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Different translation strategies for Luigi Pirandellos La Giara

The Italian short story La Giara, first published in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in
1909, about two monomaniacs, the stingy and hostile landlord Don Loll Zirafa and the old and
proud jar mender Uncle Dima Licasi, is written in a rich and metaphoric language with regional
(Sicilian) linguistic characteristics. The translator of this text therefore has to choose whether to
attempt to make a word-to-word translation or rather endeavour to reproduce the feeling of the
text.

In the translation into English by Stanley Appelbaum from 1994, the first translation strategy is the
dominant one. Appelbaum translates every Italian word into (one of) its English equivalent(s) in a
very consistent manner.

This is an optimal strategy choice since the translation is meant to appear
next to the Italian original version in a dual-language book containing eleven of Pirandellos short
stories, created for English speaking students of Italian language and literature. With this type of
translation it is possible to constantly compare the two texts and go back and forth between them,
thus being able to read (or at least get an impression of) the original version without a perfect Italian
comprehension ability. The translation serves, so to say, as an aid to enter the original text, and does
not therefore need to transmit the richness of the Italian language; this will be transmitted by the
original text itself once it is read (with the help of the English translation). As a result, the English
language in this translation (being completely bound by the original) seems lifeless and complicated
and does not represent Pirandellos writing very well, since what might work in Italian does not
necessarily do so in English.

A translation into German by Hans Hinterhuser, which appear in a German collection of
Pirandellos short stories from 1997, seems to be concentrated more on conveying the sensation of
the text to the reader, rather than present a disciplined text loyal translation. This translation
which, contrary to the English one, has to stand alone is much clearer and seems to have its own
distinctiveness; its own life. Obviously, this translation is not meant to serve as a language aid and
is certainly not apt to do so, as the translator has chosen to make several modifications of the
original text in order to make the story and the stile work in the German language. Not only does
he omit words, but he also alters whole paragraphs and changes the order of them. In a sense it
seems as if Hinterhuser tries to create a German Pirandello.

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In comparing the two different translations I will focus solely on the very first part of the text,
which I find quite emblematic for the two different translation strategies.

Starting off with the title, both translations exemplify the jar to be an oil jar (in English The Oil
Jar, in German Der lkrug). A giara is however not necessarily meant for oil, as it is the case in
this short story, and the former English translation was in effect simply The Jar, which seems a
more precise translation. Apart from this consensus regarding the title of the story, the two
translations take separate directions in terms of translation method.

The first phrase of the text is perhaps the most difficult to translate because of its compactness and
use of agricultural metaphors:

Piena anche per gli olivi, quellannata. Piante massaie, cariche lanno avanti, avevano
raffermato tutte, a dispetto della nebbia che le aveva oppresse sul fiorire.

The English translation is:

A bumper crop of olives, too, that year. Productive trees, laden down the year before,
had all borne firm fruit, in spite of the fog that had stifled them when in blossom.

The first line keeps the syntactical form of the original without a verb, but as a translation for the
simple piena per gli olivi [italics added] the translator chooses the more practical a bumper crop
of olives [italics added]. Piena refers to a noun (with a feminine genus), but the fact that this
noun is not specified, gives the phrase an interpretative quality; the reader has to fill out the
Leerstelle
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. Appelbaum does the filling out for the reader and interprets the noun to be raccolta/
coltura (English: crop), and in doing this he makes the phrase loose the dynamism it has in its
original version.
The piante massaie becomes productive trees, which again is a very flat
translation with the explicit noun trees instead of the more suggestive piante and the adjective
productive which gives more businesslike associations than the untranslatable massaie which
suggests something female, fertile and authentically rural.
As done in the translation of the word piena, Appelbaum chooses to translate
cariche with two words: laden down. It gives the same meaning as in Italian, but offers a
slightly different image of the olive trees, which in Italian seems to be bursting with fruit in an

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Term from the Reception Theoy of Wolfgang Iser, translated as gap or blank.
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almost carnal sense (a signification which was first implied by the piante massaie), while the
English version gives the more innocent image of the branches being so heavy with fruit as to reach
for the ground below.
The verb raffermare means to renew but is translated borne firm fruit, perhaps
since it is an untranslatable agricultural term.
The rest of the translation of this first paragraph is very precise and loyal to the
original; not a word is left out or invented, and the syntax is kept intact.

The German translation is also rather loyal to this first part of the text but does insert slight
inventions to make the text more comprehensible for the reader:

Auch die Oliven brachten eine reiche Ernte. Schon im vorausgegangenen Jahr hatten die
braven Bume ber und ber vollgehangen; jetzt trugen sie aber mals eine ergiebige Last,
trotz des Nebels, der sie whrend der Bltezeit heimgesucht hatte.

The first insertion appears already in the first line as the verb bringen (to bring, here in past
tense plural: brachten). Where the English version kept unrevised the Italian construction without
a verb, the German version makes the meaning of the phrase more transparent by inserting a verb.
The same intention seems to be the case for the next phrase which begins with the addition schon
(already) and is followed in the succeeding phrase by jetzt (now) clarifying the temporal
levels of the text.
As in the English translation, piena becomes reiche Ernte, which means more or
less the same as bumper crop.
The piante massaie turn into brave Bame in German, which seems even more
off than the English productive trees. Baum means tree, but the adjective brav is like the
English brave, which does have the connotation good/ excellent, but lacks the significance of
fertile.
Cariche is translated into ber und ber vollgehangen which very nearly
transmits the sense of abundance and the trees bursting with fruits, accentuated through the
repetition of ber as well as the for the purpose invented composite adjective vollgehangen
(hanging full).
As in the English translation, the German translator chooses to rewrite the phrase
avevano raffermato tutte, but this time a little more elaborated and perhaps even closer to the
original meaning than the English translation. As mentioned, the phrase starts with jetzt to
emphasize the time relation (last year now). trugen sie eine ergiebige Last is close to the
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English had all borne firm fruit, even though the Italian tutte expressed by all in the English
version is missing in German, but trugen sie does imply a plural (they bore) and so the sense is
transmitted by the pronoun (and the form of the verb, which is not morphologically possible in
English). The heavy pluperfect which was maintained in the English version even though the
participle raffermato was not directly translated, becomes a past tense in German, which is made
possible by the change of the comma into semicolon and the insertion of jetzt, and so once again
the German version proves to be more light (as was the case with the insertion of the verb bringen
in the first phrase). Ergiebige Last (fertile load) refers to the connotations of massaie, which
were not successfully expressed by the adjective brav used for the trees earlier in the sentence.
Another addition abermals conveys the sense of to renew in raffermare, and so the sense in
the whole from the original is maintained in this German translation.

We have seen from the analysis of the translations of the first paragraph of La giara, that the
antiquated, dense, and metaphoric language of Pirandello is difficult to reproduce in the two
Germanic languages English and German, and that it is necessary to make certain changes to make
the language flow while keeping the original signification, as has been done in the German
translation. The English version on the other hand comes out heavier than the Italian original which
it so accurately attempts to follow.

A consideration of the second paragraph of the short story will make this even more evident. The
original text is:

Lo Zirafa, che ne aveva un bel giro nel suo podere delle Quote a Primosole, prevedendo
che le cinque giare vecchie di coccio smaltato, che aveva in cantina, non sarebbero
bastate a contener tutto lolio della nuova raccolta, ne aveva ordinata a tempo una
sesta pi capace a Santo Stefano di Camastra, dove si fabbricavano: alta a petto
duomo, bella panciuta e maestosa, che fosse delle altre cinque la badessa.

Except for a few necessary alterations, the English translation is once again very precise and
devoted to the original:

Zirafa, who had a fair number of them on his farm Le Quote at Primosole, foreseeing
that the five old glazed ceramic oil jars he had in his cellar wouldnt be enough to hold
all the oil from the new harvest, had ordered a sixth, larger one in advance from Santo
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Stefano di Camastra, where they were made: as tall as a mans chest, beautiful, big-
bellied and majestic, it would be the abbess of the five others.

Merely mentioning the linguistic adaptations, the first word lo is a definite article which for
linguistic reasons can not be translated (in English the only definite article is the which is not
placed in front of personal names). Regarding the translation of Un bel giro, it can either be
interpreted to have the abstract meanings; giro daffari (turnover) or the stroll one can take in
the olive garden belonging to Zirafa. A more concrete meaning would be the perimeter of the olive
garden. Appelbaum has chosen this third and more concrete meaning, but instead of designating the
size of the land, he indicates directly the number of trees, a fair number (referring to the object in
the Italian version ne; the olive trees). Appelbaum suggest the same concrete translation of the
abstract expression nel suo podere delle Quote, which is translated with on his farm Le Quote;
the Italian text holds implicit that Le Quote is a farm and mainly states that Zirafa is the owner
(once again a dynamic aspect of the text which activates the reader to fill out the gaps), but in this
case, the translator is forced to be more explicit for fear of being confusing. Another insertion is the
personal pronoun in in his cellar which is a necessary translation of in cantina (another option
would be in the cellar).
There is a slight change in meaning with the translation of a Santo Stefano di
Camastra with from Santo Stefano di Camastra. While the preposition a indicates, that Zirafa
went to the town to order the jar, the preposition from does not indicate a presence in the town at
the time of ordering (he could might as well have sent someone else in his place). It might have
been more accurate to translate with in.
There seem to be some confusion with regards to the description of the jar, which is
bella panciuta e maestosa. This does not mean that it is beautiful as the translation suggests, but
rather beautifully big-bellied. Bella in this context is not an adjective but an adverb.
In the last phrase, abbess is put in quotation marks even though this is not the case
in the original. Maybe the translator was afraid, that the metaphor would not be understood and
therefore wishing to make the figurative sense more explicit to the reader.

The German translation is again freer with respect to both words and tenses:

Zirafa besa einen schnen kleinen Olivenhain in seinem Gut in Primosole. Und da er
sich ausgerechnet hatte, da die fnf alten, emaillierten Tonkrge, die er im Keller
verwahrte, nicht gengen wrden, die neue Ernte zu fassen, hatte er beizeiten in Santo
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Stefano di Camastra einen sechsten bestellt: brusthoch, mit majesttisch ausladendem
Bauch, der Pater Prior der anderen.

In German it is possible to put the definite article (der) in front of the name as in Italian (lo),
but the translator has chosen not to do so in the first phrase. Apart from that, the first phrase is a
rewriting of the Italian original, stating that Zirafa possessed a nice small olive garden on his estate
in Primosole. Instead of the olives, the narrator in this translation talks about the olive garden,
which was in fact also implied by the one of the abstracts meanings of giro, but that it is nice
(schn) and small (klein) seems more like an interpretation (schn is obviously translated
from bel, but I consider that adjective meant more in the sense of quantity than the quality
expressed by schn, as does also the English translator with his translation of the construction in
question; fair number). As is done in the English translation, Hinterhuser chooses to speak
explicitly of the farm, but chooses not to mention its name, Le Quote, in this way taking a different
direction than the original (not only aiding the reader as the English translation aspires to do).
In the second phrase, instead of copying the Italian gerund (prevedendo in the
English translation foreseeing), the German version makes use of the pluperfect (ausgerechnet
hatte, which is very common in German and is linguistically more elegant than the hypothetical
gerund ausgerechnend would have been. As the grammatically necessary specification of the
cellar, the text uses the definite article (im = in + dem) as an alternative for the personal pronoun in
the English version (his), but instead of just translating the aveva into hatte, Hinterhuser
chooses a different verb: verwahren (to preserve/to keep). This is probably an aesthetic choice,
since hatte is already used as the auxiliary verb in the pluperfect and it would sound monotonous
to repeat it so soon after.
In the succeeding phrase, the German version leaves out another part of the original:
tutto lolio it just mentions the new harvest (die neue Ernte).
The translation for the preposition a with regards to the ordering of the jar is here
in, which preserves the idea of Zirafa actually going to the town himself and is thus more accurate
than the English translation.
It seems as if also Hinterhuser has misunderstood the description of the jar in the last
phrase. Mit majesttisch ausladendem Bauch means with majestically outstretched belly. In the
translation bella has been left out, and the adjective majestosa has become an adverb
(majesttisch).
The last part of the paragraph has been somewhat altered. The problem of translating
the conditional mood (che fosse) has been avoided by completely leaving out the verb, and the
abbess (a clerical position that does not exist in the protestant part of Germany, where there are no
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nuns) has been converted into the Pater Prior (the Prior) of the others (der anderen) without
announcing the quantity of the jars as in the original text.

To conclude this comparison of two different translations (in two different languages) of the first
part of Pirandellos short story (which in my opinion is representative for the translations of the
entire text), I would like to stress the fact, that even though the English version so loyal to the
original seems heavier than the German version which attempts to reproduce the richness of the
language of the author, it satisfies its purpose; that of serving as a linguistic guide for the original
text in a dual-language book. The much freer German translation (which becomes even more so
further on in the text) is able to stand alone and convey to the reader more successfully the sensation
of the brilliant writing style of Pirandello.

















Bibliography:
Pirandello, Luigi: La giara. The Oil Jar in Eleven Short Stories. Unidici Novelle. A Dual-
Language Book. Trans. and ed. by Appelbaum, Stanley. Dover Publications, New York, 1994.
pp 92-111.

Pirandello, Luigi: Der lkrug in Feuer ans Stroh. Sizilianische Novellen. Verlag Klaus
Wagenbach, Berlin, 1997. pp 228-239.