"La Lozana andaluza" and its italian translations

Abstract

The translator of a literary work seems to have always to justify himself about his job. Really he’s a co-author who, as Antoine Berman suggests, welcomes the other one, the stranger, the unlike, loyal to the original text, without concessions to the reading public. Giving up the supremacy of communication, as Benjamin wished, the translation forces the reader to improve himself to oddity or obscurity of the text. The translation of an odd work, far from the rules, like La Lozana andaluza, has been a challenge to an untranslatable polysemic system. In this article the various Italian translations of this work are examined, from early twentieth-century to our days.