Quaderni d`italianistica : revue officielle de la Société canadienne

ROBERT DE LUCCA
A TRANSLATOR'S VIEW OF GADDA'S LANGUAGE:
THE TASTICCL4CCI0'
This
the
artdcle is
dedicated to
memory of Bob Dombroski
Introduction
comments grew out of a translation of Carlo Emilio's
Gadda's masterpiece, Quer pasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana, which I have
been working on for a few years.' Gadda is considered today to be the
giant among Italy's modern prose writers: in the words of one of his bib-
The
following
liographers,
Andrea
Cortellessa, he has
assumed the
status
last
scrittore
monumento
prototipo: sfida all'emulazione, serbatoio citazionale,
ore" (159).2 Criticai consensus during the
of "lo
di val-
decade of the century
regarding the many-sided qualities of this extraordinary writer-figure
seems to have secured him
a firm place as the
major
Italian
prose writer of
the last century, as well as one of the major twentieth-century
names
writers, next to
(Joyce,
Kafka, Proust,
etc.)
European
which have reached
canonical status.
This widespread judgment
not so
is
much due
to the novelt}'
of
Gadda's themes, nor to his experimentation with the conventions of prose
narration, nor, despite the great importance of this facet of his work, to
his linguistic originalit}'.
Gadda's importance largely consists in the power
of a prose which achieves,
as
of expression, a "white-hot"
Emilio Manzotti has written, "a rare
quality' that inscribes itself
with aphoristic conciseness" (1993,
In spite of
this,
densit)'
on our memory
17).
the reception of Gadda's
work
in
English-speaking
unknown here.
much slower than
their course lists. The
countries has not been a success, and he remains relatively
Departments of
their
Italian studies here
European counterparts
main reason
is
translation.
have likewise been
to include
Gadda
in
Aside from a few short pieces buried in the
QUADERNI d'italianistica.
Volume XXIII, No,
1,
20(12,
133
Robert de Lucca
back issues of reviews, only two of Gadda's works have appeared in
English: That Au^ful Mess on Via Merulana, William Weaver's 1965 version
OÏ Quer pasticciaccio
brutto de via
Merulana (which appeared in
Italy in 1957),
and, in 1968, Acquainted with Grief (Weaver's tide for the 1963
L^
cognit^ione
Leaving aside other considerations concerning the English
del dolore).
reception of Gadda's work,
ars, is that
my
claim, shared
Weaver's version of the
by many other Gadda scholinadequate. This study
Pasticciaccio is
demonstrates some aspects of his version and compares
with
it
translation and that of the French version, which appeared
my own
in 1963.
I
also
attempt to explain some features of Gadda's writing which might appear
to defy adequate translation.
1.
General observations
The most
trait
of the
easily observable,
richness and variety. Such
foundation of
Roman
and probably the most
(but also of
Pasticciaccio
most of Gadda's
variet}^ in
dialect
the
easily describable,
writing)
is its
lexical
favored by a double
Pasticciaccio is
(though there are present in lesser measure
napoletano, molisano, abruzzese, milanese or lombardo, veneziano and
mention
others, not to
ItaUan which
meaning
is
a heav}'
elevated, or literary, or to put
it
more
— an
Italian
prose far from the lingua
So the page
regions),
which, in general, raises the register of Gadda's
d'uso.
words (of
coming from extremely
in the Pasticciaccio gathers together dialectal
and pan-ItaHan words, the
dissimilar phases, varieties
latter
and applications of
Italian,
terms and contemporary terms; formal, colloquial and
sectorial: the scientific, bureaucratic,
doscope of
precisely, scholasdc,
una cultura nobilmente
heav}' with elements G. Contini calls "di
liceale" (83)
many
presence of foreign borrowings) and an
varieties
such as trecento
trivial Italian;
or technical. In other words a kalei-
which one can attempt
to classify with the diasys-
tematic information of the kind often given in dictionaries,
indicate
whether or not
a
or the
word or expression belongs
standard "core" of the language that can be used at
all
to the
when
they
unmarked
times and places.^
Diachrony
Gadda
vocabolo
pays particular attention to diachronic
e del
modo
variet}^ ("Vita storica del
espressivo. Impossibilità di astrarre da
un
riferimen-
to storico della lingua parlata e scritta", 3: 492): to the historical develop-
ment of language, including outdated or former
syntactical or
ally
takes
on
grammatical forms. In the
the
form of
Pasticciaccio,
archaic terms
— 134 —
{sitire,
lexical,
orthographical,
diachronic variety usu-
cemeteriale,
redimito, parvolo,
A Translator's View of Gadda's Language: The
aulire, etc.),
lei
Tasticciacoo'
but also outdated svntactical-grammatical constructions
(nel di
ani/m, laniando capra, resosi defunto, etc.).
Geographical variety
"I dialetti.
ti
ci
stessi...
Il
diritto di alcuni
modi
più ricchi, o più vigorosi, de' dialet-
a entrare nell'elenco dei padri e coscritti.
e inserisco in
bouffer) e
il
una mia prosa
il
Dò palla bianca ai mete-
ligure galuppare (per sciroppare, francese
romanesco gargarozzo.", Gadda writes
d'uso"
letteraria e lingua
in his essay
"Lingua
492). Linguistic conditions determined by
(3:
space, or geography {diatopic variation) are notoriously exploited by the
author; these include dialects (linguistic systems tied to a specific region,
without "officially" standard orthographical or grammatical rules) and colloquialisms linked to place (such as in the case of laborers who, at eight in
the morning, son già
dialect
da
dietro
tre ore
a sudare, Italianized
form of
a
Northern
Roman
expression corresponding to the progressive).
dialect,
together with elevated or scholastic Italian, makes up the "background"
texture of the
lante", but
Pasticciaccio:
free indirect discourse.
di
not only in the speech of the
in the narrative sections
ed autentici
The
'poeti' del
genere"
(4: 1
But the
Roman and
145),
contribution of G. G.
evident in such words as
is
levels
ché quanno non
eia sordi er
prepositions such as
acteristic
tutti
"uno
i
dei più gran-
nostri secoli in
haccajà, paino, fojetta
and so on.
naturalistic verisimilitude, but
blended into
affects the narration at the
a
minimal
of syntax (for example the narrator's comment "per-
trovanne un artro che se
'n,
la
pe,
mejo impiego che pò trova una vedova è de
morphology (reduced articulated
risposa") and
and a for instance, indicative of Gadda's char',
commingling of the
vocabulary
Belli,
polyphony of
other dialects in the novel, as in Gadda's other works,
more general "macaronism" which
and maximal
"collettività fabu-
in the many-layered
nostro Ottocento, e di
adopted for mere
are never
and
literary-archaic
and the
dialectal), as well as
(pispillorio, trittico, aranciasse, etc.).
Informal -formal
Similar to and sometimes inclusive of the above categories, diastratic
variet}',
vigere
meaning formal or informal
versus
valere
and so on)
is
guistic conditions differentiated
by analogy with
a vertical
"dialect").
items
{disserrare
by
versus
Unked
aprire,
also to lin-
social class: the "sociolects" (so-called
Gadda's attention to diastratification produces
sequence that tends toward extremes. The text constantiy moves,
therefore,
from the "aulico" or
the
and plebeian
trivial
lexical
heavily present, often
rarified {parvolo,
{racchia, coccola, buggerone
— 135 —
clivo,
smorire, rancura, etc.) to
and so on).
Robert de Lucca
Situation
Language
comic
due
variety
to situation
in chap.
excursus,
6,
preservation, in writing, of the
Lui
—
ginio!
no... già...
Eh,
(such as in the long,
emblem of the
pandemonium of reality):
"naufragio del testo" which serves
Sì...
fully exploited
is
of telephone language and interference,
Lui
si, si.
as
—
ginio!...
perfettamente. No,
no... al
Da
In parole povere, uccel di bosco.
momentaneamente
irreperibile.
Toraccio nun l'aveveno trovato.
quanto
le
diligenze auricolari del
Pietrantonio pervennero infine a racimolare dal naufragio del testo
crepitio del
microfono e l'induttanza
a
author's overall
della Linea
sonorizzavano
Di
(il
testo:
il
interferenze varie, da contatto urbano, intercicalavano, straziavano la
recezione), apparve a
un dipresso che
Enea RetaUi o
l'incauto
Luiginio (ma evidentemente Luigino) aveva dato a tinger
trentasei quintali di parmigiano! brondi ghi
Emilia... Parla
il
bada? spediti
ieri
Di parmigiano stagionato
brondi... gasa del signor
ammiraglio Mondegùggoli! Società Bavatelli di Parma,
Tenenza
sei quintali,
sì,
camion,
tre
sì,
a
mezzo
carabinieri di Marino, precedenza di servizio. Trentapartiti ieri alle dieci.
No,
è in gliniga... In gliniga dal signor ammiraglio... a via
Sì, signorsì.
sciarpa...
da Reggio
tenente di vascello Racace. Brondi, brondi! Tenenza
carabinieri Marino!
camion...
Ritaili, sive
la
No, signor
no.
Mo
la
signora gondessa
—
Ora
domando. Precedenza
zio:
—
Ora
zio!
servizio polizia,
questura di Roma. Trentasei quintali da Reggio Emilia, tipo Parma, di
prima assoluta!
Il
signor ammiraglio ha fatto l'oberazzione lunedì: l'ober-
azzione della vescica: della vescì—ca.
Sì, signorsì...
Ciò che fu possibile estrarre da un
che
Retalli
il
sulla via
avea portato a tinger
No, signor
guazzabuglio
sciarpa a
una donna
fu,
Zamira!...
sì,
sì,
quel di Marino e di Albano, per
(2:
no.
insomma,
Due Santi,
come Zara, a
dei
Appia, certa Pàcori, Pàcori Zamira. Zamira! Zeta
come Ancona!
meriti
la
tal
Zamira! nota a molti, se non a
i
molti suoi meriti: se non per
tutti,
tutti
in
suoi
i
139-40).
Diaintegrative varieties
many
Foreign borrowings, which are
ly
and grotesquely deformed according
tico della parola"
to
in Gacida, are often
what Gadda
calls
subsequent-
the "uso spas-
(oiMTTaTia, Greek poetic form of the Italian simpatia) or
Italianized phonetically {Bedecche for Baedeker, Bontclin for Brooklyn, Eisenberg
for Heisenberg, etc.), or both in
phono, macaronic Latin roughly
whole syntagma, such
as aphasia coram
meaning "speechlessness before the
tele-
tele-
phone".4
Superimposed meanings
Diaconnotative
imposed on
words have
their basic
associative
meanings
-
and occasional meanings super-
in contrast to their static
— 136 —
concepmal
A
TRANSi.AT(m's
—
meanings
ViFw OF Gadda's Languagf: Thf Tasticciaccio'
that are often difficult to describe context-independendy; for
example the German
the
variet}' in
The most conspicuous use of diaconnotative
comes from the many epithets used for Mussolini:
tiihnr.
Pasticciaccio
Testa di Morto, del
Quo,
buce,
Caciocavallo,
Predappiofeî^o, Merda, Truce in cattedra
Mascellone,
rachitoide acromegalico,
and so on.
Technical varieties
The
specialized vocabulary of various occupations
Gadda,
ture in
for
example
{anadromi,
physics, to
name
from zoology,
vagotonia,
from medicine,
a few). Mock-technicalisms, invented
abound: wanucapta^ioneprola^ione,
much
terms
quanto,
from
by the author, also
The
gravidico, ungula^one, etc.
of metaphoric and antiphrastic use of language in the
ably
a constant fea-
or words from science and the technical profes-
{fidecomniisario, accredito)
sions
is
legal {nuncupar, causali, etc.) or financial
explosion
Pasticciaccio is
prob-
better represented by the author's use of scientific technicisms
than by any other lexical category. Extraordinary transfers of meaning and
hyperbolic analogies through the use of such technicisms contribute most
example concerning the catabolic prod-
to the "baroque" texture, as in this
uct of a hen:
...
un cioccolatinone verde intorcolato
alia
Borromini come
solfo colloide delle acque àlbule: e in vetta in vetta
calce, allo stato colloidale
torizzato pallido
(2:
pure
isso,
uno
una crema chiara
grumi
i
di
scaracchietto di
chiara, di latte pas-
206).
Frequency
Diafrequential variet}-
marked
as "rare".
Mostiy
is
usually indicated in dictionaries
linked to diachronic
it is
variet}',
when
to
marked "obsolete" or "obsolescent", though often the item
out of use in some areas {fumea,
inspiraî^ione, fistula, etc.).
a
words
is
There
quite hea\T adoption of rare variants in spelling {mugine, rancura,
word
is
that are
not quite
is
also a
viglietto
and
so on).
"Substandard" items
Dianormative variety' includes items that are considered substandard or
for
illiterate,
indicative
example the
of the verb
to be.
common
There
English word
are
considered substandard Italian in the novel,
la
bua instead oî far male; signorino for
otisms),
grammar and
syntax,
ain't
at the level
sedere etc., as well a
much of
for the present
many examples of what might be
it
of vocabulary
(fare
wide range of
idi-
linked to the use of those dialects
or dialectal varieties considered less "refined" (the rustic speech of the
Roman
countryside as opposed to Venetian or iVlilanese, for example).
— 137 —
Robert de Lucca
The importance of diapbask change
Lexical variation due to time {diaphasic
variet}'),
not in the sense of
diachrony or variations that rely on the history of the language,
to
enunciation,
etition
passage
very significant for the study of Gadda's prose. In the
is
there
Pasticciaccio
its
to another over a long period, but to reformulation during an
one form
is
heaw
a
use of gemination, that
is,
the doubling or rep-
of the same concept using synonyms or the so-called "doublets"
A
belonging to the different categories already mentioned.^
Gadda
ture in
is
frequent fea-
the reformulation, gemination and re-gemination within
one sentence or paragraph into different registers or even different languages - as in this triple reformulation from Lm cognizione del dolore, where
the subject
alle
is
horses at the starting gate at a horse race: "ed era per
mosse, cioè
alla
mavano però anche
sists
partènsa,
then a
a specialized term,
of
con
stardng." This
metalinguistic gloss of
"con
che
l'esse,
is
di
quando
le corse,
quando la chiawhich con-
in
a diaphasic reformulation
common
Italo-milanese term (note the
l'esse", a feature also very frequent in Gadda),
then an English equivalent. Another example of diaphasic variation comes
from the beginning of the
narrators,
Pasticciaccio,
when
the narrator, or
referring to Ingravallo's thoughts
is
on
gory of cause. What the narrator
calls
genti" which results in a crime
named "anche nodo o
buglio,
o gnommero, che
alla
is
romana
one of the
the philosophical cate-
the "molteplicità di causali conver-
\aiol dire
groviglio,
o gar-
gomitolo."
"Descrittone metonimica"
The
last
category mentioned here
both a micro- and macroscopic
is
feature of Gadda's extremely dense pages:
what Emilio Manzotti
"descrizione metonimica" or "descrizione per
201-325). This refers to the tendency in
pluraHt}^
series,
Gadda
summary of
to offer a
of descriptions, which pass through many reformulations,
and
in
which
simultaneoush'.
alternative
To
all
the lexical variet}' just described
assert
assertions
one
thing, in the
comes
within the paradigm of
all
a
in a
into play
by association,
text, recalls,
possible
(whence the frequent passage from one "voice", with
features, to
calls
varianti alternative" (1996,
its
own
assertions
linguistic
another within the same paragraph, or page). In fact the most
extraordinary thing about
always occur simultaneously.
single sentence
all
these linguistic excursions
We may
that they nearly
often find gathered together within a
any number of these
ary-archaic, technical, trivial
is
with the
liter-
a scientific
term
diat\'pes: the dialectal
and colloquial words, or even
given dialectal shading and vice-versa.
Some examples
shortiy.
— 138 —
will
be examined
A Translator's
The
Vir:vc
of CtADDa's
great variety poured onto the page
mimetic capacity, the
ability to
Thh
Lanc;uac;f::
is
'Fasi ira îccio'
due
in part
to a prodigious
reproduce that particular speech of a given
environment, and also to reproduce individual peculiarities
have a very important
humoral leaps and arabesques. Gadda's use of
totally inconsistent: if the auxiliary
of Ingravallo
abruzzese)
elsewhere.
(itself a
verb
avefe is avi/e in the dialectal
humoral jumps and
that of Pasolini's in his
dialect
The
le dieci,
la giustificata)
one
a
fragment "Donde
single
st)'listic
before, scholastic
verno (for inverno)
(furugo^^o)
is
is
standard Italian
an elevated
of words such
of homo-
upon
Italian, literary, or, as
said
as ridischiudere, irradiare, predicare (not
common
and so on. This
total lack
the underlying texture
a logical category, formulate a
animo (for nel suo animo),
denominator
in fact, generally avoids
is
well above the
any sort of medietas?
exempla"
brief specimens of Gadda's prose in the
parallel (that
scheme of
la giustificata
cangiò in furugozzo" mixes
redimito, molcere, parvolo, nel di lei
analysis "per
Two
that
overlaid:
Gadda's prose,
italiano medio:
An
-
or lexical constant
is
novels, for
literary Italian {donde, si cangio).
of "preach" but of "ascribe to
judgement"), yôfo,
2.
and
si
Lombardisms
prose that seems characterized by a
that richness
in the sense
Utonfa),
Roman
follows a seemingly lawless
diaty^pes
caprice.*^
dialect {prescia,
Faced with
which
speech
uniform and sustained. Instead
is
prescia de l'Utorità, che verso le dieci
geneity,
is
rendered only sporiadically. Gadda's use of
is
from
where the use of
Gadda's potpourri of
{perso
example,
on pages 46 and 47, it remains ave/e on following pages and
The dialectal speech of other characters also (in direct, indirect
dialects, therefore, is far
Roman
dialects, for
mixture of romanesco, napoletano and molisano-
or free indirect discourse)
instance,
(idiolects also
but that material seems to follow a non-law of
role),
consisting of a nominal
see the extent of lexical variation,
Pasticciaccio, syntactically
theme then developed) allow us
which
is,
in general, spread
to
throughout
the text.
II
caso Pirroficoni non avem ancora
Morto
cronache
afflitto le
m feluca sitiva già, per altro, la penna di
ersela infilare
dove
lui
s'intllava le
pavone
dell'Urbe:
il
dell'indiziato,
penne: de pavone
Testa di
da pot-
o de pollo guasto che
pu^^a.
Il
mal capitato Pirroficoni
quelli:
perché
gli si
fu ridotto in fin di vita a busse da un taliana di
voleva estorcere ad ogni modo, in «camera di sicurez-
za», la verìdica ammissione d'aver istuprato certe
e
implorava che no, che non
è vero
un
generosi del Beccaria! (2: 92-4; italics
corno:
mine)
— 139 —
bimbe. Paracadde giù da'
ma
ne buscò da stiantare.
nuvoli
Oh mani
Robert de Lucca
In the
sample the hyper-coUoquial and
first
clausula of specification '^de pavone
o de polio guasto
dialectal prepositional
chepu^^a" transposes into
extremely informal Italian the miserable pretension of Fascist "pseudogiustizia", as the narrator calls
is
not
at all justice
ed by a
several Lines later, for
it
which what counts
but merely the theatrical exhibition of
narcissistic
severity, indicat-
penna di pavone. But in a metaphorical reference to the
chivalrous code of battie, the craving of the Testa di Morto in feluca (one of
the hundred and
named
directiy
one appelations Gadda
substitutes for Mussolini, never
according to the scheme of damnatio memoriae) for the sus-
pect-adversary's helmet-plume
thirst after", in
refined by the literary-archaic
is
reminiscence of Urbe (Rome, by antonomasia).
site
"to
sitire,
combination with the rhetorical emphasis and
classical
oppo-
Sitiva is a diastratic
the extremely informal put^tiare, contributing to the ironic distanc-
of
ing of the narrator from his material in the
case of the hapless Pirroficoni (the
first
The
part of the sentence.
name an obscene Gaddian
play
on
the
Greek TTuppoç, "flame-colored" or "inflamed" and the Italian ^^ro probably in
meaning
its
male or female genital organs, but also the fleshy
as
tumor or growth between the buttocks) non
example of elevated
pers, another
indiî^iato,
"suspect", 2Sià feluca
(a
Italian,
aveva ancora
afflitto
the newspa-
along with the juridical term
boat-shaped, two-pointed or cocked hat
limited to the dress uniforms of high officials,
named
boat
after the
it
resembles in shape). But the probably obscene allusion of the reflexive
locution dove
the Testa di Morto, Mussolini)
lui (that is,
s'infilava le penne
rep-
resents another extreme, here of brusque informalit}^ (and doubly allusive,
then,
we
if
take the
name
from the Y&th ficcare,
which means "chi
non
si
Pirroficoni to
"to stick
be a nod to the
much
is
beaten to within an inch of his
the extremely colloquial deixis a busse da un taliana di
singular agent taliana possibly a
Delio Tessa, entitled
A
memory of
Carlo Torta (in
tive are the sepulchral
...
la
presence of
//
e la cossa che importa, che sufraga
1...]
l'è
impara
de fach de cappe! a chi ghe dà
al
porscell;
a saludà
donca per
straa la
quelli,
poem by
by
the Milanese poet
also find the
of Tessa's
life
the masculine
form
tragic civic invec-
Duce and Fascist persecution of a
Talian":
coUobia
a
which we
Mussolina): a likely source, since the subjects
sola
and
the case with Mussolini's interest here). In the
second, longer sample, the victim
...
derived
"infilare",
intromette senza rispetto, sfacciatamente, in ciò che
lo riguarda", very
"pover
li2i^2inficcone,
synonym of
or thrust in",
zucca
— 140 —
A Transij^tcîr's View of
negra del Mussolina e citto
citto,
che tant per
Gadda's Language: The Tasticcmcoo'
lì
ti
ti bona Taliana,
temp de Franzisch,
rusca e balla, per
come
ai
per
l'è
ti
bast,
[...]
e descors e reson
no serven
di politech seccaball,
eternament e senza remission
ghe
l'eet
d'ave sui spali
coi durezz di travers e el spelament
puttasca e nagott olter! (Brevini
Taliana, in this context,
Italian
of the Germans,
89)*^
might also be
Croatian soldiers of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire; as
the
fact, in
Italian
like
work of Carlo
word would
Gadda, modeled on
reticence
Both these
in
for an
ulace, but only
degraded forms such
action of this
possibile sources for the
a locution characteristic
worthy to note
It is
Gadda never
estorcere,
is
the dialectal intensifier "de quji": together a
and of antonomasia.
Fascist setting,
uses the
member of an
noun
form of
because of
that,
of
"italiano" to refer to the
its
pop-
as "talianka", "taliani" or "taliana".io
ad hoc gang
raised to the precise
is
"to take possession unjusdy through violence, threat or fraud"; the
detachment of that verb sustained moreover by the oxymòronic
quote "camera
di
sicurezza"
—anything but
legal locution veridica ammissione.
site lexical
corno:
may be found,
would therefore stand
Porta.^ "Taliana"
the Croats immortalized by Porta.
ironic
in particular the
of Nordic build, large and sturdy, and of brutal manners, precisely
give sense to "di queUi", which
The
spoken
a topical allusion to the
of the Austrians,
or, better,
not
A
safe here
—and by
extreme of the decisive, hj-per-colloquial
guilt}, that
is,
the refined
confession, then, witheld by the oppo-
d'aver istuprato,
with
its
che no,
prothetical
-i,
non
è vero
un
(since the pre-
word ends in consonant) between literary-archaic and regional and
dialectal. The informal and possibly ironic bimbe (we are not told the age
vious
of the victims) takes us in the other direction, that of "camera
for example, irony sustained
by the nice verbal coinage paracadde forming
part of the refined
amalgam of
nuvoli (the idiomatic
expression shaded from the
cascare dalle nuvole). Paracadere,
coinage or nonce-word
now
the dialectal or spoken paracadde giù da'
more pedestrian
though of obvious formation,
registered in Battaglia.
-
or
busse),
is
The poor
suffers with the regional-colloquial ne buscò ("prendere
di botte"
di sicure-:^"
variation of the already colloquial schiantare {"da morire, da
141
—
cadere
or
Gaddian
Pirroficoni
una buona quantità
derived from the Spanish buscar; da stiantare
—
a
is
a
Tuscan
crepare'),
which
Robert de Lucca
is
immediately refined in the direction of Latin
dead to
allusion to the mani (the spirits of the
with
gifts, in
Roman religion), here
ancient
celebrated jurist and author of Dei
antiquit)'
whom
an early attempt to
pene,
reform the penal code and do away with, among other
torture as
means
and
sitire
dead
living
and the negative, funerary
ular
Testa di
Morto echoes that between
Gadda to Beccaria may also involve
Manzoni (indubitably the most important
pu^t(are; the allusion in
Beccaria's grandson, Alessandro
literary
practices, precisely
The opposition between the Manes,
through works and the memory of
to extort confession.
beneficial spirits of the
their virtue,
pay homage
of Cesare Beccaria,
to the spirit
delitti e delle
by the vocadve
relatives
source for the
whom
to
Pasticciaccio),
the entire passage pays partic-
homage for its defense of a victim of official abuse.
and I should speak here also of syntax
Above all
— both passages
—
are refined mixtures of dialectal or colloquial locutions {a busse da un taliana
di quelli, ne buscò da stiantare, non è vero
sions
from an elevated
register
un
corno, etc.)
and terms and expres-
istuprato, etc.)
{sitire, estorcere,
through which
the colloquialisms are filtered and elevated themselves into a hyper-literary
pastiche.
3.
Lexical inventions and translation
Gaddian coinage paracadde opens up the subject
of the enrichment of the vocabulary through previously unheard-of combinations of terms, or else neologisms derived from any number of
The mention of
the
diatypes or even languages.
These
formed
are
ways
in several different
and mock
(roughly: by derivation, composition, contamination,
or
latin
other mock-languages, not to mention neologisms in meaning and plays
on words). Adequate
their
formative logic. For example, such
diminutive suffixes
like -ino, -etto
or else the pejorative
depend on understanding
translation will generally
-accio,
or
-uccio,
explicit
or that use the augmentative
forming words such
would normally be rendered with
derivations that use
a locution in English.
neologisms, however, formed by derivation, such as
chilometro,
of Greek
the adjectival suffix
origin)
-ativo
in various ways.
For the
word "to mile"
(in
the second,
<
and
digitativo
Latin
first
(from
digitale
-ativus, -a, -urn)
<
There
are other
chilometrare
Latin
(from
digitalis
plus
which must be re-created
a possible translation
is
the English nonce-
the progressive "miling" in the specific passage). For
which again
refers to the
poor
Pirroficoni, called
peritoso e digitativo galante" for his ill-fated habit of sending
to his married lover
-one
as tesoruccio or pe:(^accio,
from the
street
up
to her
window,
chivalrous expert in dactylology" (the latter term
— 142 —
by Gadda
hand
"il
signals
a locution like "the
meaning "the
art
of
A Tr/Vnslator's View of Gadda's
speaking by signs
made by
Languagi:: Tmi, 'Pasticcìaccìo'
the fingers" in the OIÌD), though not a neolo-
gism, seems to retain the ironic comicity intended by the author.
Things are much
with neologisms formed by composition,
stickier
because the translator must
understand from what thev are Cf)mposed
first
may be formed using Latin, Greek, Italian, Italic dialects, or others words from any number of European languages), and then, as with
other invented words, why they were composed and what they mean. A
(and they
case in point
and cwn "dog"; then given the
The
the penis of a dog".
like
and English,
BàÀàuoç
mob
the
as
adjectival suffix
and
prefixes cino-
both tongues, with no
passage in which the
composed
guilt
simo" the compositive
Roman
is,
clear.
origin,
Weaver notices
Roman
dialect),
in English,
is
form reported. The
meaning excitement or
di cane",
meaning
of
frenzy). If
"fatto malis-
and provides one of
his very rare gloss-
a Greco-italian adjective created
dialect expression
meaning badly done"
but then he translates
no
One
(it is
from an
not, in fact,
as "cynobalanic". This, although
it
equivalent of "a cazzo di cane"), so the term
literal
solution
is
"cephalobalanic", which
a mock-scientific equivalent
headed",
The
tion
adjectival
derived from the same roots, points to no English expression (there
meaningless.
and
in Italian
and hence the meaning, of "cinobalànico"
this
"A word invented by Gadda,
it is
meaning "of or
common
or innocence: "l'orgasmo cinobalànico
one knows the vulgar expression "a cazzo
obscene
for the
adjective appears concerns the hysteria
dell'antecipato giudizio" {orgasmo here
es:
-ico
cyno- are
here),
prejudicially clamors for a sacrificai victim or scapegoat fol-
it
lowing a crime, regardless of
becomes
meaning
also "glans penis" (the
though the use of words derived from
respectively,
rare in
is
formed of the Greek BàÀàuos
the adjective cinobalànico,
is
meaning "gland" or "acorn" but
etc.)
case
close in
is
meaning
is
similarly
is
formed
of a coarse English expression ("dick-
to the vulgar Italian.
similar with the terms gravidico
ossequieni^iale-scaricabarilistico,
and the derived combina-
used in a pseudo-scientific/burocratic
passage describing the pressure of the Fascist hierarchy on the lower-ranking police officers involved in investigation: "La cascatella delle telefonate
gerarchesche,
come
ogni cascatella che
un determinato campo
di forze, qual è
quient(iale-scaricabarilistico. "
accurate)
A
Latin
rispetti, era
Joan McConnell
in
gives
its
irreversibile in
il
campo
osse-
her useful (but not always
Pasticciaccio
Gadda made from grave <
DICO, DIGERE, and
ed è
campo gravidico, o
Vocabulary Analysis of Gadda's
invented composition by
<
si
il
meaning
reports gravidico as an
Latin
as "to
GRAVIS
and
dico
speak heavily or
imprecisely" (158). Battaglia, however, reports the meaning as simply
"gravitazionale", derived
from
gravido
and given the
— 143 —
adjectival
suffix,
Robert de Lucca
though the
sole author cited for
author's penchant for
bly used for
its
its
word
similarity
its
use
Gadda
is
play, the adjective, if
it is
himself.
Given the
a coinage,
is
proba-
with the roots mentioned by McConnel, although
base meaning seems to be the one given by Battaglia, especially since
it
of
gravit}'.
The com-
position campo ossequien^iale-scaricabarilistko, translated by
Weaver
in typical-
is
ly
used elsewhere to refer unequivocally to the
field
uninspired fashion as "field of obsequiousness and pass-the-buckdom"
{scaricaharilistico
defined by Battaglia, again with
"che tende a riversare su
altri
un'incombenza gravosa"),
buckconveyant
work than
is
o
l'onere
la
Gadda
cited as authority; as
una
responsabilità di
(though the English reader has to do a
field"
scelta
o
di
probably better rendered as "obsequient-
the Italian), especially since ossequien^ale
derived from ossequiente and not
listed, obviously, in
litde
more
a contamination
is
any dictionary.
4. Misunderstandings, loss of formalfeatures, obscure sources.
What is
The
means
a
relevant for
'good' translation
losses of formal features in the
lexicon, there
is
a constant banalization
becomes "dazzle";
"ascent";
"knurled, streaked"
Zigrinate,
to avoid. This
but also the
Gadda appears
look
artificial, literary
at the
bloody,
summary
analvsis
of the
words (discussed below):
comic and expressive qual-
their
use of dialect in Gadda.
have already looked
at
and seen that the page deals with
{cinobalànicó)
trial
ascesi,
to take every possible step
following passage will help to see
We
(accikccare
Weaver's version regularly
true also as regards dialectal
is
lems of translation.
ly
by any
"re-open";
ridischiudere,
etc.).
Weaver shuns attempts to render not only
A
are not
of Gadda's language
"sister-like";
sororale,
tends towards the very medietas
ities,
Weaver version
limited to his rendition of Gadda's neologisms. Just in terms of the
a
some
specific
prob-
one of the words there
mob
calling out for the
and execution of an innocent. Here we have an
Fascists' use
of punishment for
its
and ultimate-
theatrical
repressive value:
«Adoperare
» l'ax^'cnimento
—
quel qualunque a\'\"enimento che Giove
Farabutto, preside a'nuvoli, t'abbi fiantato davanti
alla
magnificazione d'una propria
attività
beratamente scenica e sporcamente
istituto
o persona, voglia
attribuire alla
esibito (narcisista a
reale
o creduto,
e vi
naso, plaf, plaf
pseudo—etica,
teatrata, è
La psiche
do sopra una mascella
d'asino:
come
del
demente
il
dimenpolitico
delitto alieno,
belva cogliona e furente a fred-
conducendosi per
tal
distendere) nella inane fattispecie d'un mito punitivo
— 144 —
in facto protu-
e alla pesca le
contenuto pseudo-etico) aggranfia
rugghia sopra
—
giuoco di qualunque,
il
propaganda
sioni e la gravezza di un'attività morale.
il
modo
la
a esaurire (a
sudicia tensione
A Translator's Xu.w
che
lo
compcllc
pragma
tando
pragma quale che
sia,
purché pragma,
non
si
lardando capro o cerbiatto, a
o mamillone ubique
placherà di così poco: viene
scarmigliate che lo faran-
le
e voraci nel baccanale che di
accende, e dello strazio e del sangue s'imporpora: acquis-
si
corso
per
legale,
o
pseudo-severità,
modo,
tal
una
Weaver
una
pseudo-giustizia,
pseudo-abilitazione
la
a'
dittaggi:
della
quale
della sconsiderata
appaiono essere contrassegno manifesti e l'arroganza
l'orgasmo cinobalànico dell'antecipato giudizio
istruttoria, e
al
crimine alieno è « adoperato » a placar Megera
Il
a pezzi, lene in salti
loro strida
al
Tm-, 'P-wricci-icao'
Lanc;l'A(;f-,:
moltitudine pazza: che
la
come
offerto,
no
pragma:
al
coûte que coûte.
anguicrinita,
Cîadda's
oi-
(2: 92).
has:
f
"T(9 expiai
the event
—
whatsoever event Jove Scoundrel, bi^-cheese in the cloud
—
department, dropped in jour lap, plop
pseudo-ethical
is
the
ganda
game of
to the magnification of one's
fact protuberantiy theatrical
activity', in
who
the institution or person
â.nà fisheries
with the weight of a moral
che of the political madman
(a narcissist
alien crime, real or believed,
and roars over
in cold blood,
over an
ass's
2Xià. filthily
endow propa-
wishes to
activit)'.
The
displayed psy-
of pseudo-ethical content)
it
own
staged,
grabs the
like a stupid, furious beast,
jawbone: behaving in such a way as to exhaust
action, action coûte que
coûte.
myth the dirty tension that
The alien crime is exploited
to placate the snaky-maned Megaera, the
mad
multitude: which will not be
(to relax) in the
compels him to
placated with so
inane matter of a punitive
little: it is
offered, like a
who
it
the disheveled women
will rip
mary in the bacchanal which their
ram or
stag to be torn to pieces, to
apart, light of foot, ubiquitous
cries kindle,
and mam-
purpled with torment and
blood. In this way, a pseudo-justice assumes a legal course, a pseudoseverirv;
or the pseudo-habilitation of
whose manifest
the finger-pointings
countersigns seem to be both the arrogance of the ill-considered magistrate's investigation
tence (119-20;
1
and the
Battaglia iistsfia/ita as
verbal
form
Farabutto",
is
not
god of
cyno-balanic excitement
have underlined passages
I
of the anticipated sen-
find problematic)."
meaning "stereo bovino o equino", though the
listed
and
is
the weather,
is
probably coined by Gadda ("Giove
an appropriate producer of that sub-
on the guise of a bull). In Gadda when a god
on us it is usually disruptive and scatological: one of the
author's earliest memories of such a cosmic joke, recorded in several writings, is of a pigeon soiling, from on high, his ice-cream cone in Milan's
stance since he often takes
plays a trick
Galleria.
Weaver's misleadingly benign verb "to drop", with the indirect
object "in your lap",
do away with
all
diaintegrative variety,
and do not pre-
serve the associative meanings intended by the author.
(depending on the accentuation of the
f),
— 145 —
far
Y^hca or pésca
from having the nonsensical
Robert de Lucca
meaning
"fisheries", are listed in Battaglia as "critica fatta
or "botta, percossa"
nevoli o
con
used
(pésca,
much more
Promessi Sposi):
extorsion,
(pèsca)
frode"
la
con acrimonia"
or else "vantaggio ottenuto con mezzi ingan-
by Manzoni
in this signification
in I
appropriate, in this context of propaganda,
allusion to the Biblical Samson's bran-
and punishment. In the
dishing an ass' jawbone before his enemies, a freddo used to xnoòiìy furente
makes much
less
sense as "in cold blood", than as "pointiessly" or "with-
out reason", given the wielder's cruel stupidity (expressed with
a
much
cogliona,
of
lower register than Weaver's "stupid"). Likewise, a punitive myth
d'un mito punitivo")
(the "inane fattispecie
is
a case in point, not, in
any
vague "matter". Farther down, the use of "snaky-maned" for
case, a
"anguicrinito", in a passage filled with references to
Greek-derived lexicon,
is
a drastic,
register, especially since the
in English.
"Light of foot"
ignorance of the Greek
baccanale, etc.),
same root Greek
in
view of the
fact that
derived from Greek and referring to a baccanal are also
with other more
common
words.
and
banalization and
angui-
references here (Aiegera anguicrinita,
comprehensible
antiquit)^
also used
is
compound misunderstanding
part of a
is
uncommon,
but not
lowering of
Greek
lj;ne first
of
all, is
lene,
or
mamillone,
most of the items
homophonic puns
an adjective meaning
but also the plural noun "bacchants" or female votaries of
"light"
Dionysius; likewise mamillone, which
is
a
Gaddian pun on mammillona (two
ems) ("squaldrina, bagascia", derived from mammella) and mimallone, (one
em) which means,
precisely, "chi partecipa al tripudio dionisiaco":
mous, therefore, with
as
hard to see
lene. It is
how anyone
"mammary". Folk et}'mology (something
cal scholar that
habilitation
which
is,
with
its
double
(from lucchese) and
ca", derived
can be described
which Gadda, good
in
classi-
never unknowingly indulges) produces "pseudo-
of the finger-pointings" for
dittagli,
dialectal
he
synony-
from the Latin
has
t,
literary
dictus,
pseudo-abilita^ione a' dittagli, in
no kinship
at all
term meaning
past participle of
with
"diceria,
dicere. I
dito,
but
is
a
voce pubbli-
have not dealt
with the modernization, in Weaver's version, of Gadda's Italian archaisms,
nor with the dialectal elements which are here, as elsewhere, ignored, nor
with the leveling of Gadda's syntax.
Two more
may
lead to mistranslations
Gadda's
ing,
short passages
Italian,
show how inattention to Gadda's grammar
(and, on occasion, unintelligibility; while
though arduous
at times,
always reveals richness of mean-
not the opposite).
La
nipote!
La nipote albana,
L'afflato dei predatori. Già.
fiore
Le sabine non
dell'eterna
c'era più
gente
bisogno
sabellica.
di toglierle...
così profonde! attesa della notte mediatrice, tepide carni dell'alba.
— 146 —
Le
A Translator's
albane
ci
\'iia\ of-
pcnsavan
va, superati
Gadda's Languagf:
loro, oggi, a
scegne
clamori, a raggiungere,
i
Thi-: 'P isiirci.-ican'
E
a fiume.
il
fiume andava, anda-
lido, l'indefettibile attesa dell'e-
al
ternità. (2: 24)
The semantic
density
of
discourse
indirect
free
this
registering
musings regarding the roster of the Balduccis' surrogate
Ingravallo's
"nieces" (usually mere serving-girls recluted from Rome's countryside by
the sterile wife, Liliana, and fertile prey for the
man of
the house)
pounded bv homophonic and homographie synonyms
connotations), as well as by the use of
crowd of
allusions to
The
niece!
.
The Alban
ellipsis {toglierle... così profonde!)
antiquity.
Weaver renders
niece, flower
.
.
sea's
And
to sei:(e those
so radically! waiting for the night's mediation, the
eternity (17; I
warm flesh
to the riverbanks
the river flowed on, and on, overcoming all
edge, the inexorable, waiting
its
and
a
of the eternal SabeUian people. The
The AJban women, nowadays, came down
own.
comof
this:
of the predators. Yes. There was no need
afflatus
women
Roman
is
(attesa in twT)
Sabine
of dawn.
on
their
to reach, at the
din,
have underlined passages
I
find problematic).
In this tough cryptogram
which departs,
so
like
much
(a
in
dense concentration of
norms, every word must be weighed for
conserved
if
simple affermative, but
may mean
Roman
Apennines near Rome;
the 2Ld]ecxive profondo,
"formerly": the
who
to
probably not
is
afflatus,
or overmaster-
Rome)
Rome by
is
of the Sabine
no longer
their
own
modifying the plural feminine noun
Its alteration
sabine,
from
as
women
orga-
necessary, since the
will.'^ Battaglia registers
whose inflexion in the above sample
completa umiliazione".
a
inhabited the central region of the
in particular the rape
nized by Romulus, the founder of
women now come
syntactical
range of meaning, to be
predatory male (the entire passage alludes to
the Alban and Sabine people,
Alban
its full
possible in translation. Già, in this context,
ing impulse, of the
allusive signifiers)
Gadda, from grammatical and
identifies
it
as
meaning "che manifesta
adjective to adverb (modif\'ing
"to seize") in the above English rendition must be counted as an error,
however, mainly because
it
deprives the passage of meaning (how does
one rape "radica^"?). The error
of
attesa,
is
compounded by
nominalizadon of the verb
preposition di
(in
the contracted
attendere,
form
della,
the misunderstanding
meaning "hope", and the
indicating possession): not
"waiting for the night's mediation", therefore, but "hope of night the
mediatrix".
The nominal
value of attesa and the genitive function of the
preposition are ignored again in the closing expression "inexorable, wait-
— 147 —
—
Robert de Lucca
ing eternity".
A
ing as well as
its
The
density might be:
niece!
The Alban
niece, flower
of the eternal Sabine
race,
and the
of the predators. Once. There was no longer any need to seize
afflatus
those Sabine women... so available!
mediatrix, of daybreak's
down
mean-
rendering, then, which better preserves the original
to the river
warm
The
Today the Alban
flesh.
And
by themselves.
offering now, during night the
women came
the waters flowed, streaming past
the clamor to reach, at the shore, eternit}' 's unfailing
Lucca
(de
vigil,
14)
The following tables offer additional analytic comparisons between
some passages of Gadda's original text, William Weaver's 1963 translation,
my own.
and
Gadda:
Weaver:
The
IngravaUo grumbled mentally, as
preaching to himself
it all
if
is
personal-
distinguished
maschile, in quanto
from
in
comprehension, and
a
revision,
male
si
in
The
for
ità,
band...[139]
to; ascrivere a
...forced sister-like 0\))lJiaTia
of her
own
lare
sex.
de Lucca:
properties to
all
personality,
—IngravaUo
affirming
himself — what
meaning of
formu-
Not
in the
'preaching'. Passage
is
is
a
sonaUty.
as if
about?...
typically
centrogravitata: coined by
The female
the
centergravi-
("punto
si
from
intorno
of the male in so
Gadda from
technicism "centro di gravitazione"
tated toward the ovaries, differs
that
logica;
(Battaglia).
tor-philosopher IngravaUo on female per-
personality
groused inwardly,
that
from
un sogget-
long, analytical disquisition by the inspec-
The female
was
una categoria
a
sense of 'annunciare, proclamare' which
the
its
un predicato
un giudizio"
o
di particolare qual-
caratteristiche, ecc." or, better,
logic: "attribuire
in the regards
clearly "indicare cose
persone come fornite
hus-
the
to
femmena,
affettivi al marito... [106]
predicando: here
and con-
affective coagulations
densations
stessa della
manifesta in un apprendimento, e in un
per coaguli
woman's
turns
morality-personality
distingue dalla
mento maschile... La moraUtà-individualità
della donna si rivolge per addensamenti e
a
of the reasoning of the
element...
personal-
rifacimento, d' 'o ragionamento dell'ele-
revealed
is
si
l'attività
corteccia, int' 'o cervello d' 'a
of the cortex, the old gray
matter, of the female,
dì?... 'a
femminile, tipicamente centrogravita-
ta sugli ovarii, in tanto
the male insofar as the very activity
— che wulive
a se stesso
ità
gravity-centered on
the ovaries,
brontolò
mentalmente IngravaUo quasi predicando
—what did
The female
mean?...
typically
ity,
—
La personalità femminile
personaUty
female
di
eserciti
un corpo da
cui
si
suppone che
una forza onde esso è
attratto
o
muove") and verb
"gravitare" ("appoggiarsi; tendere verso un
far as
the very activity of the cortex, in th'
-
148
—
al
quale
si
A
Transi. ATciR's Vif:w
brains of
wimmen,
is
oi-
Gadda's Languagi::
expressed
in
punto o muoversi intorno
an
assimilation, and in a re-making, of a
you can
reasoning —
— of
masculine
if
the
call
it
effetto
forza
della
a esso per
gravità;
della
reas'nin'
orbitare"). English "center of gravity"
The
and "gravitate" ("tend to move toward
element...
moralit}'-individuality of the
'P.wTira.icao'
Tin-,
woman
is
a certain point or object as a natural
concentrated on and emotionally
solidifies around the husband...
goal or destination; be strongly attract-
ed to some centre of influence. Freq.
followed by to, towards"
...forced
sororal
cujiTiaiia
towards the co-sexed...
OED).
-
The verb
"centre" from which Weaver
creates
"gravity-centered"
means
"place in the centre; concentrate or
focus on; be situated
move round
on
a fixed centre;
(OED).
focal point"
a
"Gravit}^-centered" expresses
the technical point ("have as
of
gravit)-")
neither
its
centre
nor meaning of "grav-
itare" ("be strongly attracted to
some
centre").
apprendimento: used by G.
"far
proprio,
"Comprehension":
to
mean
imparare".
prendere,
of under-
faculty
standing; the act of including, containing,
comprising".
assimilation: "faculty' of making others'
concepts, doctrines,
styles,
opin-
ions one's own".
La mentalità-individualità della
donna si rivolge per addensamenti
e per coaguli
affettivi
al
marito:
"per" here introduces a complement
of means, not of end. Not "per
ottenere addensamenti e coaguli affettivi
dal marito"
(Weaver: "turns for
affective coagulations
tions to the
di
addensamenti"
sororale:
retains
from the Tiber down,
her,
there
beyond the crumbling
hills
plains
and mountains, and
of
Italy, a
"..due
there,
castles,
and
blond vineyards, there was, on
after the
the
etc.
literary
Gadda's
English "sororal"
register.
Gadda:
Weaver:
For
and condensa-
husband") but "per mezzo
felice caviale della gente.
in the brief
kind of great
salpingi grasse, zigrinate d'una
dovi:(ia di granuli, il granuloso e untuoso, il
fertile
— 149
do dal grande Ovario
aprivano, come
ciche
Di quando
follicoli
in
quan-
maturati
d'una melegranaie
si
rossi
Robert de Lucca
womb, two
swollen Eustachian
chicchi,
pa:^ d'un 'amorosa
certe^^^ia,
ne discende-
tubes, streaked with an abundance of granules, the granular and
pulso vitalizzante, quell'aura spermatica di cui
greasy, the happy caviar of
favoleggiavano gli ovaristi del Settecento. " (24)
From
the race.
vano
ad urbe, a
incontrare l'afflatto maschile, l'im-
time to time, from the great
Ovary ripened
opened,
follicles
like
"salpinge grasse"
pomegranate seeds: and red grains,
mad
amorous
with
certitude,
descended upon the
to
city,
(Battaglia: "salpinge uterina
ovarica: nell'apparato genitale interno femminile,
il
condotto che collega ciascun ovario con la parte
superiore dell'utero; tuba di Falloppio.
")
encounter the male afflatus, the
"Eustachian tubes"
vitalizing impulse, that spermatic
leading from the pharynx to the cavity of
aura of which the ovarists of the
the t}'mpanum" (in the ear).
eighteenth century wrote their
English term
fantastic treatise.
tubes". Lexical error.
is
pelle, tessuto o simili
de Lucca:
The
correct
"salpinxes" or "Fallopian
(Devoto-Oli:
"zigrinate"
"canals
instead,
are,
un
"conferire
ad una
aspetto ruvido o granu-
loso ")
For her, beyond the Tiber, there,
"streaked"
there behind the castles in ruins and
English term
after the
hills
blond vineyards
lay,
on
the
and the mountains and the
plains
of
fertile
Italy
womb
-
an immense
like
with twin, copious
salpinxes shagreened with a cor-
nucopia of granules
-
the granu-
lous, the unctuous, the beatific
caviar of
from time
ripe follicles
opened,
like
"zigrinate":
error.
"dovizia"
literary
term (Devoto-Oli:
abbondanza
"straordinaria
"abundance" lacking
o ricchez^; copia")
in
lexical-stylistic
terms.
used probably by G. to
"untuoso"
mean
And
Ovary
oppure "profumato", (from Latin "unc-
pomegran-
whose ruddy kernels, mad with
tumbled
amorous
assurance,
towards the Eternal City to
encounter the afflatus of the
male: the enlivening impulse,
ates,
Orazio "uncta patrimonia"
tus";
meaning,
"greasy":
pejorative
falling-off
of tone: error
"felice caviale" not
Not
"dirty";
in register,
"happy" ("contento")
but "beatific", "fortunate" "prosperous"
"desired" and sim.
ovists
Lexical and
which the
of yesteryear spun their
etc.)
pejorative.
that spermatic aura of
fables.
correct
the
"shagreened", same ety-
technical meaning. Lexical and
mology and
st}'listic
is
both "grasso" and "sontuoso, splendido"
the generations.
to time in the great
for
st}'listic
error,
"ciche": "pellicina che separa
melegrana e
i
semi della
di altri" (Battaglia),
"ne discendevano ad urbe": "ne"
"follicoli",
upon
"ad urbe":
favoleggiavano
Settecento."
'y^w/f^/Wz-f".-
congetturare
lare".
-150
refers to
"descended
the city" falling off of tone,
"di cui
ole,
Latin,
—
gli
ovaristi
del
"raccontare fav-
vanamente, arzigogo-
A
TRANSi.AT(m's Vii:w
(m-
Thh
Cìadda's Langi'agh:
'Pìsticciaccio'
"of which the ovarists of the eighcentury wrote
teenth
"wrote"
and
fantastic
their
off of tone both for
treatise." Falling
"eighteenth
century";
cannot be attributed
"treatise" singular,
to "ovarists", plural,
"ovaristi":
F^nglish
more common
Weaver:
Gadda:
the npical psychosis of the frustrated
/a psicosi tipica
woman,
woman
"ovist"
rare
or
"ovarist".
delle
insoddisfatte,
o delle
umiliate nell'anima: quasi, proprio,
una dis-
humiliated in her soul: almost, indeed, a
sociazione di natura panica, una
tendent^a
disassociation ot
al caos: cioè una brama di riprìncipiar da
discontent,
the
all
the
panic nature, a ten-
a
dency to chaos: that
the
a
is,
longing to begin
over again from the beginning: from
first
Possible:
"a
return
the
to
capo: dal
primo
l'indistinto».
un
possibile:
Tenebra, può ridischiudere alla
l'Abisso,
Indistinct." Since only the Indistinct, the
catena delle determina-:(ioni
Abyss, the Outer Darkness, can re-open
si."
a
new
spiritual
ascent for the chain of
determining causes:
renewed fortune. For
a
renewed form,
Liliana,
it
was
true,
Valevano ancora a Uliana,
vero, le
potenti
della Fede: gli
powers of the Faith were
still in force, and more the cohibitive
ones: the formal proclamations of
certe^^.
Doctrine: the symbol operated as
light,
avuto per
Thus
verso
the inhibidve
Radiated
as cerdtude.
in the soul.
rina:
inava
effect
of channeling
her psychoses towards the funnel of a
holograph
perfectly
will,
legal.
accounts of death were settled
to the last fraction of a cent.
the
confessor and the notary
The
down
unknown
libert}'
più,
Irradiata
della dott-
nell'anima. Così rimug-
I
di
legale.
lemmi avevano
dodici
un testamento
lei psicosi
olografo per-
Il bilancio della morte era
chiuso al centesimo.
notaro, i limpidi
come
luce,
di incanalare la di
effetto
/ìmbuto
come
operava
era pur
le coibitive
enunciati for»/ali
Ingravallo.
per altri,
e,
Al di là
spa^
del confessore, e
della Misericordia. O,
l'ignota libertà del
non
essere, gli
evi liberi. [105-6]
Beyond
lay
the
limpid spaces of Mercy. Or, for others,
the
inibitive
simbolo
il
ruminated Ingravallo. The twelve lem- fettamente
mata had had the
una nuova asce-
sua forma, la rinnovata for-
la rinnovata
tuna.
«rientro nel-
In cjuanto l'indistinto soltanto,
of not being, the
dissociazione:
psychological
term
used by Ingravallo, reader of
"libri
strani"
which contain
manicomio:
eras of freedom.
una
medici dei matti".
"questioni...
terminologia
da
da
"Il disgregarsi degli
de Lucca:
elementi della personalità unitaria che
the characteristic psychosis of unsat-
si
isfied
women
or deeply
souls. iAlmost, in a
word,
humiliated
a panic disso-
nel
riflette
(Battaglia).
campo
ideativo..."
Eng. equiv. dissociation,
not "distfssociation".
ciation, a tendenc}' to chaos; a longing primo possibile: philos., fr. "primum"
mobile"; Eng. "prime
to start again from zero, from the prime ("primum
possibilit}-: a
"regression to the indeter-
—
151
Cause"
—
ecc.).
"Prime" = "primary, fun-
Robert de Lucca
minate". In the sense that only the
indeterminate,
the
Abyss or the
damental, from which others are derived".
Alludes
the
to
"catena delle determi-
Darkness, can newly disclose, to
nazioni" in G's
the chain of determining causes, a
ridischiudere: "re-open" ("riaprire") syn-
new
ascesis;
renewed form,
a
renewed fortune. For
Liliana,
it
a
was
onym which does
variety
of
ascesi: "s.f
the cohibitory puissances of Faith
dente che
still
impelling: the formal pre-
cepts of doctrine; the symbol oper-
not conserve diastratic
original.
also true, the inhibitory or, better,
were
text.
Metodo ed
propone
si
esperienza del cre-
di conseguire (sem-
pre con l'aiuto della Grazia)
mediante
spirituale
perfezione
la
gli esercizi
vita di
...;
Gadda here
is
using
Irradiated
the term derived from ecclesiastical
Ladn
Ingravallo
"ascesis"
ating
as
as
light,
certitude.
on the soul. Thus
mused. The twelve lem-
mas had had
the effect of channeling
her psychosis towards the conduit
of
perfecdy legal holograph
a
will.
Death's budget was balanced to
rinuncia" (Battaglia).
in
a
passage
renunciation of worldly goods
Liliana's
("quel turpe elenco di averi").
valevano:
"Were
potenza,
"avere
in force"
still
=
the digit. Beyond the confessor and
Lexical error.
the notary, the pure spaces of Mercy.
le potenti: learned
Or,
cho-analytic reference
for
others,
free
unknown freedom of
ages,
the
non-being.
with
dealing
falling off
autorità".
"to be operative".
deformation or psy(?).
"the powers"
of tone.
enunciati:
"principi
Not
dottrinali".
from
"proclamation"
"proclaim"
("announce, make public, publish"
etc.).
irradiata: "riempita di luce o virtù intellettuali
o
spirituali".
Eng. equiv. "irradiat-
ed", not "radiated".
non
essere, gli evi liberi: formai lan-
guage.
5.
Rendering
dialects
For the translator the question of
Gadda especially, whose use of
is
mere
naturalistic verisimilitude in the representation
number of
though
in
not motivated by a desire for
great
contrasting,
and
dialects in Italian literature,
vernaculars
of speech,
raises a
As Albert
Sbragia
linked, issues.
notes, Gadda's literary expressionism "is firmly
grounded
anomalies of the Italian language, in the ongoing
vitality
in the historical
of the nation's
dialects after unification,
and on the uniquely archaic
erary Italian" (Sbragia
Gadda's inexhausdble recourse to the reserves of
dialect,
5).
which distinguishes
his expressionism
from
characteristics
that
of
lit-
of great writers of
other European languages, therefore constitutes a fundamental dilemma.
English-speaking dialectologists' definition of the word "dialect"
fers
from
that
of
their Italian colleagues
— 152 —
dif-
because there has always been a
A Translator's Xu.w nv
much
Cìadda's Lanc;lac;i.: Tin.
development ot purely diatopical variedes
richer
correspond a
flourishing dialectal literary tradition
still
has successfully held
importance of
this
own
its
isnco.icao'
'P
To
in Italy.
these
which for centuries
with a much-debated national language.
elementary
è sostanzialmente
fact, that "l'italiana
ca grande letteratura nazionale
la
cui
produzione
The
l'uni-
dialettale faccia visceral-
mente, inscindibilmente corpo col restante patrimonio" (Contini 26)
means,
among
Gadda,
in
other things, that the use of diatopical varieties of Italian
and completely
as in other authors, implies a pluri-secular
diverse set of connotations in contrast to their use in other tongues, particularly English.
Dialects in
ferent statures
then, are mainly diatopical varieties with radically dif-
Italy,
and
traditions.
of the word "dialect"
where
ers
characterized
it is
of a given
lA-pe,
This helps to explain
differs
from
Italy to the
more broadly
as
why
the very definition
English-speaking world,
any variet}^ associated with speak-
whether geographically or otherwise defined,
e.g.
mem-
bers of a given social class, males/females, people of shared ethnic back-
ground,
etc.
Thus, linguists involved mainly with English speak of a "midexample, where "dialect" must be distinguished from
dle-class dialect", for
"register"
is
(i.e.
manner of speaking
the
characteristic
parents to their children, of political
So
in Italy the
horìì(ontal rather
of the
particular to a certain function that
of a certain domain of communication: the language of
rallies,
of the courtroom and so on).
notion of dialect as a mainly diatopic feature, that
than
vertical
plurilinguism,
the translator this
means many
es
of translation,
trast
t)'
forfeited.
with
its
defined
Mauro
used
of
his native
16-17),
is
things, the first
of which
is
the fact that the actual use of dialect in
in geographical,
how
and
Italy's first king,
Piemontese
that the chief
Italy,
dialect
Vittorio
even
in
exist
where English
speak dialect than
Italian
is,
after
all,
Emmanuele
class
II,
De
habitually
Venetian or Sicilian
with his peers.
dialects quite divergent
what
communi-
meetings with his ministers
spoken by higher socio-economic groups, the
diverse as regards
in con-
socio-economic terms.
less in
and today an educated, upper middle
likely to
to
differences
Second, and perhaps as important for practical purpos-
more
tral"
diastratic
use in English, usually indicates appurtenance to a
more
tells
and
of the word "sociolect"). For
Italian dialectal item, its specific regional association,
connotation of any
must be
a
predominant, while, because
is
historical reasons given above, diasituative
are stressed in Englsh (hence the appearance
is
Though some
(1
:
is
areas
from Standard English are
linguistic
a very far-flung
horizon
is
communit)' with
totally
a "cen-
language the forms of which are spoken from Los Angeles to Dublin
Capetown, and from Jamaica
to
Canberra to Bombay, and whose
— 153 —
dialec-
Robert de Lucca
those of
anywhere near the same
traditions have never attained
tal literary
status as
Italy.
There
many
are
Italian dialect,
siderable
reasons, therefore,
why it is unreasonable
to render an
the product of a specific region and enjoying an often constatus,
literary
with a localizable English vernacular. Thus
Weaver's statement, that "to translate Gadda's
Roman
or Venetian into the
language of Mississippi or the Aran Islands would be as absurd as trans-
of Faulkner's Snopses into
lating the language
true as
it is
disingenuous:
it
would not
Sicilian
or Welsh"
good
be, in fact,
(xxi) is as
practise to trans-
pose what have been the sophisdcated vernaculars of two of Europe's
major cultural centers, with long and glorious written traditions
among
nessed by the examples of Belli and Goldoni,
(as wit-
others), into an
untaught back-country idiom from the deep United States South or the
queer speech of poor island fishermen off Ireland's western reaches. In
his
forward Weaver further misrepresents Gadda's use of
translator's
when he
dialect in the Pasticciaccio
asks that the English-speaking reader
"imagine the speech of Gadda's characters, translated here into straight-
forward spoken English, as taking place in
dialects" (xxi).
dialect,
Leaving aside the question of
how
or in a mixture of
the English-speaking
reader can conjure up an unspecified dialectal speech the essence of which
he has been warned can and should not be translated, Weaver makes no
reference whatever
tions
to,
nor has any strategy to deal with, the major func-
of dialect in the novel,
sibilit}'
Gadda's other works. Given the impos-
as in
of translating into another tongue the aura
geographical region, the translator
tations
of
may choose
to
which can be transferred
dialectal items
parlativa peculiar to a
maximize other connoto the target language.
Since those other functions may, at least in theor}', be exploited by the
translator,
it is
good
to understand
what they
are.
The motives and morphologies of Gadda's
plex,
and
it is
not
raphy concerning
in English
is
my
extremely com-
them.!-"* Briefly,
the
problem of rendering the
Pasticciaccio
to find, or invent, as far as possible, equivalents for Gadda's
general, sustained
and
of which the use of
brilliant
dialects
deformation of written and spoken
is
only a
part.'"*
probably the most succinct portrayal of
...
st}de are
aim here to add to the already very lengthy bibliog-
una prima
this general
materici
deformative
logic:
fase del narratore riflette linguisticamente, non per mera
verosimigliant(a naturalistica nel dialogato,
dialettale
Italian,
Gianfranco Contini offers
ma
ibridandosi in
che invade estemporaneamente
vengono
Yhistorìcus,
un 'macaronico'
mentre grumi
prelevati dal vernacolo, l'ambiente natio
cessiva sosta fiorentina corrisponde
1...1
A una suc-
un becero convenzionale,
— 154 —
nutrito di
A Tr ANSI,
tor's \'ii\\
\
(îxdda's
()!•
Lan(;i!A(.i-,: Till
ìvik ri
'P
uc
lo'
continuità con vecchi succhi letterari (Leonardo, Machiavelli, Cellini)
Infine
il
soggiorno romano giustifica
sioni più meridionali
staura su una
ma c(jmunque
differen-:(ialità
aspetto di simbiosi vernacolare.
che
ti":
desdno
il
creduto
s'è
pluridialettali
di base ancora
più
Nondimeno
[...]
tutto s'in-
a un qualsiasi
antica, e anteriore
"Tendo a una brutale deformazione dei temi
proponermi come formate cose ed obbiet-
di
comincia Gadda una sua professione
così
|...|
miscela romanesca, con intru-
la
Sappiamo che "deformazione"
è
poetica
arte
di
un termine tecnico
[...]
della sua riflessione,
atto a indicare la modificazione che ogni sistema di relazioni subisce nel
flusso eracliteo dell'esistere. Ltì deformatone linguistica appare dunque una
specifica^iione poetica di questa
larità
ed
ecletticità dei
già l'assunto
deformandone basilare
si paleserà illegittimo),
separerebbe
persuasione del carattere asimmettrico
e
ma
non naturalista (62;
Section two has already
to
function of dialectal items in the
on
choose
madve
to use a palette,
st}^listic
Gadda
Pasticciaccio is
L<2
narratore, intriso di aggressiva
not necessarily
a general
dialectal,
dialect.
'-''
Since the
deformative and anything
strategy based
st)'listic
may
English
diat}'pes, the translator in
and rhetorical tools
(ma
the asymmetric and compositive, not
many elements of
mix of
the eclectic
[...]
mine).
italics
shown
'normale' dal deformato.
il
mention h\per- literary, character of Gadda's use of
but consistent, one of
rivela l'estrema irrego-
...
composito della deformat^ione deve valere da
prefazione permanente alla lettura anche del
realtà
[e]
materiali e la sinuosità della linea che, a volerla tracciare
therefore
of morphologically defor-
available in English. It
is
not a question,
then, of using specific English dialects for Gadda's identifiable Italian ones
(though dialectal words
may of course be
used), but of finding other
diat\^es according to an analogous asymmetric and compositive method.
The
"irregular" linguistic texture
though the comic and other
ter
of
A
may be conserved,
minimal, but extremely
strategy
is
example of Gadda's deformative
t}'pical,
the inconsistent presence of the reduced articulated preposide',
pe,
and
a'.
Depending on the
either h\per-literary or dialectal shading.
form
a specific reduced prepositional
use, in the
immediate
much of Gadda's
and
dialectal (in
as
context, these
may
apocope
both
literary
th
'
for
(it is
the:
points to
no
a
form which
literature,
Roman
uti
be translated with the English synaeresis a
real origin (not strictiy dialectal, since
nunciation heard from the United
Kingdom
— 155 —
is,
like
registered in Shakespeare)
widespread use in American dialect
likewise
may have
translator often cannot offer
an English equivalent, but may
the
vicinit)',
Italian,
The
does not point to any specific provenance). The
paio)
degree,
dialect are lost.
tions such as
so
some
to
effects linked to the specific regional charac-
it
gives
although
paro (for un
coupla,
form
to California).
it
which
to a pro-
Other forms,
Robert de Lucca
such as the aphaerese (an
it
word,
->
as in
it is
'tis)
fusion of the syllables
ond vowel,
med'cine
)
lost so that the
is
consonant
consonant or vowel of the next
on
either side of
by's,
often involving loss of the sec-
it,
or the loss of a vowel, as in médecine ->
may, to some small degree, recuperate certain deformative func-
At other times the
dialects.
tions mimetically,
comparable to
from Porta onwards:
of
vowel that
or syncope (the loss of a consonant and consequent
as in by bis ->
tions of Gadda's
issima
initial
clusters with the initial
which follows
in the voices
traditional
models
in Italian literature
of certain characters, such
as the roman-
choral, free indirect discourse (the epos
Manuela Pettacchioni, or in a
la gente der popolò).
dialect in the Pasticciaccio func-
In such cases "a straightfoward spoken English" has
been used, although here too the expressionistic component of the
nal, the
and
is
"grotesque" aspects of a
dialectal,
or philological, purism. For
"straightfon^v^ard" (Weaver's term)
orthographically deformed: for the
lady,
Margherita Gelli,
tacamere?
Madonna
this
but often
or
syntactically, lexically
Roman comment
of Ingravallo's land-
un'affittacamere! Io affit-
me butto a fiume", rather than
common landlady! Me? Rent out my
santa, piuttosto
me
for a
anybody? Merciful Heavens,
to just
reason the English adopted
"E mo me prendono per
Weaver's "And they take
rooms
origi-
often undermine any Linguistic
dialect,
I'd rather
throw myself
in the
"And now they have me down as a
rooming house keeper? Me keeper of a rooming house? Gawd, I'd just as
soon chuck myself off some bridge!"
river" I
have preferred the
less stilted
Dialect often surfaces in the narrative in the guise of a leit-motif tied
to a character, as in this description
il
tono
s'indurì,
of the Neapolitan dottor Fumi:
s'enfatizzò nel crescendo, ruga verticale 'n miezz'a
fronte: (2: 174)
where the frequent movement,
Italian
the elevated tone of the beginning.
->
dialect, creates a contrast
As seen also by the examples
more than one region, in
other times dialectal words (often from
Neapolitan and Milanese) appear in the text as
guistic collage, unjustified
if
by the presence of
with
in 2.2, at
this case
encapsulated within a
a character,
lin-
and seemingly
outside of any traditionally realistic procedure:
prolati
i
labbri in
innamorare
o'
un suo broncio baggiano,
tutte le
Marie Barbise
d'Italia:
co
pernacchio dell'Emiro. Emiro de sàbet grass.
Such use
is
to be considered part of a general
guistic expressionism,
on the same plane
— 156 —
maccherone
di
in
coppa
(2:
treene,
da
a a'capa 'o fez,
co
132)
and polymorphous
lin-
with, for instance, the adoption
A Translator's
of technicisms. In
from
Gadda's Languagi:: Tin. 'Pwiicoaccio'
Vif'W oi"
two
fact the
diat}'pes are often
Ne//a cornice era incastonato un
a
this
sentence
of the fob of a watch:
a painstaking description
d'oro, de dietro,
mixed, as in
bellissimo diaspro, con tegumento d'una lastrina
rivoltallo fra li diti. (2:
108)
Weaver:
In the frame there was set a beautiful jasper, with the tegument of a
tle
plate
of gold, on the back, when you turned
it
in
your
lit-
fingers. (142)
de Lucca:
A
splendid jaspis was
mounted
when you
gold, behind,
toined
in the frame,
in
it
your
backed with
Lest the reader think from the above quote that
disastrous strategy of substituting Brooklynese for
that
I
have used English speech
a preponderance of American.
t\'pes
I
a plaquette
of
fingers. (120)
I
have adopted the
Roman,
must be
it
said
New Zealand to Flushing, with
from
have thought
it
best not to have a single
strategy to deal with dialects in the novel, except not to use consistendy
any single English variant or dialect in rendering any single
have, rather, decided to include
niques as
I
can
find.
on my
palette as
These range from
a very
many
mixed use of vernacular and
an adaption of the macaronic techniques
slang to
Italian one. I
expressionisdc tech-
of,
for example,
Raymond Queneau or Georges Perec, to deformations based on other
contextual cues. The orthographical deformations which are the hallmark
of American and English "dialect" literature have not been used when
non-standard syntactical forms might
suffice,
except where those ortho-
graphical variants are consecrated in works that cannot be considered
"dialect"
works (William Gaddis, Robert Coover, James Joyce,
name
a
few). If
have used mainly American techniques and deformations, that
is
I
simply because there are more of them and
of course, by the
fact that
Americans very
I
know them
well.
I
to
am
helped,
heartily diversify their language
with, quite randomly, several local variants, even
if
the origins of those
known, or known perhaps only vaguely, through mass
I am also far more acquainted with the nonstanthan I am with that of the British Isles and
of
my
countrymen
dard forms
variants are not
media or other sources.
its
possessions or ex-possessions including Ireland.
This approach
is
similar in
render in English the
form in English, or
padded language
if it has,
that
some ways
ter^a rima. It
is
to
some
translators' attempts to
has rarely been attempted
in its strict
the result has been an inverted, distorted and
unspeakable and not very
— 157 —
legible.
Some Dante
Robert de Lucca
Robert Pinskey have formed a more
translators like
rhyme, or of the kind and degree of
sound
like
Similarly, I've tried to "translate" dialect
forms
made of them by Gadda
according to the use
of
flexible definition
that constitute rhyme.
in several different ways,
(in
dialogue, in free indirect
One
discourse linked to a character, by narrator or narrators and so on).
example, and an extreme example of orthographical deformation, can be
rendering of
seen in the
employed
in the ministry
Roman
the
of finance. In
of Commendatore Angeloni,
this case
Gadda's text have been used. Compared to the
uneducated concierge Manuela Pettachioni,
(he's teary
stuffy
a large,
and upset during
nose
variet\':
of the presumably
his diction, in
both speak the same
largely correct (although they
Gadda endows him with
contexmal cues from
Roman
my
version,
But
dialect).
is
since
runny nose that he must constandy blow
a police interrogation), his English
of the
is
a substitution, then, of an idiolect for a dialect, that
might approach the comic deformation which
is
behind Gadda's use of
vernacular.
Appendix
"Making
use
of the event
-
that whatsoever mcìàcnt that rogue weatherman
Zeus might've dunged in front of your
a characteristic pseudo-ethical
sHmily staged,
is
the
nose, plup,
activit}',
tirade
—
to the greater glory
of
on and
in verit}' protuberantiy put
game of whosomever,
confer on propaganda or
plop
individual or body, wishes to
the weight and scope of a moral activity.
The psyche of xht frenî^ied politico on display (pseudo-ethical narcissism)
gets its claws on another's real or supposed felony, to roar over it like a
brute with dick for brains
ing in that
way
pointlessly
to exhaust (to
furious over an ass' jawbone;
myth, the sordid tension that forces him to
acts, acts coûte que coûte.
And
sacrificial ^OTitt
rend
it
or hart unto
act,
whatever
presto, the other's crime
cate anguimaned Megaera, or
mad
summary
trial
and the
to plalike
littie,
^ho
combustion of the bac-
and festooned purple-red with blood and
A pseudo- justice and a pretend severi
plain confirmation (de
long as he
the whirling, dissheveled wretches or maenads
chanalia kindled by their howls,
populi thus acquire legal
act, as
"made use of"
multitude mollified not wi' so
to pieces, everywhere ravenous in the pyrall
torment.
manag-
pacify) with the inane paradigm of a punitive
t)',
an ersat^ipatent given
course, of which both the arrogance of
cephalobalanic hysteria
vox
and
of an overhast}' sentence are
Lucca 106; underlining mine).
158
the
a rash
A Translator's
The Vasticciacoo'
Vifav of Gadda's Language:
NOTES
'Some
excerpts have been published
"Forum
in:
Italicum," Vol. 34,
Spring 2000; "Differentia," 8-9 Spring 1999; "The Edinburgh Review of
No.
1,
Gadda
Studies," October, 2000.
^"the prototype of the writer: challenge to emulation, reservoir of quotation,
monument of
worth."
^^Lexicallv relevant items
can receive, by means of labels or usage notes, any
of the following types of diasystematic markings:
diastratic, diaconnotative, diatechnical, diafrequential,
sake,
I
diachronic, diatopic, diaintegrative,
and dianormative. Mostly for
brevit)''s
have used some of these terms below.
"^One of the sources for Gadda's deformation of foreign borrowings
work of
who
source for the
Belli (an essential
Roman
not only for
Pasticciacdo,
is
the
dialect),
often transforms foreign words or Latin ecclesiastical terms into macaronic
Italian, for
example
in the sonnet
Er Rosario
in Famiglia:
Avemmaria... lavora... gratula prena...
Nena, vói
ddominu
lavora?...
steco...
Uf!... benedetta tu mujjeri... Nena!...
Er hbenedetto
erfrìi...
che
\a'a
tte sceco?...
Fruttu sventr'e ttu ]eso. San... che ppena!...
ta
Maria madre
Ora pre
Peccatori...
De
Oh
sciappotto laggiù
Nunche
ddiavola! bbraghiera!
li
voglio, tutti,
[...]
e voglio
anche
i
triploni, e
i
quadruploni
[...]
sinonomi, usati nelle loro variegate accezioni e sfumature d'uso corrente,
o d'uso raro
E
trovato:
ammenne.
dillo un'antra sera.
^"I doppioni
i
E mmò?
see venne?
Ah, U'ho
ccapito: er rosario è tterminato:
Finiremo de
e tutti
fai l'eco?...
ccome
stavo?...
finora morti nostri
Grolla padre...
see
tt'aspetto a ccena...
Ssiggnore! e sto sciufeco
Andiamo: indove
Ho
me
Ddei...
ma
nobbi...
rarissimo.
in lingua nostra,
[...]
Non
la
parola
che
esistono
può'
si
il
troppo né
stirare,
padule: femminile e maschile) secondo libidine,
denti, ecco qua:
maschile: e
^'On
[...]
come
non voglio mollare né palude né
di usare di entrambe le forme
mi riserbo
Gadda
In Strumenti
as Sternian humorist, see
critici! b,
il
vano, per una lingua.
[...]
contrarre e metastatare (palude,
la
fusse una pasticca tra
padule, né
(lessicali)."
il
femminile né
3:
i
il
490-91.
Giancarlo Roscioni, "Gadda umorista."
1994, \M-\C^1.
^Gadda's vocabulary follows "rules" which are the exact opposite of the prescriptions he gives in a grammatical
employment
Evitare
at
le
una semantica
RAI
and
st)'listic
written during his
Norme per la redat^ione
modi nuovi o sconosciuti, e in genere un lessico e
vocaboli o quelle forme del dire che non risultiquei
tutti
called
parole desuete,
arbitraria,
handbook
di un
i
— 159 —
testo radiofonico:
Robert de Lucca
no prontamente e sicuramente afferrabili. Figurano tra essi:
a) i modi e i vocaboli antiquati;
b) i modi e i vocaboli di esclusivo uso regionale, provinciale, municipale;
modi e vocaboli, talora arbitrariamente introdotti nella pagina, della
e)
i
i
supercultura
d)
modi
i
e
(p.e. della supercritica),
del preziosismo e dello snobismo;
vocaboli delle diverse tecniche; della specializzazione;
i
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11
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