This paper sets out to analyze the methodological processes underlying the first Italian translation, published as late as 1993, of Izaak Walton’s longstanding
classic The Compleat Angler (1653). After a brief introduction to the work and
an overview of some critical comments, a number of general issues preliminary
to the translating process is then examined: first and foremost, the still highly
controversial nature of the book, which can be seen at the same time as an
angling handbook with a very practical purpose or as a conscious literary work
of a man close to the lyricism of the seventeenth-century metaphysical poets; the
need to account for the temporal hiatus existing between the original work and
the translation and, consequently, the choice of a suitable linguistic variety for
the Italian text. The focus is subsequently shifted to Walton’s own language and
style, as well as to some peculiarities of his characters’ idiolects and to the
rendering of the poems and ballads with which the work is interspersed. All of
these aspects are examined in parallel with the Italian translation and at times,
for purposes of comparison, with the latest French version of the book.
