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PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2011

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Summary

First, a note on Gabriele Baldini's title for this book: Abitare la battaglia. A literal English version would be To Live the Battle, and at least on the surface the Italian phrase has no more powerful association or literary resonance than its translation. On the dust jacket of the Italian edition appears part of a letter the author wrote to a friend only a few weeks before his death. It sheds some light on the problem:

Since the book is not derivative, but entirely original, I would avoid titles like Giuseppe Verdi: Life and Works or Drama and Music in G. V. etc. For some time I have been toying with imaginative titles, and the imaginative title which convinces me most at this stage, now that I have again started work, simply because it describes the book best, would be Abitare la battaglia.

Clearly the phrase carried a weight of personal significance: the Italian publishers even suggest that the ‘battaglia’ should be regarded as Baldini's rather than Verdi's. This ambiguity of meaning and intention set the translator a severe initial problem. In Italy, where Baldini's reputation as a scholar of English Literature (he was professor of the subject at Rome University), as a specialist in Elizabethan drama, and as a literary critic and journalist was widespread, such an ‘imaginative’ title could naturally be balanced against die expectations created by the author's name; there was little possibility of misunderstanding.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Story of Giuseppe Verdi
Oberto to Un Ballo in Maschera
, pp. ix - xiii
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1980

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