Chapter «la vita la zé prima na barba, dopo na gran paura»: uno sguardo su alcuni trapianti inediti da Philip Larkin

Overview & Synopsis

This paper offers an overview of Luigi Meneghello’s unpublished translations of Philip Larkin’s poems in Vicentine dialect. The materials of the Meneghello Fund – owned by the Maria Corti Foundation and kept at the Centre for Studies on the Manuscript Tradition of Modern and Contemporary Authors at the University of Pavia – include eighteen manuscript papers pertaining to translations from Larkin. They attest to the different drafts of the transpositions – complete or fragmentary – of This Be The Verse, The Old Fools, Dockery and Son, High Windows, I Remember, I Remember and Aubade. The paper examines a number of texts and passages considered particularly significant in relation to the author’s translation strategies, attempting to highlight how these texts are integral to Meneghello’s work, whilst also investigating the reasons for their never being published.