D'Annunzio s World Literature: Translation and Reception in the Wake of Decadence

Congrès de la MLA à Toronto du 7 au 10 janvier 2021

As recent studies have demonstrated, translation was crucial for the development of the decadent movement, which originated in France but soon found disciples across and beyond Europe. Among these was Gabriele d’Annunzio, a poet, modernist experimenter and political agitator whose larger-than-life persona dominated the national cultural scene for many years. D’Annunzio’s work spanned genres and media, participating in a rich context of decadent and modernist poetry, literature, theatre, and film. In addition to being a celebrity in Italy, he was one of the few fin-de-siècle Italian authors to receive global attention, and remains an uncomfortable presence in today’s Italian canon.

This panel sets out to examine D’Annunzio’s work within a world literature framework, from his own engagement with translation to the international circulation and reception of his work.

      Contributions are welcome (but not limited to) the following topics:

•  Translation within D’Annunzio’s texts, including:
  • Multilingualism in D’Annunzio’s texts
  • Translingual writing (e.g. D’Annunzio’s writing in French)
  • Self Translation
  • Rewriting and plagiarism
  • D’Annunzio’s theorizing on translation
  • Gender and translation (including gender as a productive category of translation)
• Immediate reception, including:
  • Fin-de-siècle translations of D'Annunzio
  • D’Annunzio’s translators and their translating strategies- relationship to the Decadent movement
  • D’Annunzio’s relationship to translators, editors and other literary agents  
  • Censorship and political contexts of reception
  • D’Annunzio’s impact on modern/modernist writers across Europe and the world
  • Multimedia contexts and responses
• The afterlife of D'Annunzio's text, including:
  • D'Annunzio’s place in Italian and foreign canons (i.e. school and university syllabi)
  • Recent and contemporary translations or adaptations of D’Annunzio
  • D'Annunzio’s impact on contemporary texts (i.e. citations; D’Annunzio as a character)