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.