Rivista di letteratura comparata italiana, bizantina e neoellenica | 2018 | N. 2

This article analyses an anthological collection of lyrics in Cypriot dialect [Cod. Marc. Gr. ix, 32 (=1287)] very important in the context of modern Greek literature. It also discusses the influence of Petrarch, the Italian poet who marked the beginning of the modern culture, as well as the role that this played in the writer’s literary creation of european petrarchism later to be of such influence. The poetry of Petrarch and the one of the Petrarchist poets represent an extraordinary model of forms and themes of the human values, which had allowed man to understand himself and the world he lives in.

The article deals with the relation between the Greek poetess Sappho and one of the most famous Italian poetesses of Renaissance, Gaspara Stampa (1523-1554). Firstly, the reception of Sappho in literature and visual arts during Renaissance is presented. Then the opinion of her contemporaries about her is discussed, as well as the nearly evident fact of the knowledge of works of Sappho by Stampa herself. Then the article focuses on Stampa’s sonnet 224 (edition of Tylus), where she refers directly to Sappho. In this poem the poetess addressing to phoenix, the mythical bird, expresses her desire to be the spiritual heir of the Sappho. Based on this sonnet we can understand the way Sappho is been received by Gaspara Stampa, within the general historical background of the reception of the Sapphic work during the period of Italian Renaissance.

Emmanuìl Roidis (Syros, 1836 – Athens, 1904) took part in the main European cultural movements of the second half of the 19th century, with a particular predilection for Italy, where he spent part of his childhood. Just starting from a childhood memory, in 1895 he wrote Milià, a fairy tale of Italian origin, using dimotikì. Analyzing the tale we can realize that it has all the characteristics of the fairy tale, according to the principles set out by Propp. Using the Aarne and Thompson’s types index, we can detect several motifs that lead us to a story written by the Neopolitan Giambattista Basile (1566-1632), Lo scarafone, lo sorece e lo grillo, as a probable source of Milià. There are many similarities between the two tales, both in content and style, although apparently different. At the end of the article you can find my Italian unpublished translation of Milià’s tale.

This paper presents some translations of texts by Luigi Capuana (Mineo, 1839-Catania, 1915), one of the greatest exponents of Verismo. The translations were published in Greek magazines in the first decades of the twentieth century, and were probably made by the erudite Kostas Kerofylas (Zakynthos, 1881-Athens, 1961). They confirm the versatility of the Italian writer in experimenting various forms of expression: short stories written in the form of theatrical plays, highly dramatic narratives, fairy tales full of imagination, and especially novels that reflect his creative strength. In addition, I meant to analyse the translation of his most successful novel, the Marchese di Roccaverdina (1901), which was published in Athens a few years ago. This was certainly quite an undertaking, since in those years Capuana was at the height of his commitment and creative responsibility, a condition in which imagination and intellect work fervently and in full harmony.

In his letter (May 26, 1936) to Nikos Kazantzakis, Kostas Karthaios, the Royal Theatre’s director, proposed to the Greek writer to make the translation of Pirandello’s play Questa sera si recita a soggetto in order for that to be staged. Two months later, in July 1936, the translation was already made by the writer. However, although the rehearsals had begun, the play ended up not being staged and Kazantzakis’ translation was unfortunately lost. In this paper, we present a comedy written by Kazantzakis the following year, 1937, entitled Othello returns, which is clearly influenced by the pirandellian metatheatre, exactly in the way this style is represented in Questa sera si recita a soggetto and in Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore, as well.

Attitudes towards D’Annunzio by Gerasimos Spatalàs (Corfu 1887 – Athens 1971), prolific author and translator of Italian poems, novels, short stories and plays. In the study, mainly based on archive research, are pointed out preferences and quested reasons that justify translation choices of the Greek intellectual, who presented an early interest in the dannuncian poetry, closely related not only to personal pursuits and searches, but also to national perspectives. According to Spatalàs’ philological essays, D’Annunzio is the greatest Italian poet, dramatist and novelist of the 20th century, ingenious and charismatic, but in some cases not immune to redundancy. Imputed for his ideology, but admired for his gorgeous artistic inventions, in particular for the wise and innovative version he gave of classicism. His literary work is indicated as an appropriate fount of renewal for the modern Greek literature.

Ghiorgos Sarandaris (1908-1941) was among the first translators of Kavafis’ poems from Greek into Italian. Sarandaris translated only four of Kavafis’ poems, however he had deep interest in Kavafis’ poetics, as his writings of literary criticism prove.

The writers Nuto Revelli and Ghiannis Beratis participated in the events of the Second World War and narrated their experiences in various memorialistic works. The text intends to examine how common thematic and imagological aspects exist between Nuto Revelli’s War of the Poor and Ghiannis Beratis’s Diary of ’43. The study focuses on three particular themes of the respective war memorials: the image of the Germans, the image of the partisan, the Greek partisans and the Italian troops.

This article focuses on the influence of politics on the translation, circulation and reception through the years of Alki Zei’s To kaplani tis vitrinas (1963). The novel is entwined with political ideas; therefore, it was not always considered a children’s book. As shown by the studies on the history of translation from Modern Greek to English and Italian, the book was published in a period of intense translation activity, which was characterised by the international interest in Greece’s difficult political situation. A comparison between the Italian translation and the English one leads to the analysis of the ways in which the translators treated political matters addressing children. A further analysis of the editions of the book revealed how the age of the target audience varied according to the image of children’s needs and abilities that their culture had at the moment of publication. The study proved that the political aspects of the novel played a key role not only in its circulation outside Greece during and after the military junta (1967-1974), but also in the choices made by translators and book publishers to address their readers.