Polezzi, Loredana (1998) Resiting genre : a study of contemporary Italian travel writing in English translation. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis aims to highlight the presence of a large and varied production of contemporary
Italian travel writing and to analyse the reasons for its 'invisibility' in the Italian literary
system and critical tradition. Through the use of a comparative approach to genre and of
current theories developed in the area of Translation Studies, the thesis will outline the
different status attributed to travel writing in the Anglo-American and the Italian literary
systems. Such a comparative approach allows the study to escape the narrow confines of a
perspective based on the idea of national literature and to adopt a wider view, which, in
turn, highlights the presence of phenomena otherwise easily overlooked or discarded as
insignificant.
The peculiar characteristics of travel writing, a genre mostly based on the
representation of the Other for a home audience, are also analysed in order to point out their
affinity with translation practices and, ultimately, to underline the 'double translation'
implied by translated travel writing.
The case studies which make up the remaining part of the thesis are intended to
illustrate different aspects of the genre of travel writing; to provide scope for an analysis of
its boundaries and connections with other genres (ranging from ethnography to
autobiography, from journalism to fiction, from the essay to the novel); and to illustrate the
way in which generic expectations influence both the selection of texts for translation and
the strategies adopted when translating and marketing them for a new audience.
The writings of twentieth-century Italian explorers to Tibet, and their translations
into English, constitute a significant case of adaptation of foreign texts to the needs and
expectations of a British audience (and to the British interests in the geographical area
concerned).
The works of Oriana Fallaci and their different reception in Italy with respect to the
UK and the USA illustrate the way in which personal biography and generic choices can
intersect, determining both the popular image and the critical success of an author and of
her work.
Calvino's choice to sublimate the genre of travel writing in the stylized fiction of Le
citta invisibili is treated as an example of the way in which a text which is meant to provide
an escape from a low-status genre can become an icon of that same genre once it is
translated and read in a different cultural context.
Finally, the case of Claudio Magris's Danubio and of its English-language
translation provides evidence of the complex network of literary references which marks the
reception of a text in different cultures, and of the way in which generic affiliation can both
promote the recognition of a 'marginal' text and constrain its more idiosyncratic (and
original) characteristics.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PQ Romance literatures
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Travelers' writings, Italian, Travel writing, Italian literature -- Translations into English
Official Date:	November 1998
Dates:	Date Event November 1998 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Bassnett, Susan
Extent:	385 p.
Language:	eng

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