"Shall I be the slave / of ... what? A word" : language, silence, beauty, and justice in early translations of Shelley's The Cenci

Abstract

This paper presents a transversal reading of Shelley's play The Cenci alongside its early Italian translations. In so doing, this study aims at exploring how early translators addressed, appropriated and transposed Shelley's investigation into the power and the limits of poetic language, as well as his unresolved vision of guilt and innocence. With a focus on the works by Gian Battista Niccolini (1844), Giuseppe Aglio (1858), and Adolfo de Bosis (1894), this work ultimately emphasises the pietistic and religious approach that informs the Italian translators' envisioning of the play and its main characters. Within the framework of a highly politicised cultural milieu, these Italian translations present a complex negotiation with the Shelleyan depiction of right and wrong, justice and injustice, thus challenging the English poet's portrayal of Beatrice Cenci as a modern tragic character.