Journal of Italian Translation

English Translationsof Poems by Giorgio Roberti
by John DuVal and Louise Rozier
The Academy of American Poets granted John DuVal the 1992 Harold
Morton Landon Translation Award for his translation of Cesare Pascarella’s
The Discovery of America. He received a 1999-2000 NEA for his translation
of a play by Adam le Bossu. His latest book of translations is From
Adam to Adam: Seven Old French Plays, with Raymond Eichmann and
published by Pegasus Press, which will republish an expanded edition of
their Fabliaux Fair and Foul at the end of this year. He directs the Program
in Literary Translation at the University of Arkansas.
Louise Rozier directs the Italian Program at the University of Arkansas.
Her translation of Fortunato Pasqualino’s Il giorno che fui Gesù
(The Little Jesus of Sicily), published by the University of Arkansas Press
in 1999, was awarded the 1996 PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award.
She is the author of the monograph Il mito e l’allegoria nella narrativa di
Paola Masino, published by the Edwin Mellen Press in 2004.
Giorgio Roberti Poet, essayist, translator, editor, founder and president
for thirty years of the Centro Romanesco Trilussa, Giorgio Roberti
energetically promoted Romanesco language, culture and poetry. Among
many awards, his ‘na zeppa a l’occhio (A Stick in the Eye) won the Premio
Nazionale di Poesia “Roma” and the Premio Internazionale per la Satira,
and his Antiche farmacie romane won the Premio Internazionale di
saggistaca. His 1974 translation into Romanesco of Er Vangelo seconno S.
Marco has been much praised and often reprinted. After his death in November,
2002, a special issue of the magazine Romanità was dedicated to
him.
Note on translation
G.G. Belli, writing sonnets in Romanesco in the early nineteenth century,
gave an example for Italian poets with his sonnets that showed how
dialect could convey the energy of conversation more effectively than standard
language. We translators of dialect into English in the United States
do not have dialects to convey that energy precisely, so we try to make our
verse sound like people talking. This would seem impossible for A Stick in
the Eye, a story over twenty-seven centuries old, but Roberti helps with his
deft details and his sudden shifts of style, and makes translating his poem
a pleasure, though difficult.