Chapter Baretti polemista e traduttore in A Dissertation upon the Italian Poetry

Abstract

This brief essay attempts to shed light on some hitherto unnoticed aspects of Baretti’s approach to translation. A close analysis of his Dissertation upon the Italian Poetry, in fact, reveals that behind the Italian philosopher’s fierce reaction against Voltaire’s Essay on the Epic Poetry of All the European Nations from Homer down to Milton lies a profound analysis of the language and its evocative function. Baretti’s English translations of Italian masters such as Dante, as poor as they seem, become the most obvious demonstration of the unsurpassed beauty and force of the Italian poetic language, whose sounds are so potent and suggestive to hamper any translation effort. Therefore, without relinquishing his typically polemical vein, Baretti anticipates some of the most contemporary approaches towards translation, revealing, also in this aspect, his outstanding intellectual stature.