Some Charateristic Features of Interpreting the Concept of "Untranslatability" in Italy in the 1900-1930s (Benedetto Croce, Luigi Pirandello, Giovanni Gentile)

This article is an attempt to examine and introduce into the scholarly use the three closely spaced texts by Italian authors emphasizing the concept of "untranslatability". The three texts are the chapter called "Indivisibility of Expression into the Methods and Levels, and the Criticism of Rhetoric" ("Indivisibiltà dell'espressione") from the book by Benedetto Croce "The Aesthetics as a Science of Expression and General Linguistics" (Estetica come scienza dell'espressione e linguistica generale, 1902); Luigi Pirondello's essay "Artists, Actors, Translators" (Illustratori, attori, traduttori) published in the literary journal "The New Anthology" (Nuova Antologia) in 1908; and tha chapter "The Truth and Untruth of Translations" (Torto e diritto delle traduzioni) from the book "The Fragments of Aesthetics and Literature" )Frammenti di estetica e letteratura, 1920) by another Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile. In his piece, Croce manifests untranslatability of poetry and art in general, while acknowledging that translation is possible for texts with no literary, or aesthetic, form and value. Likewise, Pirandello pinpoints untranslatability of a literary piece, yet he further argues that no translation (not just the verbal one) is possible, even by means of other art forms. Both the great philosopher and the famous playwright believe that any creative act is a momentary, unique and non-reproducible manifestation of the author's individuality; therefore, anyone attempting to render this text by the other means will pass it through their own personality and, to a certain extent, appropriate it. Thus, in best case scenarios, it ends up being a "performance" ("esecuzione") )Pirandello, or "re-creation" ("ri-creazione") (Croce) of pieces of art in a different language or art form - but not a translation, the latter being understood by the authors as a text aimed to replace the original in another language or art form. Ten yaers later, Gentile asserted the untranslatability of any thought that has verbal form (which includes not only literary but also works of scientific, philosophical et al. origin). Yet, paradoxically, he justifies the process of translation and the translator's work as an activity intrinsic to everything alive and evolving (including any thought process, reading, etc.), understanding translation as an "interpretation/interpretazione". The three texts have not been translated into Russian and are not represented in any prominent anthologies dedicated to the history of translation. However, they do arouse keen interest, as their authors foreshadow some of approaches to translation that would later become classic - such as Umberto Eco's theory of open text and the limits of interpretation, and Roamin Jacobson's theory of intrasemiotic translation.