Translating Werther in Italy

On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Goethe’s epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, which quickly became a European success after its publication, the Casa di Goethe organises a conference on the Werther translations in Italy.

Presentations:

Roberto Venuti: Werther. A ‘scandalous’ novel in papal Rome
Flavia di Battista: ‘Some sparks of that fire’. Michiel Salom’s Verter between Padua and Berlin
Gabriella Catalano: ‘no, Einaudi, let’s not change the title!’ Alberto Spaini translator of Werther

Moderator: Giovanni Sampaolo

Writing the Goethe entry for the Great Russian Encyclopaedia, Walter Benjamin called Goethe’s novel The Sorrows of Young Werther the greatest literary success of all time. A success also marked by the translations that, as an integral part of the life of a work, transcended the boundaries of space and time of the original text. In this respect, the case of Werther can be said to be exemplary. Translations mark the European and then worldwide reception of a work that for the first time affirmed the literary dignity of the German language. 250 years after its first appearance, we wonder about the horizon of expectation created by the Italian translations that, over time, have given voice to the story of the unhappy lover. Their diversity reflects the possible readings that have accompanied the narration of a destiny, a generation and its era, becoming the story of the youth of all times. In its uniqueness Werther brings together this plurality just as the original text contains its interpretations and translations to come.

The conference will take place in Italian language.

Gabriella Catalano © private

Gabriella Catalano is Professor of German Linguistics and Translation Studies at the University of Rome II-Tor Vergata. She studied in Naples, Vienna and Munich. Publications on Goethe: Musei invi- sibili. Idea e forma della collezione nell’opera di Goethe (Artemide 2007), Goethe (Salerno editore 2022), Goethe und die Kunstrestitutionen. Über Kunst und Alterthum in den Rhein und Mayngegenden. Ein Reisebericht und seine Folgen (Wallstein Verlag 2022).

Roberto Venuti © private

Roberto Venuti has taught German Literature at the University of Siena, where he was Dean of the Faculty of Literature. He is a scholarship holder and visiting professor at the University of Tübingen, the Nationale Forschungs- und Gedenkstätte der Klassischen deutschen Literatur in Weimar (NFG), the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach/Stuttgart, and the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel. He has directed the Proteo series at the Artemide publishing house, which has published over 100 volumes on German-language topics since 1995. He has written essays on the Enlightenment and German classicism and edited Goethe’s Diari e lettere di Goethe dall’Italia (Diaries and Letters from Italy) (1786-1788) and Goethe’s Scritti sull’arte (Writings on Art). He is currently working on a new Italian edition of Franz Kafka’s ‘Diaries’ for Meridiani Mondadori.

Flavia di Battista © private

Flavia Di Battista is a research fellow at the University of Roma Tre as part of a project on the interaction between geography and literature in the German-speaking area. Her interests include German literature from the late eighteenth to the twentieth century, and in particular its relations with Italian culture. In 2020, she obtained a doctorate from the University of Tor Vergata with a thesis on the cultural mediator Leone Traverso and the Italian reception of Hugo von Hofmannsthal, from which the 2023 monograph Tradurre è come scrivere. Leone Traverso e Hugo von Hofmannsthal (Quodlibet). She has also written, among other things, about the presence of German culture in Giacomo Leopardi’s work.