ABSTRACT: Tue essay starts with the first nineteenth-century translations
ofLeopardi's L1nfinito and the Schlegelian idea of translation underlying
them, to then concentrate on some twentieth-century translations
which are analysed to capture the respective translation ideas
behind them. After considering the first twentieth-century translations
by Rudolf Pannwitz which aspire towards an interlinear model (see
W. Benjamin), I then consider L'infinito by Rainer Maria Rilke which
the author brings round to his sensitivity and conception, making the
translation an authentic Nachdichtung. Thereafter, passing through the
translations of the r92os and 3os, which remain anchored to a nineteenth-
century idea, I come to some translations from the second half
of the twentieth century and concentrate in particular on those of
Oskar Pastior, which appear to completely rewrite and transform the
originai to give rise to a new poetic work.
