Il Grande Gatsby in lingua italiana: analisi comparativa delle traduzioni in italiano e proposta di traduzione

This thesis aimed at focusing on the different approaches adopted by literary translators during the 20th and 21st century to one of the most read and appreciated novel of the American literature, that is The Great Gatsby by F. S. Fitzgerald. The purpose of the thesis was the analysis of the changes in the Italian language and approach to the readers moving from one historic period to another, through the comparison of translations dating back to different decades. What emerges from this analysis is a gradual shift from a sort of estrangement adopted by translators of the years between and after the two World Wars to a deeper involvement of the audience carried out by the more recent generations of translators. As it has been observed, the translators of the Thirties and partially of the Fifties as well tended to make the original text as more comprehensible as possible for the Italian readers, because the setting and cultural background of the novel were a distant reality at that time. On the contrary, modern translators aimed at immerging the audience into a different space and time setting aside all the cultural references of the source language. This is the sign of a change in people’s mentality: what once was considered as extraneous and too far away, and therefore had to be adapted to the audience, has now become accessible and comprehensible by everybody. Nowadays there is the shared opinion that the cultural background of a literary work has to be recognised and preserved, because each culture is unique and can enrich the personal knowledge of the reader.

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Il progetto di tesi analizza le diverse traduzioni in lingua italiana del romanzo Il grande Gatsby dello scrittore statunitense F. Scott Fitzgerald, a partire dalla prima traduzione italiana del 1936 per arrivare a quelle del 2011. Scopo della tesi è mostrare l’evoluzione della lingua e degli stili utilizzati per rendere al meglio l’atmosfera dei cosiddetti “ruggenti anni Venti” e mettere in luce le problematiche di carattere linguistico e culturale della traduzione letteraria.
Inizialmente troviamo un’introduzione sulle tematiche affrontate nel romanzo e la vita dell’autore. In seguito, focalizzandosi su alcuni brani ritenuti significativi sotto l’aspetto della traduzione, vengono confrontati estratti della prima traduzione del 1936 di Cesare Giardini, della più celebre versione del 1950 di Fernanda Pivano e delle traduzioni più recenti a opera di Tommaso Pincio, Franca Cavagnoli e Roberto Serrai.
In conclusione viene presentata una personale proposta di traduzione.