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Chiarini's Retort to Zanella: Browning's Italian Critics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Nathan Cervo
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Extract

Giuseppe Chiarini was an Italian poet, translator, and critic. In 1874 he sent a copy of his Poesie to Robert Browning. Among the English poets Chiarini translated were Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Shelley, Tennyson, Swinburne, and Robert Browning. As an example of the liberties he took with Italian metrics in order to render the gusto of Browning's rollicking manner, I cite the first stanza of “Up at a Villa – Down in the City” (“Su in Villa e Giù in Città”):

S' i' avessi denari, se n'avessi

Abbastanza e d'avanzo, la mia casa

Sarebbe al certo alla città, giù in piazza.

Oh dolce vita, oh, dolce vita starsene

Affacciati laggiù alla finestra.

(Poesie 421)

(If I had money, if I had

Enough and cash on hand, my house

Would certainly be in the city, down in a piazza.

O sweet life, O sweet life, to be

Leaning out of a window there.)

[My translation]

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 14 , Spring 1986 , pp. 119 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

WORKS CITED

Chiarini, Giuseppe. Poesie: Storie, Canti, Traduzioni di Heine: Traduzioni di poesie inglese, 1868–1874. Livorno: Francesco Vigo, 1874.Google Scholar
Chiarini, Giuseppe. “Due poeti inglesi giudicati da un poeta italiano.” Studi e ritratti. Livorno, 1900. 243–56.Google Scholar
Pelaez, Mario. Nozze: Chiarini-Lai. Pisa: Francesco Mariotti, 1908.Google Scholar
Zanella, Giacomo. “Gray e Foscolo.” Nuova antologia di scienze, Lettere ed arti 25.3 (1881): 378–401.Google Scholar