“Versi di un piacere particolare”: sulle traduzioni italiane dellapoesia omoerotica di Costantino Kavafis

Abstract

“Versi di un piacere particolare”: Italian Translations of C.P Cavafy’s homoerotic poems – In this article, I ask about the attitudes of Italian translators towards sexual difference expressed in Cavafy’s poems. Above all, I am interested in how translators convey Cavafy’s explicit homoeroticism in a heteronormative culture. Moreover, I examine whether the cultural changes of the second half of the 20th century modified the way Cavafy’s erotic poems were published and translated in Italy. I examine the choice of translated poems, analyze the way in which translators speak about the author’s sexual identity and compare various translations. The analysis shows that translators speak about homosexuality in a hazy and indirect way, suggesting it by periphrases, allusions and motifs that may be associated with the transgression of the sexual norm. It is particularly visible in the early editions which excluded the most explicit poems. Nevertheless, even recent translators tend to avoid using the term “homosexual”