Giovanni Pascoli traduttore di Teocrito

After offering an overview of Giovanni Pascoli’s posthumous collection Traduzioni e riduzioni (1913), this paper focuses on his rhythmical translations of five hexameter passages by Hellenistic poets (Apollonius of Rhodes, Callimachus, Theocritus) and outlines their place and significance on the background of Pascoli’s translation theory and technique. The paper is then largely devoted to examining the two Theocritus translations of the group, i.e. «Ora gioconda» and «Il canto di Lytierse» from Idylls 7, 135-146 and 10, 42-55. For both translations, the discussion provides a thematic and textual introduction (the latter based on the first edition of Traduzioni e riduzioni and on autograph material from the digitized Pascoli archive at Castelvecchio) and a textual and stylistic commentary, which also highlights several connections with Pascoli’s own poems and with his other translations of Hellenistic poetry.