D. H. Lawrence and Cultural Medition

“Translation” is a concept that can be applied to proper translation as
well as to travel writing. Indeed, Lawrence can be defined a cultural mediator
between English readers and the Italian culture, both for his experience as
traveller – an experience which reverberates in his travel writings and in many of
his works – and as translator. Italy is the place where Lawrence lived the longest
and his growing competence with the Italian language made him decidd to translate some of
Giovanni Verga’s novels and stories, a difficult challenge as Verga’s
texts were not simply in Italian but in a language imbued with regional
connotations and which, even though it was not proper Sicilian dialect, tended to
reproduce the rhythm and syntax of the language spoken in Sicily at the time
Verga lived. In his very few general comments on translation, Lawrence rejects
the idea of simply adopting another dialect of the target language and suggests
that the translator has to try and invent words and images which retain the
flavour of the specific local region of the original text. In his dual role of traveller
and translator Lawrence acted as cultural mediator between English readers and
the Italian culture, making Italy and Italian literature known to English readers;
at the same time Italy inspired many of Lawrence’s writings and helped him define his world view.