"Making the voice of the other heard": translation as resonance in the poetics of Gianni Celati

Abstract

In this essay I explore Gianni Celati’s translation poetics, focussing in particular on the significance of the sound, the rhythm, of an echoic listening and of resonance with respect to the text and its cultural tradition. With this aim I examine his lesser-known essay “Tra ‘skaz’ e ‘sprezzatura’: problemi di traduzione da Beckett” (1999), included in this volume, as well as other revelant essays and prefaces. I read these texts through the lens of classic and recent transation theories, including Walter Benjamin’s “The Task of the Translator” and its recent readings within aesthetics (Hnrjez 2020; 2022; Vero 2022), and Henri Meschonnic’s translation theory. I also consider theories of vocality (Cavarero 2003), resonance (Rosa 2016) and catacoustic (Lacoue-Labarthe 1989; Rushing 2021). Through my analysis I show how Celati’s choice to foreground sound, rhythm, echo and resonance results from an effort to posit translation as “more than communication”, the translated text as an affective relation, as a dialogue and echo among voices, languages and literary traditions, and translation practice as an attempt to enter the orbit of the first text and to resonate with the other’s voice.