Course teached as: B005325 - LETTERATURE NORDICHE 1 (12 CFU) Second Cycle Degree in EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES Curriculum STUDI LETTERARI E CULTURALI INTERNAZIONALI
Teaching Language
Teaching Language(s)
Italian. Reading: Swedish (in a constant comparison with Danish and Norwegian with etymological references)
Course Content
This course focuses on the work of Swedish writer Carl Michael Bellman (1740-1795), with special regard to to the structural project underlying his three main textual collections (Fredmans Epistlar, Fredmans Sånger, Bacchi Tempel). Attention will be paid on how the interplay with the contemporary word shaped a multifaceted language open to contamination, parody, hybridization and loanwords. This complexity will help to understand the tasks of a translator into Italian.
Carl Michael Bellman, Fredmans Epistlar. Text-och melodihistorisk utgåva med musiken i reproduktion efter originaltrycket, I texten, Stockholm, Nordtstedts i samarbete med Bellmanssällskapet, 1990
(edizione digitale):
https://archive.org/stream/fredmansepistlarunse_0#page/12/mode/2up
Carl Michael Bellman, Fredmans Sånger. Text-och melodihistorisk utgåva med musiken i reproduktion efter originaltrycket, I texten, Stockholm, Nordtstedts i samarbete med Bellmanssällskapet, 1992
(edizione digitale):
https://archive.org/stream/fredmanssnger199unse#page/n0/mode/2up
Carl Michael Bellman, Bacchi Tempel (Bacchi Orden II) [Carl Michael Bellmans skrifter utgivna av Bellmanssällskapet], Stockholm, Bonniers, 1935
(edizione digitale):
https://archive.org/stream/bacchitempelunse#page/n0/mode/2up
Secondary Literature (essays, articles, studies)
Andreas Sanesi, Tracce nostrane in Bellman, poeta svedese settecentesco, in: Italiano, lingua di cultura europea: Atti del simposio internazionale in memoria di Gianfranco Folena, Weimar, 11-13 April 1997, 1998, pp.283-98
M. Ax, Sof sött, i frid, Du får tids nog vaka. En jämförelse av dikter skrivna av Carl Michael Bellman och Magnus Uggla, Uppsala, Uppsala Universitet, 2011 (digital edition):
https://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:410185/FULLTEXT01.pdf
J. Nell, Bellman på väg till Italien, in Hwad Behagas? Bellmanssällskapats Medlemstidning N:o 1, Anno 2012 (digital edition):
http://www.bellman.org/HB/HB_2012_01.pdf
Hwad Behagas? Somnia plus vigili quam dormienti nocent – Bellmanssällskapets medlemsblad N:o 1, Anno 2013
(digital edition):
http://www.bellman.org/HB/HB_2013_01.pdf
J. Nell, Det var en jesuit, en italienare och en Bellman... (Article from Hwad Behagas? N:o 2, 2013, published on Bellmanssällskapet’s web page (digital edition):
http://www.bellman.org/index.php/om-oss/artikelarkiv/14-det-var-en-jesuit-en-italienare-och-en-bellman
Kevin Bergsten, Carl Michael Bellman – En remediering, Examensarbete, Högskolan i Skövde, Skövde, 2013
(digital edition):
http://his.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:626227/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Bellman International (from Bellmanssällskapet’s web page):
http://www.bellman.org/index.php/om-bellman-och-hans-verk/bellman-international
P. Lind, ‘Strunt alt hvad du orerar’. Carl Michael Bellman, ordensretoriken och Bacchi orden, in: Studia Rhetorica Upsaliensia, Uppsala, Otto Fischer, 2014 (digital edition):
http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:696715/FULLTEXT01.pdf)
Learning Objectives
Didactic goals
The course aims at providing students with a set of tools for dealing with rendition problems as literary translators. This goal is not achievable without an extensive awareness of the interplay between expression planes, stylistic intentions, structural features, genesis conditions and linguistic registers determining how source texts came into being. Within such a frame, our translation workshop will take the shape of an eminently suitable area to exchange experiences and submit strategies while evaluating the adequacy of a rendition aspiring to be the most faithful and agile possible. Students shall carry out works showing a level intermediate between that of a mere prose periphrasis and that of publication-worthy texts. Notwithstanding the obvious restrictions of their creative range, all involved will receive an overview of a literary translator’s professional endeavour. In other words, the teacher’s rendering will give them an example of how to translate in accordance with reasonable requirements of metric and musical faithfulness to the original as well as of lexical and stylistic adherence – the latter, of course, as far as possible. The aim is twofold: to supply general guidelines to set forth through the evidently complex translational process and to provide students with some task-based tools. Within the frame of creativity-fostering dynamics, this journey will also give room for all interested to indulge in linguistic observations of diachronic and comparative relevance – firstly when it comes to similarities with Nordic languages other than Swedish.
Prerequisites
Pre-conditions
The course is open to students who have passed the Nordic Literatures exams belonging to their three-year study plan and related degree programmes.
Teaching Methods
Teaching methods
The teaching module proceeds on two levels: face-to-face and interactive lessons. The latter stage rests on a direct involvement of the students, who take part in the translating process by suggesting work strategies and possible solutions to the rendering problems related to our text selection. This second field of activity will stand out as an actual translation workshop, enriched by specular literary examples (from Italian into Swedish). The stylistic analysis will also rely on constant reference to lexical variations and parallels as well as on diverse similarities with Nordic languages other than Swedish.
Further information
Further information
At the final examination, those students who have actively contributed to the planned translation workshop will be exempt from questions related to the already accounted-for subject/text.
During the course, the teacher will quote texts and excerpts of interest from the three relevant poetry collections, referring, as well, to possible supplementary sources. Within the frame of the translation workshop, personal contributions from students will involve reshaping the face-to-face lesson plan. Such adjustments are the outcome of a teacher-student interplay. Details related to the second part of this course are therefore approximate.
Type of Assessment
The course in Nordic Literatures ends with a 12 ECTS oral examination intended for students who have chosen Swedish, Danish or Norwegian as their second foreign language as candidates for a Master’s degree. The afore-mentioned examination will concern stylistic features typical for the work of Bellman, with the inclusion of views and opinions expressed by students on translation theories and their application to the text analysis carried out together. It is worth remembering that examinees will not be subject to questions on textual issues and excerpts they have already discussed in public.
Course program
Expanded programme
The course consists of a part focusing on the rich and multifaceted work of Carl Michael Bellman, set against the historical background that witnessed its blossom. Special attention will deserve the interaction underlying the writer’s biographic experience and his artistic offspring. On this basis, the teaching plan involves four major points: 1) general overview of the Bellmanian corpus; 2) recognition of the inspiration sources in Bellman’s poetics; 3) stylistic reflection of the latter in Bellman’s work; 4) content survey of Bellman’s poetic production. Point 1) will include a style and content analysis of earlier echoes as reflected in later works. Point 4) will refer to the Bacchi Orden project – including its aftermath in Fredmans Sånger and Bacchi Tempel – as well as to Fredmans Epistlar and their development as a whole. The dissertation will take into account the inherent variety of linguistic registers and the occurrence of polyglot passages. Also relevant is the perusal of narrative levels: polyphony, first-person narration, dramatization, interferences from extra-diegetic voices on the infra-diegetic domain, meta-textual elements etc. Analysing the afore-mentioned aspects will draw the learners’ overall attention to Bellman’s work and its main features. On a more practical level, this knowledge will take expression in Italian translations from texts selected from Fredmans Epistlar, Fredmans Sånger and Bacchi Tempel. The course serves as an occasion to study rendition techniques and strategies while helping to sound out the source texts in question in a conscious, critical, and creative way.