[img 0]  Ernesto Livorni
J. Joyce, Ulysses: An Italian Translation

Despite a relatively late start (the first complete translation of "Ulysses" is the 1960 version by Giulio De Angelis, published by Mondadori together with the unforgettable "Guida alla lettura", a companion volume edited by the translator and Giorgio Melchiori), Italian scholars have been engaging themselves ever so vigorously with Joyce's epic of the quotidian. A new updated translation became even more necessary after the publication of the Corrected Text of "Ulysses" (edited under the direction of Hans Walter Gabler: New York - London, Garland, 1984), which was followed by a rather perplexing new edition of the translation by De Angelis (Milan, Mondadori, 1988). Fully justified, then, is the note that unintrusively appears above the copyright: "La presente traduzione dell'`Ulisse' non segue la lezione di un solo testo, ma e` il risultato di una prospezione e ricostruzione autonoma del testo joyciano condotta e realizzata dalla traduttrice. Una scelta oggi obbligata, davanti alle oltre cinquemila varianti, in se' tutte plausibili, proposte dalla filologia in oltre mezzo secolo di esercizio sul testo di James Joyce".
Published in an elegant hardcover edition by a publishing press which stubbornly pursues the literary enterprise that was the work of Sylvia Beach (a link stressed by the reproduction of the title page of the 1922 original version as well as in the two notes by Aldo Rosselli and Giuseppe Recchia), the text is equipped with nine detailed maps of Dublin -- each focusing on the sections of the city relevant to the several episodes -- and a very essential bibliography; the Appendix reproduces the Schema Linati and the Gilbert table as well as the correspondences traced by Joyce himself between the "Odyssey" and the episodes of Leopold Bloom's epic day. To be sure, all these ingredients do not represent a novelty even for the Italian reader, but their inclusion is useful to the readers who want to embed the text as much as possible in space (the Dublin maps) and time (the temporal sequences of the schemes); and the translation of "The Croppy Boy" ("ragazzi che combatterono per la liberta` d'Irlanda," as the translator specifies in the introductory note to the "Sirens" episode: p. 648) is a thouthful addition to the Appendix. This little instance may provide us with an understanding of the hermeneutic key played by the translator: La`, il pensiero affiso, attraversa il corso ed entra nel bar Ormond, sul lungo fiume. Qui, dietro il banco di mescita, fiammeggiano Miss Douce dai capelli ramati e la bionda Miss Kennedy, ancora con negli occhi lo spettacolo del passaggio del corteo del vicere': l'eccitante visione del potere." These lines are taken from the introductory note to the aforementioned episode (p.648) and they do not overall differ in content (although they are more concise) from the corresponding introduction prepared by Guido De Angelis in the 1960 translation. The peculiarity, however, resides in the careful consideration of the scene (the opposition of the deictic markers is an obvious reference); the chiselled depiction of details (Miss Douce's hair); the selective choice of words which culminates in some striking Latinate terms; and finally, the syntactic construction which builds up to the climax of the scene. The "azzardo linguistico," as Giuseppe Recchia calls it, that the translator (Bona Flecchia: "un'interprete teatrale di testi shakespeariani, che usa per giunta `parole pirata':" p.XIV) takes is apparent already in the language of the notes, justifying what Aldo Rosselli says in this respect: "Una nuova traduzione che presuppone che anche le migliori asperita` del lessico joyciano siano entrate nella linea del nostro italiano" (p.IX).
Indeed, two are the principal novelties and virtues of Bona Flecchia's translation. The first one, already mentioned, consists in the patient ability of the phylologist who understands the necessity of taking advantage of the Gabler edition in order to accomplish "the task of the translator" (to borrow the title of that seminal essay by Walter Benjamin): an adherence to the text which, in turn, repulses; a betrayal of the word which is the ultimate act of love. Although nowhere does the translator acknowledges her indebtedness to The Corrected Text (indeed, she emphasizes the autonomy of her project, as it is apparent in the above-mentioned paragraph in which she states her own "prospezione e ricostruzione autonoma del testo joyciano" supported by the perusal of the manuscripts in the main libraries of London, Dublin, New York and Washington), the reference to that edition appears constantly.
The second novelty, although intrinsecally linked to the first, is however much more engaging from the perspective of the translation itself and the task of rendering the rich strata of Joyce's language in the Italian yet so dear to him. References to the "Sirens" episode are again useful; let us consider its very first lines (p.202):

The very beginning of the `ouverture' of the episode offers a remarkable opportunity to the translator to elaborate on the tonality of Joyce's language. It is a tonality that finds its support not only in the musical quality of the Italian language, but also in the emphasis on the colorful tones of the language itself. In doing so, Bona Flecchia either takes out of Joyce's text the nuances implicit in the English expression ("And gold flushed more" becomes "E oro si fece di rosso piu` intenso:" that is, the intensity of the redness implicit in the verb `to flush' is made explicit in the Italian translation), or elaborates -- and indeed enriches -- the original text creating an expanded variation of Joyce's image. This time, the image synesthetically moves between the realms of smell and sight (A jumpling rose on satiny breasts of satin, rose of Castille" becomes "Rosa ondulante su serici seni satinati, rosa di castiglia"), insisting on a small number of sounds embedded between the two mentions of the rose and elaborating on the tactile sensation of the satin ("SErIcI SENI SaTINaTI").
This much needed translation is greatly indebted to the Gabler edition as well as to the De Angelis translation; it is, however, a remarkable enterprise that serves the enjoyment and understanding of one of the fundamental texts of Modernism.

Ernesto Livorni (Yale University)

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