, ma che in prevalenza avevano ad oggetto ancora Croce nonché Giacomo Leopardi e Alessandro Manzoni, altri sui campi prediletti di studio.

Segnalare unitariamente le due raccolte è tuttavia giustificato poiché sostanzialmente unitaria ne è l’ispirazione (oltre, almeno in parte, anche la tematica). E il centro di questa ispirazione è in effetti la sterminata opera critica crociana, intesa tanto come inesausta riflessione sulla natura e le finalità del fare critica, quanto come diretto esercizio di essa: un’opera dal Caserta saldamente posseduta in ogni sua implicazione e convintamente assunta a criterio di orientamento estetico e critico. In questo senso, con le due raccolte qui presentate egli porta a compimento un percorso intrapreso almeno trent’anni fa con lo studio sistematico e minuziosissimo delle origini e dei primi sviluppi della critica letteraria del filosofo napoletano (ci riferiamo al suo Croce critico letterario 1882-1921, del 1972), e proseguito poi con altri importanti contributi di esegesi crociana. Di questo lungo e tenace percorso i saggi e le recensioni raccolte nei due volumi qui segnalati costituiscono altrettanti approfondimenti, sviluppi polemici, integrazioni e corollari.

In particolare nel primo volume il lettore troverà una veloce ma efficace caratterizzazione de La concezione estetico-critica di Croce, e quindi una serie di saggi nei quali sono discusse altre correnti della critica del secondo Novecento (il marxismo e la sua variante gramsciana in particolare, ma si segnala anche l’accurata discussione delle pagine crociane di René Wellek). A questi saggi di misurata polemica fanno quindi da complemento molte delle recensioni riunite nel secondo volume: sono per lo più recensioni scritte nel corso degli anni settanta e ottanta, quando era certo nel suo punto più basso la fortuna critica di Croce. Si può dire pertanto che al Caserta vada il merito, tra gli altri, di aver mantenuto salda e vitale la tradizione degli studi crociani in momenti nei quali il vento delle mode culturali soffiava robustamente in altre direzioni.

Una segnalazione particolare ci sembra che meriti l’inedito saggio che apre il primo volume, e che è dedicato al bellissimo scritto crociano su Un angolo di Napoli, ossia sulla sua grande casa, nel cuore di quella Napoli che fu sua come di pochi altri poiché come pochi altri la possedette con amore e conoscenza assoluti. Quelle che Caserta scrive sui luoghi crociani sono pagine fresche e mosse da una profonda simpatia umana e intellettuale.

Emanuele Cutinelli-Rendina, Università di Losanna

Translation theory is experiencing a renaissance period, judging by the many interesting and innovative books and ideas that have appeared on the market recently. Generally speaking, if simplifying somewhat the nature of the issues at stake, I believe that books on translation can be divided into two main groups: those questioning the traditional approach to translation theory by drawing on other disciplines, such as sociology and postcolonial studies, thus proposing a new perspective for the study and interpretation of the act and process of translation; and those designed for and directed at practitioners whose central argument and preoccupation revolves around a rigorous and practical analysis of interlingual problems. Eco’s book Experiences in Translation is a creature in between, where the interlingual analysis is matched and balanced by a solid theoretical framework. It is one of those rare books at the end of which both the practitioner and the theorist find something to think about and mull over.

In this book Eco does not take anything for granted; on the contrary, he dissects from scratch the process of translating, questioning, and challenging, with insightful arguments, crucial notions such as equivalence, faithfulness, and adherence. And he does so by drawing on a close reading and examination of his own books and their translations into other languages. Clearly, through this process we not only learn a great deal about translating, but also about the literary and imaginary world of Umberto Eco the novelist. Therefore, the introspections afforded and gained by reading this book are valuable to the translator as well as to the scholar studying Eco’s fictional work. Interpretation is indeed one of the main themes, if not the great theme of this book. It is around the notion and the discussion of interpretation that Eco orchestrates his “naively” skilful reading of translating. A strong reference to the centrality of interpretation, to its guiding principle, is already found on page 6: “As I have repeatedly stated […], a text is a machine conceived for eliciting interpretation.” It follows that the first and most important task of a translator is that of interpreter, whose ability and dexterity hinge upon the understanding that it is not just a matter of interpreting language but also culture because, as Eco states, “every language has its own genius (as Humboldt said) or, rather, that every language expresses a different world view […]” (12). It is by approaching the book in an organic and holistic fashion, as the representative of a whole culture, a whole “world view,” that the translator may problematize and contextualize the notion of equivalence: “Equivalence in meaning cannot be taken as satisfactory criterion for a correct translation, first of all because in order to define the still undefined notion of translation one would have to employ a notion as obscure as equivalence of meaning […]” (9), and yet “it is impossible to speak of equivalence of meaning” (12).

Moreover, it is the very notion and idea of interpretation that is questioned and fastidiously scrutinized in light of the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary nature of translation and translating. I think that it is here, in this first chapter, that the strength of Eco’s book lies, insofar as the process of translating and interpreting acquires a fullness and an inclusiveness which, without being prescriptive, does great justice to the complexity and intricacy of translation.

The section on theory is, in my view, less stimulating not because it lacks articulation and persuasiveness, but because it insists on and reiterates traditional juxtapositions — for instance, the comparison between the original and the copy, and its attendant comparative theoretical framework — which appear increasingly limiting and inadequate to explain current phenomena of cross-cultural encounters and exchange. Besides, I do not see the reason to cling to such clear and unproblematic opposition in the field of translation studies when just about everywhere else in the field of the humanities and social sciences the notions of original and originality have undergone such drastic and dramatic a reappraisal. Clearly, as Eco shows and demonstrates in Experiences in Translation, the comparative analysis still holds currency, especially in the domain of commercial publishing and practical translation. It would be just untenable to argue that interlingual translation ought to move away from grammatical, syntactic, and stylistic considerations and embrace a free-for-all approach. The point is that these considerations might well be founded on other and different sets of methodological and theoretical frameworks from those revolving around the static (and for the original unchangeable) idea of final products. This, in turn, means that a reconsideration, and perhaps a reformulation, of translation theory along the axis of contemporary philosophical and cultural discourse should not limit itself to the domain of theory and academia, but ought to influence the thinking and culture of commercial publishing too.

Selfhood, subjectivity, language, and cultural values are indissolubly linked to the extent that, at least in Western culture, the notion of identity and belonging, of being at home, are strictly correlated with a homogeneity of linguistic and cultural values, whose safety appears to be guaranteed by enclosing them, by sealing and protecting them from the influence of what lies outside. It is by constructing linguistic and cultural enclosures that the ideas of authenticity and inauthenticity, original and copy become possible, indeed accepted as natural and necessary. This framework has had a historical, political, and social value, a necessity whose tenets continue to persist and hold sway even at a time when they appear to be undermined, if not altogether outmoded, by the process of globalization and international mobility. And yet, regardless of the paradigm shift and the attendant discourse of cross-fertilization and hybridisation, we still cling to the imperative of authenticity and originality, of purity based on a set of implicitly or explicitly protected linguistic and cultural values. What I would like to see happening more often is a discourse opening up a series of challenges in order for a further zone to emerge in-between authenticity and inauthenticity. What I am referring to is the process which perhaps, but not necessarily, gives rise to so-called authentic spaces. In other words, a process, a cultural habitat, in which authenticity and inauthenticity are themselves negative and absent, only potential amidst an unqualified and unqualifiedly, apparently incomplete, landscape. I believe that translation theory could make a strong contribution to this debate.

The added irony regarding the debate on original and copy is that modern and contemporary art, including literature, has for so many years celebrated its inadequacy or simply its status as mere copy, as petrified simulacrum which unsuccessfully searches for its own originality in the attempt to escape its nature as the shadow of reality. Here, I suppose, we have the great irony and paradox of art, that is, the coexistence of the notions of originality and copy, the fusion and the embedding of an apparently unsolvable dichotomy. This living together of opposite principles is the body and the flesh of art, its fascination but also its irredeemable sin. Never was the hybridity and hermaphroditism of art so clearly stated and exposed, its supposed originality problematized as in modern and contemporary art. And yet we still think of translation as that which has to be faithful to the original when, in fact, translation could be used to reclaim the profound meaning of art’s incompleteness and vagrancy through emphasizing, indeed organizing and clarifying, its epiphanic errancy, ultimately restoring art to the originality of its multilinguism and polyculturalism. Clearly, this is translation as theory and not as practice, translation as the contemporary hermeneutic of language and culture. It is translation working its epistemological method and purpose through its inherent nature of “halo,” of interim and “interstitial” per eccellenza in a world of believed originals which are there waiting and hoping to be deconstructed.

This is also translation as an ideological and existential home and habitus for those who, by choice or necessity, are physically living in between and who for many years have thought and lived their interstitiality as a loss, of home, the self, their traditions. It is now perhaps time to see the “error” of being potential, of being “as such,” as the locus of responsible criticism and the geography where, in losing oneself, one can eventually find oneself. I believe this is the challenge of translation theory for this century, a challenge that Eco does not appear to embrace fully or see.

Paolo Bartoloni, The University of Sydney

One of the several new accounts of Silone’s life and works published in the centenary year of his birth, Maria Nicolai Paynter’s account of her fellow Abruzzan, Ignazio Silone. Beyond the Tragic Vision, is the first ever full-length monograph available in English. As the title indicates, Paynter’s main thesis is that Silone’s works acknowledge but then transcend the nihilism of many of his contemporaries. She persuasively presents a basic pattern for all his novels and plays: human suffering and oppression are inevitable, but can be relieved by the redemptive sacrifices of Christ-like protagonists. Whilst repeatedly expressing his deep-seated mistrust of both religious and political institutions, Silone continually stresses the need for acts of individual courage to assert and strengthen the dignity of the human spirit. Paynter’s main concern is to revise the standard approach to Silone’s literary oeuvre by moving away from an autobiographical, political emphasis to concentrate on stylistic analysis. To a certain degree Beyond the Tragic Vision is an English version of her earlier book Simbolismo e ironia nella narrativa di Silone (L’Aquila: Regione d’Abruzzo, 1991), but its examination of Silone’s oeuvre is more comprehensive. Its scope extends beyond the novels to include the short story collection Viaggio a Parigi, published in German in 1934 and only available in Italian since 1993, also Silone’s two plays and non-fictional works such as the autobiographical Uscita di sicurezza (1965) and the dialogues La scuola dei dittatori (1938, revised for Italian publication 1962). Whilst acknowledging the ideological importance of Silone’s work, Paynter endeavors not to over-idealize the author as an anti-Fascist, anti-Communist hero.

The book is not a chronological study, but structured according to genre. It begins with a brief biographical profile, and moves straight on to the collection of short narratives and essays, Uscita di sicurezza. Although occasionally it seems that Paynter gives too much credence to the author’s retrospective view of his childhood and youth in her detailed summary of the work (31, for example, where it is no longer clear if we are reading a synopsis of Silone’s thought or of Paynter’s), her focus on the style of each piece successfully brings out the collection’s overall graduation from narrative to essay, and its corresponding thematic shift from the personal to the public or historical. Rather than treating the collection as an account of Silone’s expulsion from the Communist Party to be tested for its veracity, Paynter underlines its wider meanings and gives it a place within the dynamic of the author’s literary oeuvre.

The following chapter moves somewhat abruptly to the short stories of Viaggio a Parigi, which, as Paynter points out, have been neglected by both Italian and foreign critics. Paynter is, in her own words, “reintroducing this collection to English-speaking readers of Silone for the first time since 1934” (50). Here the main thrust of her stylistic analysis asserts itself as she examines in detail Silone’s orchestration of realistic and symbolic elements to present events that seem at once immediate and universal. The reasons she advances for Silone’s decision never to revise and republish the collection as a whole do not however address the interesting question of why he never returned to the short story genre per se. Instead Paynter focuses on the sex scenes and folkloric elements without considering why Silone did not simply remove these from Viaggio a Parigi as he did from the revised versions of longer works. Also, although the title story contains symbolic dreams which are unique in Silone’s oeuvre, Paynter only refers in passing to the possible influence of Freud and Jung (50 and note). This is a little disappointing in the light of her stimulating and detailed use of Jung to interpret Pane e vino. However, her emphasis on the spiritual aspects of this early writing is both new and convincing. Whilst conceding that political elements are very strong and sometimes crudely handled in the exile works, Paynter stresses that religious imagery is just as important and often just as obtrusive (see 98 for her comparison of the 1937 version of Pane e vino with the revised edition of 1955).

From Viaggio a Parigi it would seem logical to move on to the novels where Silone develops the results of his early narrative experiments. However, although Paynter sees La scuola dei dittatori as somewhat of an anomaly in Silone’s oeuvre — she describes it as an exception to the “macrotex”’ of the novels and plays with their “implicit unity of structural design” (74) — she interpolates a chapter on it here. Perhaps this would feel less like an interruption if Paynter had made more of the relationship between Silone’s factual and fictional writing and had included the book-length essay Der Fascismus (1934), which is missing both in the text and bibliography. Its omission is particularly conspicuous as it, like Viaggio a Parigi, has also been translated into Italian since Paynter’s first monograph was published (Il Fascismo. Carnago/Varese: Sugarco, 1992). To a great extent, Der Fascismus formed the basis of La scuola dei dittatori and is to La scuola what the short stories are to the novels: a first attempt, an expedient experiment, aimed at making money but also at finding a form to capture Silone’s ideas of the moment. In the context of Paynter’s emphasis on stylistic analysis, there would have been ample scope for a comparison of the parallel development of the crude irony and anecdotal style of Der Fascismus and Viaggio a Parigi into the structural irony and thematic unity of La scuola dei dittatori and the novels. Nevertheless, Paynter makes a valuable contribution to the debate on the genre of La scuola dei dittatori, identifying it as a satire according to Northorpe Frye’s eminently fitting category of “second-phase satire,” which culminates in “reductio ad absurdum” (68 and note). Setting its immediate political relevance aside, she concentrates on its critique of received and unquestioned knowledge and its lessons for today’s reader.

Chapters 5 and 6 are dedicated to Silone’s novel production, and here Paynter comes into her own. She maintains a general awareness of the many different versions and revisions of the early novels (including a previously unknown typescript of Il seme sotto la neve 107) without allowing them to bog down her overall interpretation. She produces more than sufficient evidence for her claim that both spiritual and symbolic nonrealistic elements are strongly present in Silone’s narrative from the beginning, whilst providing a satisfactory analysis of their development over time. Her interpretation of the Christian symbolism which permeates Silone’s entire novel production is particularly thorough, including what she reads persuasively as inverted, parodic representations of the Eucharist, the demonic banquets of the compromised and damned. Paynter does not allow herself to be distracted by the question of whether or not Silone has a place in the Italian canon, a somewhat redundant and parochial issue given his established international status. Rather than looking for literary antecedents to qualify Silone’s novels, she concentrates on other sources of inspiration: the liturgy, the lives of the saints, and Fascist propaganda material that he satirizes.

Chapter 7 deals with the plays Ed egli si nascose and L’avventura di un povero cristiano. Paynter claims that they confront the “problem of truth” not as a philosophical problem but as “life’s fundamental organizing principle.” She deals thoroughly with the structure and content of each; her more general genre considerations are intriguing but remain superficial, for example the brief mentions of classical models and the Passion play, or via crucis (170, 179). No performance details are given, neither is there any discussion of the role of drama as a concept in Silone’s works, although both would have been relevant given her conclusion that his plays are basically meant to be read and not seen. Generally speaking, however, Paynter does not weigh her text down with frequent references to other secondary literature. Instead, she dedicates the entire final chapter to Silone’s literary fortune and the links between the changing reception of his works and the vicissitudes of Italy’s political and social history. She strikes an excellent balance between detail and a general overview; her coverage of American criticism is particularly thorough.

Paynter’s emphasis on the spirituality of Silone’s worldview in Beyond the Tragic Vision makes her account particularly coherent and persuasive. Sometimes, however, this emphasis also results in a simplified approach to Silone’s political career, and inaccuracies creep in: for example, Silone’s break with the Communist Party in 1931 was by no means as total as Paynter implies. Silone maintained close contact with German Communists whilst in exile in Switzerland; and, contrary to Paynter’s claim, the periodical information which he edited contains no anti-Communist material. His description of Communism as “red fascism,” which she mentions in connection to his 1927 crisis, was in fact provoked by the Stalinist purges nearly ten years later. On the other hand, given the embryonic stage of research on the topic and the furor it has caused, it is to Paynter’s credit that she does not sidestep more recent controversies surrounding Silone. Both in her introduction and conclusion she refers to the discovery of letters that seem to prove he acted as a Fascist informer during the 1920s. Although obviously a great admirer of Silone the man as well as Silone the writer, Paynter is quite prepared to entertain the possibility that he may have collaborated with the Fascists, also that he participated in CIA-sponsored events in the post-war period. A copy of a letter she wrote to the CIA asking for information on Silone and the answering refusal are included in the first appendix to the book, first-hand proof of the difficulties of such research. Paynter makes some vital general points: for example, even whilst funded by America, Silone criticized US policies in his review Tempo presente. However, although suggestions for further reading can be found in the footnotes, neither issue is dealt with in depth; hence some of her comments will seem oblique to the general reader. She is, of course, more than justified in withholding any conclusions on Silone as Fascist informer, given the incomplete evidence available, as well as considering the debate largely beyond the scope and aim of her work. Nevertheless, it would be helpful to explain the facts more fully before putting the debate to one side; also, the first appendix of Silone’s letters to the Oprechts and Paynter’s CIA correspondence would be easier to reference if the letters were in chronological order. However, as a general literary critical introduction to the writer and his works Ignazio Silone. Beyond the Tragic Vision has many virtues and will be invaluable to English-speaking students of Silone.

Deborah Holmes, The Queen’s College, Oxford