Spawning Ulisse: (Re)translation and Continuity of Ulysses in the Italian Polysystem

If translation can be conceptualized as a generative force that causes the original text to be born (again) in a different polysystem and to build its own life and relations there (Bollettieri Bosinelli and Torresi 2016), then the expiry of copyright on Ulysses in 2012 paved the way for a particularly fertile wave of (re)translation, which spawned a rather large family. After decades of a single full translation available on the book market (De Angelis, Mondadori 1960, revised 1988 after the Gabler edition), with the brief exception of Bona Flecchia’s attempt (1995) stifled at birth for copyright violation, Italy now sports the largest number of Ulyssean translations in the world (D’Erme 2021). As usually happens among siblings, all such translations and republications may share some similarities - the time span and broader context of reception, for example - but each of them bears unique traits. Such uniqueness arguably does not lie only in the texts themselves (due to the translators’ different voices, Venuti 1995), but also in the different publishers’ policies and positioning within the Italian book production scene, which may lead to different readerships. This paper focusses on the latter exogenous aspects and frames them in polysystem theory (Even-Zohar 1990) to highlight the importance of institutional factors such as the economic factors linked to copyright law for literary producers and consequently for the modulation of the centrality of Ulysses in the Italian literary polysystem.