Translating Postcolonial English: The Italian Translation of D. Walcott’s The Odyssey: A Stage Version

• Main Author: Elisabetta Zurru
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts) 2008-06-01
• Series: ELOPE
• Subjects: Postcolonial English; ethnostylistics; translational stylistics; English/Italian translation; Derek Walcott’s The Odyssey; A Stage Version
• Online Access: https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/elope/article/view/3320

In postcolonial writing the English language is often intentionally appropriated: it ceases to represent the vehicle of expression of ‘Englishness’ only and becomes the means of communication of a wider part of the world. Therefore, many strategies are used in postcolonial works as a means of cultural assertion on the part of the writers. Such strategies, however, are extremely difficult to convey in languages which are not directly concerned with issues such as postcolonial resistance to colonial control in literature, as in the case of Italian. Using as a case study the only Italian translation of Derek Walcott’s The Odyssey: A Stage Version, I will analyse in this paper a number of strategies employed in the Source Text (ST), concurrently analysing the difficulties related to their translation into Italian. Besides the tools provided by stylistics, structural grammar, translation studies and postcolonial studies, the frameworks of ethnostylistics and translational stylistics are particularly useful in the scrutiny of this text.