AustLit

'Il presente articolo intende rappresentare una breve meditazione sulla poesia della fine dei tempi e sostenere che essa sia il mormorio, spesso inconsapevole, di un’intensa afflizione e angoscia. La nostra risposta all’imminente catastrofe di scala planetaria è, paradossalmente, intensamente personale e fondata sul diniego. Parte di tale risposta – tale diniego – è costituita da un crescente mormorio di sublime poesia, ispirata e di grande bellezza. Essa non può essere politica, perché la poesia riconosce che non c’è nessuno che possa parlare schiettamente di tali argomenti, ma è piuttosto foriera di sprazzi di intensità selvaggia che emergono dai suoi suoni.'

'This article, a brief meditation on poetry in end times, proposes that poetry is the often unwitting murmur of intense grief and distress. Our response to a coming catastrophe on a planetary scale is, paradoxically, intensely personal, and based in denial. As part of this response – this denial – there will be a growing murmur of sublime, inspired and beautiful poetry. It cannot be political, for poetry will recognise there is no one to truly speak to about these matters, and this will bring flashes of a wild intensity to its sounds.' (Publication summary)

'Il corpo, lo spirito e la parola creativa sono elementi particolarmente significativi nell’opera di David Malouf: il suo linguaggio immaginativo e poetico dà voce alle sfumature più sottili della vita, rivelandone sia la dimensione spirituale sia quella creativa. La mia analisi si basa sul lavoro dell’antropologa e storica Riane Eisler e sulla teoria della parola creativa in contrapposizione al termine scientista di Raimon Panikkar. Nella presente analisi, utilizzerò le prospettive interculturali e di partnership proprie del lavoro di Panikkar e di Eisler come base filosofica e critica al fine di evidenziare in che modo Malouf dia forma ad un mondo di epifanie spirituali, in cui le realtà della vita quotidiana sono trasmutate in una dimensione spirituale attraverso l’intensità dell’immaginazione creativa.'

'Body, spirit and creative word are significant elements in David Malouf’s work: his imaginative and poetical language gives voice to the subtleties of life, revealing both their spiritual and physical dimensions. My analysis is based on the work of the anthropologist and macro-historian Riane Eisler and on Raimon Panikkar’s theory of the creative word versus scientistic term. I will use the intercultural and partnership perspectives of Panikkar and Eisler’s work as a philosophical and critical background to show how in his work Malouf gives form to a world of spiritual epiphanies, with the realities of everyday life transmuted into a spiritual dimension through the intensity of the creative imagination.' (Publication abstract)

'L’articolo ripercorre il cammino da me seguito nel tradurre David Malouf in italiano: dalla difficoltà di seguire lo scrittore australiano nelle sue scelte stilistiche al desiderio di aderire sia ai campi espressivi da lui prediletti sia a quella chiara nota di leggerezza e precisione che caratterizza la sua prosa. Nel versare in italiano i romanzi di Malouf ho sempre cercato di non esercitare alcun impatto negativo sull’ambiente testuale, sottraendomi alla volontà di dominio sul testo altrui e favorendo un dialogo profondo tra chi scrive e chi offre ospitalità nella propria lingua madre.'

'The article retraces the path I followed in my translation of David Malouf’s works into Italian: from the difficulty of staying in step with the Australian author’s stylistic choices to managing to adhere both to his favourite semantic fields and to that clear note of lightness and precision that characterises his writing. In translating Malouf’s novels my aim has always been to avoid exerting any negative impact on the textual environment, never giving in to the will to dominate the other’s text and trying instead to encourage an intense dialogue between the writer and the translator, offering hospitality in her mother tongue.' (Publication abstract)

'White is known to have speculated, at times, as to whether his works would be read after his death. That his reputation is in no danger of fading is surely attested by this birth centenary publication – the outcome of a conference held in India in December, 2012. It was attended by some of the best-known of White scholars as well as some excellent new contributors from all over the world; the latter being a promising augury for the future. White had an awareness of Indian culture, though it was his wide acquaintance with European culture that saturated his work, along with his deep roots in his native Australia. Perhaps it needs to be stated here that the epigraph to White’s earliest novel, Happy Valley (1939) was a quotation from Gandhi; and his earliest published short story, “The Twitching Colonel” (1937) records the experience of a retired British colonel who is literally consumed, it would appear, by what he has experienced in India.' (Introduction)