The Dead: I Morti

Studies in Short Fiction, Summer, 1995 by Edvige Giunta

Franca Cancogni's Italian translation of the last story of Dubliners offers a faithful and compelling rendition of Joyce's original. The bilingual text makes this book of interest not only to Italian readers new to Joyce, but also to Joyceans concerned with translation as interpretation. Although Dubliners does not appear to pursue the linguistic experiments of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, Joyce critics have long emphasized the continuity between Joyce's stance toward language and narrative in his first books and his daring attack on and recreation of the English language in his last two works. "The Dead" thus poses interpretive challenges that Cancogni skillfully meets. Her translation eloquently reproduces a story that was influenced, to a certain extent, by Italian culture (Joyce conceived it in Rome and wrote it in Trieste). The Italian title, "I morti," is deeply evocative for Italian readers, who will associate it with the festa dei morti, celebrated on November 2. On this holiday, which is reminiscent of Hallow's Eve in "Clay," the dead are believed to bestow gifts and traditional sweets upon children (incidentally, Joyce began writing "Clay," originally entitled "Christmas Eve," in Pola in November 1904).

The opening sentence of "The Dead" -- "Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet" -- already raises questions of translation/ interpretation. Cancogni translates "literally" into "letteralmente," but renders "run off her feet" as "non si reggeva . . . piu in piedi" (which "literally" translates back as "she could not support herself on her feet"). The translation thus maintains the word "feet" ("piedi"), but does not capture the sense of Lily running back and forth between the pantry and the main door ("she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest"). Nor can the translation always recreate the evocative power of Joyce's language. For example, in the last paragraph much is lost: "as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end . . ." becomes "udiva la neve cadere lieve su tutto l'universo, lieve come la discesa della loro ultima fine. . . ." The Italian infinitive "cadere" lacks the rhythm and the significance conveyed by the gerund in "faintly failing." Cancogni confers musical coherence to the passage through the repetition of the "v" (in "udiva," "lieve," "universo"), but even her careful rendition cannot reproduce the stirring rhythm of the original: sound gives way to sense. These are not so much the translator's shortcomings as the inevitable fatalities of translation.

Carla Marengo Vaglio's introduction is informative and insightful. After a biographical and critical overview that places Dubliners and its author in context, she gives a close reading of "I morti," which she regards as a parodic rendition of the ghost story and of such typically Irish genres as the Christmas tale and the heroic catalogue. Paying attention to the nuances of the English language, she notices, for example, how Gabriel's patronizing attitude toward Lily is captured by his "thrusting [a coin] into her hand." Cancogni translates this as "cacciandogliela in mano," an expression that aptly renders the aggressive quality of Gabriel's gesture (cacciare usually means "to hunt" or "to chase"). Tracing the "textual echoes" of Joyce's prose, Marengo Vaglio draws a shrewd comparison between Gretta and Desdemona, and also connects the description of a scantily clad Gretta -- offered by Gretta herself -- running outside to meet Michael Furey ("so I ran downstairs as I was" [Marengo Vaglio's emphasis]), to Gabriel's jealous suspicions ("Perhaps she had not told him all the story"). Although the introduction does not comment directly on the translation, it is language conscious: in taking heed of the complexity and subtleties of "The Dead," Marengo Vaglio fosters the reader's appreciation of the arduous task of the translator of Joyce.