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Instructors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Gipper
Event type:
Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
06.084.0082
Hours per week:
2
Credits:
6,0
Language of instruction:
German
Min. | Max. participants:
- | -
Contents:
The historical novel Il Gattopardo by Tomasi di Lampedusa about the fortune of a Sicilian aristocratic family during the time of Garibaldi's conquest of Sicily, is without doubt one of the most important literary works in 20th century Italy. The impulse for the seminar came from the new translation of the novel by Burkhard Kroeber, one of the most important contemporary translators of Italian literature.
The famous sentence "Everything must change to remain as it is", which the author puts in the mouth of his protagonist Tancredi, has since long become emblematic of what has been called the specific Italian 'trasformismo'. The British historian Perry Anderson has called this the all-pervading political tradition of postrisorgimental Italy.
In the seminar, we will begin by reading this unique novel together, trying to understand it as a critical examination of the process of Italian nation-building. For this purpuse, it will be necessary for us to study the history of the Risorgimento.
The last third of the semester will then focus on the causes and effects of trasformismo, which continues to shape Italian politics today.
Finally, Kroeber's new translation will also give us the opportunity to discuss, on the basis of selected passages, the specific problems that this work of art of the highest linguistic sophistication poses for a translator.
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