1,721,004 research outputs found
Beyond Ecological Trauma. Aldous Huxley’s Theory of Language
Get PDFAldous Huxley gained fame as the most cultivated and complex writer of his time. After the publication of Brave New World in 1932 his work became increasingly difficult to categorize as it began to crossthe boundaries that separate art from science, religion and mys-ticism. Throughout his literarylifehe askedus to shift «our collective attention from the merely political to the basic biological aspects of the human situation». He urges us to shift from a nationalistic, warmongering way of thinking to an ecological approach:«Do we propose to live in this planet in symbiotic harmony with our environment? Or, preferring to be wantonly stupid, shall we choose to live like murderous and suicidal parasites that kill their host and so destroythemselves?» (The Politics of Ecology). He saw the ecological issues he dealt with as by-products of our world view,anticipating what environmentalists later defined as the ‘belief paradigm’ of our culture (Sawyer 2008). This paper studies the link Aldous Huxley draws between this ‘belief paradigm’and language and how, through a brand-new theory of language, he identifiesa path-way out of the ecological trauma that Man has caused. It focuses, in particular, on the four essays he devoted entirely to this theme: Words and Behavior, 1936; Words and Their Meaning, 1940, On Language, 1959, and The Politics of Ecology. The Question of Survival (1963). The last section of this paper analysesthe novel Island (1962). It is in this‘utopian’ novel, in fact,that he explores in greater depth the themes touched upon in his previous essay-writing. Here the author combineslanguage theory, human narrative talent and ecological concern to build a unique picture which is, arguably, his most important legacy to future generations
Le Tracce del marinaio. Note ai 'Gulliver's Travels' di Jonathan Swift
No full text«Passavo le mie ore libere a leggere i migliori autori, antichi e moderni»,il magnifying glass usato da Gulliver nelle sue esplorazioni altro non è che la tradizione letteraria che lo precede. Lemuel Gulliver – borghese che sa cosa cercare e dove trovarlo – non trova parole nuove per descrivere i nuovi mondi da lui esplorati. Usa le parole della tradizione e, quando anche queste vengon meno, tace.Tutto l’ordito narrativo dell’opera swiftiana è intessuto sul recupero di modelli letterari.Le modalità e l’ordine con cui Jonathan Swift sceglie di inserire i riferimenti alle fonti cui attinge, dunque, può essere letto come il senso dell’opera stessa.Il confronto tra modelli culturali è anche quello creato dalle traduzioni dei Gulliver’sTravels nei secoli. Ogni epoca si relativizza nella dialettica col passato e riscrive l’originale; cosìla seconda parte del volume, attraverso le voci dei primi autori che scelsero di tradurre integralmente il ‘romanzo’ di Jonathan Swift, mostra come, nel ventesimo secolo in Italia, le traduzioni dei Gulliver’sTravels si rivelano espressione della società, della cultura e della storia che ad esse soggiacciono
To lose myself in the soul of the other that I am not: The process of becoming in Katherine Mansfield’s short stories
No full textThe history of the critical reception of the short fiction of the writer Katherine Mansfield can be divided into two main areas: studies that investigate her short stories in their multiple relationships with Modernism, and more recent analyses that focus on her (post)colonial roots as a New Zealander. The cultural, gendered and physical otherness in her short stories is the privileged subject of criticism. Conversely, what is almost completely forgotten by the critics is her concern for the nonhuman world. What is most striking is how the otherness that ontologically characterises her life and her stories is not only a line of separation but also traces a link between different worlds. The elements of the binary paradigms are always in relation to each other and they exist only through this relation. Seen from this perspective, her short stories show the links and pave the way not to separation but to unity. This essay aims to highlight the relevance that the act of writing has for Mansfield in her attempt to create a new subjectivity that embeds human and nonhuman in a process of autopoiesis. Instead of seeing the world and its inhabitants in terms of static structures, she focuses on the network of relationships between them. It is in her network of relationships that she depicts what can be seen as her posthumanism ante litteram
"Un'ordinata bellezza". Le traduzioni della Casa Editrice Laterza durante il regime fascista
Get PDFLaterza publishing house became one of the leading publishers in Italy between 1920
and 1945. Giovanni Laterza, its founder, in strict cooperation with Benedetto Croce, brought to Italy
several foreign novels and philosophical essays. The idea lying behind this policy was to forge in
the country a critical mass of ideal European readers, able to break the Italian cultural marginality
and create new literary canons (Billani). We focus, in particular, on the policy of Laterza publishing
house, and analyse how responses to the fascist ambiguous 'revision' system (Bonsaver, Forgacs,
Rundle) changed depending on law, patronage, and material conditions in which the translators
worked (Lefevere). After tracing a map of the whole corpus of foreign works (philosophical,
historical and scientific) published by the Italian publisher, we focus on the five English literature
translations issued during the regime (Milton’s Aereopagitica; Huxley’s The Olive Tree; Boswell’s
The Life of Samuel Johnson; Well’s A Short History of the Word More’s Utopia) ,in particular we will
focus on Huxley’s The Olive Tree translated in 1939 by Ada Prospero Gobetti, a unique collection
of essays which combines ethics and politics. Analyzing the unpublished correspondence among
the translators, Laterza and Croce, and through a close reading of Huxley’s book and its
translation we are able to identify both the policy of the publisher and the different translation
strategies adopted, that reflect respectively submission or resistance to the dominant thinking
(Tymoczko). This in turn allows us to discuss more in general the role of ideology as an explicit
(censorship) or implicit (self-censorship) component of the translation process (Gramsci)
"Soprattutto non troppo genio". Breve storia della traduzione in Italia.
Get PDFThis paper presents a brief history of the Italian translation theories. In particular, it examines the linkages between the western modern and contemporary translation theories (Sche-leirmacher, Vermeer, Lefevere) and the Italian thought – from Dante to Foscolo, from Leopardi to Fortini – which, in spite of its exclusion from the international debate, has always been up to date, even when hidden or relegated into the translators’ notes. This allows us to discuss the critical function of translations in the Italian history, both as a hi-storical object and as means to interpret other historical subjects (Rundle
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