Siegfried Sassoon: analisi e traduzione di una selezione di war poems tratte dalla raccolta Counter-Attack and Other Poems

The purpose of this dissertation is to offer a translation from English into Italian of seventeen poems from the collection of WWI poems Counter-Attack and Other Poems, by British author Siegfried Sassoon. Besides personal interest, the importance of this work lies in the fact that Siegfried Sassoon was never translated systematically into Italian. His 1918 poems show an anti-military feeling, which is often presented by a strong irony, forming a single blast against everything Sassoon found repellent concerning the war. They drip with intensity, sarcasm, bite, and bitterness, but at the same time they are elegantly rhymed. In this collection, he uses poetry as a medium to evoke powerful images of the horror and destruction of World War I. Aside from the translation project, this dissertation also aims at providing an analysis of the living conditions during trench warfare. The first chapter introduces the Great War with a study of the socio-historical and literary context of British society, which is inevitably related to the themes of the collection. In particular, the most significant events that the British army experienced, together with a general analysis of the work of British war poems will be provided. The second chapter focuses its attention on Siegfried Sassoon. Biographical notes and a small paragraph concerning his literary production prior to his Counter-Attack and Other Poems will be included before providing a thorough and detailed analysis of the collection. The third chapter presents the translation of the seventeen poems extracted from the collection, side-by-side with the original text in English. Finally, the last chapter discusses some considerations about poetry translation. Particular attention is given to the “model reader”, the target audience of Counter-Attack, together with the role of the translator and a brief comparison between British and Italian war experience. Subsequently, the translation strategies applied to solve the most difficult and challenging problems encountered during the translation of the collection will be examined.