Calvino in English: Language, Style, and the Translator’s Craft

Abstract

This doctoral thesis, structured as a compendium of publications, focuses on the study of the English translations of two key works by Italo Calvino—Le città invisibili and Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore—with particular attention to the interpretive, stylistic, and philosophical challenges posed by the translation process, as well as the role of the translator as a cultural and epistemological mediator. Through an interdisciplinary approach that combines translation theory, semiotics, and gender studies, three core aspects have been analyzed: the alteration of meaning in translation, the representation of identity and the reader, and the construction of the textual universe. The main findings of the research show how translator William Weaver’s choices have shaped the Anglophone reception of Calvino, modulating the balance between opacity and transparency, play and structure, form and meaning. Translations are not mere linguistic equivalents but acts of rewriting that reveal—and sometimes obscure—the author’s poetic strategies. Specifically, the translation of InvisibleCities tends to reduce its symbolic density through more explicit solutions, while If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler exhibits conceptual shifts that affect the text’s performativity and the agency of both the reader and the female figure. From the evidence collected, three main conclusions emerge: first, Calvino’s work cannot be approached solely through criteria of linguistic accuracy, but requires critical attention to its poetic, philosophical, and structural dimensions. Second, each act of translation is a situated act of reading and interpretation. William Weaver’s stylistic and conceptual decisions have played a key role in how Calvino has been read in the Anglophone world. While his work has been instrumental in the author’s international canonization, it does not always fully respect Calvino’s intentio operis (U. Eco), resulting in significant hermeneutic shifts. Third, literary translation must be understood as a form of active rewriting, shaped by ideological and cultural tensions, rather than as a neutral exercise in equivalence. In this sense, the translator emerges as a co-enunciator of the text, a hermeneutic subject, and a mediator between symbolic systems. This study thus positions itself within the ongoing reflection on the ethical and hermeneutic responsibilities of the translator, with the aim of continuing to explore its practical and theoretical implications and contributing to a more nuanced understanding of the translator’s role in the construction of textual meaning. At the same time, it lays the groundwork for future research developments concerning the relationship between translation, textual identity, readerly poetics, narrative cosmology, and digital technologies applied to comparative stylistics.