L’ENEIDE TRADOTTA DA LEOPARDI: SULLA REVISIONE AUTOGRAFA DELLA STAMPA PIROTTA

Abstract

This essay is concerned with an examination of Leopardi’s linguistic choices in his translation of the Virgil’s Aeneid, a task to which the poet devoted himself beginning in 1816. Following a brief survey of the work’s editorial history, the discussion first outlines several reflections on the practice of translation, an activity that had already attracted the attention of the young writer, and subsequently considers the textual witnesses of his endeavour. The analysis then turns to the stylistic tendencies of the earliest version of the text, up to the most recent autograph revisions incorporated into the 1817 edition, with the aim of identifying, through the close reading of selected verses, the fundamental criteria by which Leopardi initially composed and later revised his translation from Latin.