Le traduzioni italiane del Seafarer in inglese antico

The purpose of this paper is to take into consideration the Italian trasnlations of the Old English elegy The Seafarer. The first part of the essay will take into consideration the way in which the 20th century italian academics drew on early British and German scholars and their writings at the dawn of Anglo-Saxon studies to plan their translation work. The second part of the paper will be considering Giuseppe Brunetti's and Carla Cucina's translations of the poem both published in 2008. Their work will be compared with regard to (1) use of Christian lexis, and use of kenningar, (2) adjustment of the Old English alliterative measure with modern devices, and (3) different strategies in dealing with some arduous passages inthe poem. This study aims at pointing out how a modern-day language, despite its own peculiarities, can still convey with great force most of the stylistic devices and features of a poem which belongs to a far-flung tradition.