Description
Cusani’s pen is mightier than Bulwer’s sword
Marco Barletta
UNIVERSITY OF BARI ALDO MORO
“The pen is mightier than the sword” is one of the most famous quotes by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), a novelist who was a significant exponent of the Victorian culture and whose literary fame is nowadays almost forgotten (Christensen 2004). “Il Manzoni inglese” of the XIX century, as named by Sangiorgio (1884), was much appreciated and widely read in his time. Bulwer’s novels were translated as soon as they were published and one of the XIX-century translators of his literary works was the famous Milanese historian and writer, Francesco Cusani Confalonieri (1802-1879). Cusani started his career as a translator in order to restore his family finances (Vittori 1985), but he continued to translate and edit Bulwer’s novels throughout his life. In particular, he provided the Italian market with the publications of five Bulwer’s novels: Gli Ultimi Giorni di Pompei (1835-36); Ernesto Maltravers (1838-39); Alice o i Misteri (1839-40); Rienzi. L’ultimo de’ Tribuni (1847); Zanoni (1848). Drawing on Malmkjer’s (2003) model of translational stylistics and Batchelor’s redefinition of ‘paratext’ (2018), which builds on Genette’s (1997) conception of the term, the aim of this study is to investigate and illustrate the relationship between some authorial statements made in the novels against the Italian culture and Cusani’s paratextual interventions in the translations (such as prefaces and footnotes) in which he disputed Bulwer’s claims.
