«Poesia» e «Testo a fronte»

traduzione e militanza nell’era della globalizzazione

Abstract

In the late 1980s two periodicals, «Poesia» and «Testo a fronte», proposed themselves as a new type of journal of contemporary poetry, different from the traditional militant poetry magazine. Translation was given a central role in both journals. This shift of translation from the margins to the centre of literary discourse is part of a larger phenomenon, the constant increase of translation on the Italian book market in the last thirty years, that implies a series of relevant changes on the literary scenario. For instance, if translation is located at the quantitative centre of the book production, the very idea of national literary history is altered. Journals like «Poesia» and «Testo a fronte» indicate a modified relation between native and foreign writing. This process requires a mediator, i.e. translation, a fact that has significant consequences. These two journals have questioned the previous poetic scenario in an innovative way: not by opposing new to old poetics, but by placing translation at the centre of poetry writing, thereby forcing the agents on the literary scene to reposition themselves, in a process that is still underway.