F. Federici, Translation as Stylistic Evolution. Italo Calvino Creative Translator of Raymond Queneau

FEDERICI, Federico, Translation as Stylistic Evolution. Italo Calvino Creative Translator of Raymond Queneau, Amsterdam / New York, Rodopi (Approaches to Translation Studies), 2009, 302 p.

ISBN 978-90-420-2569-1

RÉSUMÉ

Why did Italo Calvino decide to translate Les Fleurs bleuesby Raymond Queneau? Was his translation just a way to pay a tribute toone of his models? This study looks at Calvino's translation from aliterary and linguistic perspective: Calvino's I fiori blu ismore than a rewriting and a creative translation, as it contributed toa revolution in his own literary language and style. TranslatingQueneau, Calvino discovered a new fictional voice and explored thepotentialities of his native tongue, Italian. In fact Calvino'swritings show a visible evolution of poetics and style that occurredrather abruptly in the mid 1960s; this sudden change has long beendebated. The radical transformation of his style was affected byseveral factors: Calvino's new interests in linguistics, in translationtheory, and in the act of translation. Translation as Stylistic Evolutionanalyses several passages in detail and scrutinizes quantitative dataobtained by comparing digital versions of the original and Calvino'stranslation. The results of such assessment of Calvino'stext-consistency suggest clear interpretations of the motives behindCalvino's radical and remarkable change of style that are tied to hisnotion of creative translation.

TABLE DES MATIÈRES

Figures and Tables
Abbreviations
Preface
Part I: Translation and the Intellectual Worlds of Calvino and Queneau
An introduction to the intellectual worlds of Raymond Queneau and Italo Calvino
Calvino's views on literature and translation
Calvino's background in translation theory
Queneau's views on literature and translation
Part II: Calvino's Creative Translation of Queneau's Les Fleurs bleues
Comparing ST and TT: an outline of the methodology
Queneau's intertextuality in Calvino's translation
Committed participation in and isolation from History
Towards a Postmodernist style: translation of the active reader
Concluding remarks
Appendix A: Calvino's “Nota del traduttore”
Appendix B: Calvino's “Translator's note”
Appendix C: Pouilloux's selected lexis from LFB compared to Calvino's TT
Analytical index
Bibliography