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Un racconto per l’infanzia fatto di colori: Isabella e l’ombra di Antonio Tabucchi

Author(s): Chrisiano Bedin / Language(s): Italian Issue: 1/2017

Antonio Tabucchi is one of the most representative authors of contemporary Italianliterature. His output includes a short story for children entitled Isabella e l’ombra, which wasillustrated by Isabella Staino and to whom the story is dedicated. Instead of relying on words to writeshort texts at school, the main character, a little girl named Isabella, uses colours and explains their chromatic compositions to the teacher. Undoubtedly, the writer’s pedagogical intention behind thisstory is for young readers to understand that literary expression does not occur only by writing butalso through images and colours that can transmit as many emotions as written texts do. Moreover, thetext, which can be considered a Bildungsroman for children, touches upon some topics visible in othernovels and stories by Tabucchi. This paper aims to analyse the way in which Tabucchi shares some ofhis existential ideas with a non-adult audience, particularly regarding the relationship between variousforms of language, the symbolism of colours, the power of visual communication, and the importanceof such feelings as sadness, affection, and generosity.

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Le fiabe di Roberto Piumini insegnano a parlare italiano

Author(s): Maria Teresa Bonfatti Sabbioni,Barbara De Bernardi / Language(s): Italian Issue: 1/2017

Our research intends to find selection parameters for children’s literature to be used asa fundamental part of a foreign-language curriculum. We achieve this through an analysis of theeducational and cultural-linguistic advantages of this literature. Our project’s goal is to expose ourstudents to Italian literature using their second language, rather than their first one, as a way toconvey cultural meaning. This educational project was conducted in 2015, in a school in Chicagothat offers classes of Italian Language and Culture to children at various linguistic levels, includingthe English-Italian bilingual one. Our research paper is divided into three parts. The first partintroduces a theoretical excursus on the meaning of children’s literature and on the fable’s structureas a literary genre. The second part presents examples of how a specific text (L’albero delle fiabe byRoberto Piumini) was selected and used during the project; this part also includes our comments basedon the observations of the child participants. Finally, the analysis stage describes the generalisationof our data within a framework indicating how to select a literary text, which may be useful for otherteachers when deciding which children’s books to use and how to apply them to educational curricula.

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La letteratura per l’infanzia in Italia è ancora la Cenerentola del mercato letterario? Analisi dei dati dei rapporti Liberweb

Author(s): Melissa Garavini / Language(s): Italian Issue: 1/2017

This paper analyses the publishing trends of children’s literature in Italy on the basis of theannual reports issued by LiBeRWEB. The analysis, which focuses on the book publishing market,starts by introducing the main Italian publishing houses, in whose hands the publication of children’sbooks is concentrated. The paper will also talk about independent micropublishing by introducingthe most active publishing houses, which are specialised in specific areas, such as gender studies.The publishing market will be progressively investigated by analysing several data, which suggestthat literature for children and young adults is the driving segment of the Italian book publishingmarket. Indeed, despite the economic crisis, this is the only segment that has had positive results inthe last years. In particular, the data examine several elements, which will allow us to understand sucha phenomenon. If in the last years the so-called “high literature” has lost many percentage points (-7.6%in 2009), the “Cinderella of literature” has, instead, obtained positive results (+4%), maintainingconstant production levels. Despite the use of percentages, the analysis takes into consideration otherelements, like the quality of works, whose criteria are difficult to establish. The data show a positivechange: if up to 2006 the number of novels of mediocre quality was high, probably do to a consumertrend of the market, from 2007 onwards, the situation progressively improves. Finally, the articlebriefly discusses the data of the digital market by analysing the role of audiobooks and e-books in theItalian market of children’s literature.

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“In questa casa sono tutti morti”. Di cosa parlano veramente Pinocchio e gli altri grandi libri (non solo italiani) per bambini

Author(s): Giorgia Grilli / Language(s): Italian Issue: 1/2017

In an attempt to find a possible criterion according to which to select the most representativetitles and authors in the history of Italian children’s literature, one finds that a very peculiar themecharacterises the books that can be considered most remarkable: death. Death, though, in Italian aswell as in all the other children’s classics around the world, is not dealt with in a literal way, but in a metaphorical, symbolic, indirect one. Therefore, it is necessary to borrow interpretative approachesfrom other scientific fields (anthropology and philosophy, for example) in order to understand death’s deepest meaning and to discover that what it stands for, in Italian (and not only Italian) children’s literature, is an “otherness”, a “beyond”, an unknown and non-anthropocentric dimension that children must go through in order to grow up.

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Gli scrittori della ‘Fionda’: considerazioni sull’editoria della letteratura per ragazzi in Croazia

Author(s): Eliana Moscarda Mirković,Tanja Habrle / Language(s): Italian Issue: 1/2017

A small community of Italians lives in Croatia, mainly in the area of Istria and in thecity of Rijeka, in a multi-ethnic and multicultural environment of history and tradition. The national Italian community in Croatia has an autochthonous presence and tries to preserve its own national and cultural identity. This is done especially through intense and polyhedral artistic activity, ranging from literature to theatre and music, from painting to sculpture, and from photography to design. In 1952, in order to keep up with the cultural development of this community, the publishing house EDIT (EDizioni ITaliane) was founded. In Croatia and abroad, it publishes and promotes books dedicated to Italian authors from Istria and Rijeka, with a series focused on memoirs; modern and contemporary fiction; poetry; and literature for children and youth. Thus, it supports the literary creativity of the writers living in this area. In order to address childhood, EDIT started a junior series called “LaFionda” in 2005, with the mere intention of pointing out the ludic dimension of books and of rousing the imagination of young readers. This article examines the connection of this series to literature for young readers through the analysis of the works of the authors promoted by “La Fionda,” positioning these authors in the socio-historical environment in which they were working. The series expressly attempted to conduct a linguistic investigation linked to artistic and literary reflections within these publications.

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“Quello stregone che non era altri che lui, James Joyce di Dublino”: le traduzioni di The Cat and The Devil in Italia *

Author(s): Annalisa Sezzi / Language(s): Italian Issue: 1/2017

This article sets out to explore the dynamics through which Joyce’s version of the legendof the “devil’s bridge”, narrated in a letter addressed to his grandson, Stevie, entered the world ofchildren’s literature in Italy. This occurred just after the legend’s publication in the USA and the UKunder the title The Cat and the Devil. It was immediately turned into a picturebook, a sophisticated literary product aimed at very young readers. In fact, far from being a mere text for toddlers, the ItalianIl gatto e il diavolo is at the centre of several intersemiotic and interlinguistic translations that enhancethe interpretative potential and richness of Joyce’s narration, already at the crossroads between folkloric and modernist translation. The comparative analysis of three different Italian translations ofthe story expressly addressed to children (the first by Enzo Siciliano, published by Emme Edizioniin 1967; the second by Giulio Lughi for Edizioni EL in 1980; and the third and more recent one byOttavio Fatica for ESG in 2010) has highlighted that the differences between them can be ascribedto distinct translation projects, aimed at building bridges between young readers and Joyce’s work invarious periods of the history of the Italian literary market for children.

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Le incredibili fantastiche avventure di Mia. diario di una tredicenne, osservatrice acuta e abile narratrice

Author(s): Rosaria Stuppia / Language(s): Italian Issue: 1/2017

In the last 20 years in Italy, thanks to the continued effort of qualified authors, children’sliterature has radically renewed, becoming an interesting workshop where different techniques andstyles are tried out, and where important issues, sometimes even awkward ones, are confronted in anadequate way. In this panorama we find the bestseller of Paola Zannoner, Voglio fare la scrittrice, which was published in 2007. Its protagonist, Mia, is an average teenager who belongs to an averageItalian family. This apparent normality is the strength of this character: girls can identify with her. Amusing and interesting, the text is an observation instrument of the modern Italian family: teenagers who criticise adults, family not fitting into traditional stereotypes, and parents who remain eternal children. The text contains pros even on an educational level by means of interesting metalinguisticreflections: practical tips for writing a good narrative text provided directly by a young girl whose dream is to become a famous writer. This strategy is functional: it connects young female readers with the typical constructs and technical terms of writing workshops, intending to begin to develop inreaders a focused textual competence.

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La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia di Dino Buzzati: una fiaba-romanzo tra testo e immagini d’autore

Author(s): Alessia Terrusi / Language(s): Italian Issue: 1/2017

This article proposes a reflection on a tale that can be a bridge between “literature forchildren and teens” and “literature for adults”: The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily by Dino Buzzati.It offers a link between fable and fantasy novel and contains all of the elements of the fairy tale thatVladimir Propp planned in 1928: loss, departure, challenges to overcome, reward, and return. It isclosely connected to its historical reality (the period after the Second World War), but at the sametime it detaches itself from that period through the fantastic element. In short, the book is a mirror ofBuzzati’s literary personality and the first literary work of a restless but sensitive author who alwaysfelt linked to painting and writing, to adults and children, to reality and evasion.

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Koncepcja człowieka naturalnego w kontekście motywu zbrodni w prozie Michaiła Arcybaszewa

Author(s): Patryk Witczak / Language(s): Polish Issue: 26/2016

The paper analyses the selected works by Mikhail Arstybashev in the context ofthe naturalist vision of a human being and the motif of crime. Arstybashev perceives civilization as a destructive force inflicting harm upon human beings and inciting their worst instincts. As he believes, only living according to nature makes it possible to achieve serenity.

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„Jau, so a Gaudi” Über Strategie und Norm in der Dialektübersetzung

Author(s): Anna Majkiewicz / Language(s): German Issue: 34/2016

On the basis of the two chosen examples of German literature – Robbers’ Band by Leonhard Frank (1914, Polish edition 1937, translated by Wanda Jedlicka) and From the Snail’s Diary by Günter Grass (1971, Polish edition 1991, translated by Sławomir Blaut) – the author analyses the strategies of translating dialect expressions understood as distinctive codes. A specific dialogue between the styles is the specification of in- ternal worldviews in the linguistic shaping of an expression, which is a special task for a literary translator.

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Przekłady starożytnych utworów dramatycznych – w zgodzie czy wbrew normom? Kilka refleksji o tradycji przekładoznawczej w Polsce

Author(s): Barbara Bibik / Language(s): Polish Issue: 34/2016

The history of Polish translation of ancient tragedies begun in XIX cen- tury, when drama was considered to belong to the realm of literature rather than to the realm of theatre and when its theatrical values were considered as less important than those literary ones. But in V BC – in a century when the most distinguished ancient playwrights presented their plays – they were definitely regarded as works whose aim was to be presented on theatre stage. Thanks to some theatrical movements at the turn of XXth century, drama regained its due honours and place but still there is no unanimity among the scholars about many issues concerning translation of any ancient tragedy. They still raise questions about the connection between literature and theatre, or the connection between possible staging inserted in the words of drama and the stage possibili- ties from the translator’s time; how the literary or theatrical norms influ- ence the translators’ decisions; should a translator facilitate the reception of a translated text or should he/ she make it difficult; are there any bor- ders or limits of a translation. I would like to dedicate the paper to some of those problems any translator of any ancient tragedy is supposed to solve, but especially to find the answer whether the existing norms or tradition of translation of those particular texts influence the translators and how they deal (discuss or change) with them.

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Peripeteia in Wonderland: on translating Alice

Author(s): Elżbieta Tabakowska / Language(s): English Issue: 35/2017

The article presents Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a classical work within the genre of fantasy, or literature of nonsense. The classification is made according to the “five procedures,” postulated for the genre by the American poet and scholar, Susan Stewart. From the point of view of the translator, the procedures make it possible to define the dominant of the book as the tension between the sane protagonist and the mad world of Wonderland. The criterion of dominant, combined by requirements imposed by double readership, makes it possible to characterize Polish translations of the book, which make a translation series. What becomes a challenge for the translator is the wide context of the book, which changes over time. It is possible to trace, within the series, some general tendencies, as well as to demonstrate that, ultimately, translating Alice becomes “translating Alice.”

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A humor, didacticism, characterization and the criticized subject: Law reconsidered in Ben Jonson’s Volpone

Author(s): Ewa Błasiak / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

The aim of the article is to fill a gap in Ben Jonson criticism by analyzing legal concepts in one of his most acclaimed dramas: “Volpone”. The play has so far remained largely ignored by the quickly growing field of research on the interactions of literature and law. The issues to be considered, which point to Volpone’s definite claim to a place within literature and law discipline, include the target of Jonson’s satire which emerges from the trial scenes, the role law plays in Jonson’s didacticism, the correspondence between law and the characterization of the dramatis personae and, finally, the correlation of legal references and satire in the play.

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Memorial mediations of border crossings: The Chicana/o self-identity in Ernesto Galarza’s autobiography Barrio Boy

Author(s): Sophia Emmanouilidou / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2016

Chicana/o self-identity relates to the spatial hermeneutics of the troublesome border between Mexico and the U.S. The borderlands signify the constant negotiation of Mexican American identity (both communal and individual) because the long history of territorial shifts and trespassing of the dividing line between the two countries has validated the mechanics of numerous self-manifestations. The intention of this paper is to reflect on the reciprocal notions of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, and explore how the complexities of migration intersect with the construction of selfhood. Ernesto Galarza’s autobiography “Barrio Boy” (1971) unravels the political, social, cultural and linguistic endeavors of a young immigrant who oscillates between childhood memories of an abandoned homeland south of the border and the dubious knowledge he acquires as a non-White adolescent north of the border. “Barrio Boy” is the engaging testimonio of an accomplished researcher, academician and writer in the U.S., who pledges to reveal the odyssey of an immigrant’s mindset.

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Ksiądz Kaingba, mój dziadek

Author(s): Ewa Krasowska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 1/2016

In this autobiographical essay the autor tells the story of her Grandfather, Reverend Joseph Kaingba, who was born at the beginning of the 20th century the son of a Manchurian farmer, and through a series of extraordinary events became a Polish Catholic priest, and had an illegitimate child – her father.

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The Plight of the Writing Profession: Heinrich Detering’s „Kilchberg” – a Poem not only about Thomas Mann

Author(s): Jutta Göller / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

On a first level of meaning Heinrich Detering’s poem Kilchberg is about Thomas Mann’s last years in the village of Kilchberg near Zurich in Switzerland, where the Nobel prize winner experienced the acute waning of his productive powers. Within a broader context the poem is about any writer’s plight for a lasting impression upon the world. The poem argues for the continuation of the often painful process of literary creation, as words will and can explain the world.

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Postcolonialism in Mediaevalist fi lms: The European Transculturalism of King Arthur (2004) and the Kazakh Nationalism of Nomad (2005)

Author(s): Christoph Houswitschka / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

King Arthur (2004) and Nomad (2005) both choose a medievalist setting aiming for audiences. Both films tell stories of young war lords during periods of political transition which question old allegiances and loyalties redefining national and cultural belongings. Arthur brings the Saxon invasion to a brief halt in the period of Roman retreat and Mansur (alias Ablai Khan) leads Kazakhstan into freedom in the eighteenth century. Both heroes are grappling with alienation from their origins caused by colonial hegemony. Coping with the instabilities of their hybrid identities they choose opposing ways of building new identities. Arthur Fuqua’s king takes on the challenge of merging various cultural heritages founding a civilization that symbolizes the transnational aspirations of contemporary Europe. Sergei Bodrov‘s Mansur annihilates Kazakh colonial past when he unknowingly kills his brother in arms. Erali‘s sacrifice ends the endless disputes of the Kazakhs that originate in their hybrid identity thwarting national restoration. Thus both films serve ambiguous ideological purposes by defining a hostile other. The Saxon invaders represent racist Nazis who were defeated in order to create modern Europe. The defeat of the Jungar invaders helps constructing an essentialist historical order in which the creation of Kazachstan appears to be the restoration of a pre-modern nation. Both films show the ideological power of mediaevalism offering multi-layered methods of addressing a diverse global audience.

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The English and German Translation Traditions of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae

Author(s): Noel Kaylor / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

This article provides a full listing of all known translation of Boethius’s De consolation philosophiae into English and German. The two listings are part of a larger project that eventually will inventory all vernacular translations of the Consolatio, world-wide. The article indicates some of the comparable and contrasting aspects of the English and German translation traditions. The inventories of translations in each of these two large traditions has developed slowly, over the last century or so, as more past translations are discovered, and as new translations continue to be produced. Such comparable and contrasting aspects of the traditions reveal the interconnectedness between the translations within each tradition and the interconnectedness between the two traditions. This article suggests that studies of these two traditions will yield important scholarly information as studies of the translations and translation traditions proceed.

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William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice: Can “faults” become assets?

Author(s): Zygmunt Mazur / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The article examines critical responses to Styron’s controversial novel Sophie’s Choice, and argues that precisely those aspects of the novel that have been the most severely criticized – the sudden changes in narrative technique, the mixing of different genres, the parallels between Poland and America, the comparisons between a slave plantation and a concentration camp, as well as the use of atypical characters – are exactly what makes the novel powerful. Those “faults” serve a universalizing function. The strength of the novel, and its lasting impact, stem from the fact that it is ultimately a moral book.

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Gilbert Keith Chesterton – the Edwardian Champion for Europe

Author(s): Anna Walczuk / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The aim of the paper is to look at the relevance of Gilbert Keith Chesterton’s literary output for the present day discussion of the foundations and future prospects of Europe. Chesterton was wholeheartedly dedicated to the cause of Europe at the time where such commitment, especially in the Englishman, was a mark of eccentricity rather than a reflection of widespread tendencies. Looking for the roots of European identity Chesterton stresses the formative impetus coming from Greek, Roman and Christian traditions. Consequently he stresses the significance of such European values as democracy, reason and the fundamental worth of person. From the impressive body of his writing: fiction, non-fiction, poetry and journalism, Chesterton emerges as a steadfast glorifier of Europe. However, the outlines of Chesterton’s Europe are arbitrary for they do not correspond to any geographical or political criteria. Chesterton, the ardent debater, posits his own idealised version of Europe which he sets out to defend against various manifestations of ‘non-European’ barbarism. His intellectual exuberance make him an unfaltering supporter of the European cause who deserves to be rediscovered and newly appreciated in the turbulent world of the 21st century.

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