Italian culture

Interactions, transpositions, translations

Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin Corinna Salvadori & John Scattergood editors

At a seminar in April 2002 at Trinity College Dublin, marking the retirement of Professor Corinna Salvadori, former students, recent graduates, colleagues and friends contributed papers on a variety of subjects. The occasion also celebrated nearly 230 years of teaching Italian in Trinity College and remembered some of those who had made distinguished contributions to its history. Common themes among the papers presented on that day determined the choice of essays for the present collection, and were subsequently reinforced by the addition of further contributions, among which a history of the Italian Department and an essay on the critical writings of Tom O'Neill. The resulting volume celebrates friendship, communication, performance, translation, influence and transmission, as they apply not only to the academic study of Italian culture, but also to the creation of that culture. The essays range from a study of Dante and his poet friends in Florence around 1300 to the work of Piero Bigongiari, Mario Luzi and contemporary movements in Italian poetry. Topics include translation criticism in relation to the Decameron, Machiavelli and Humanism in Ireland, Ariosto's Angelica as refashioned by Lampedusa, Thomas More's motives in translating a life of Pico della Mirandola, Moliére's creative use of commedia dell'arte, twentieth century teatro grottesco, Dante and 'Burnt Norton', translations and transformations involving Joyce, Beckett and Alan Titley, and transpositions of the Gattopardo from text to film.

The editors teach and research at Trinity College Dublin.