Tradurre la letteratura: echi, risonanze, incontri di poetiche

In The Task of the Translator, Walter Benjamin draws on the metaphor of the Echo to articulate the relationship between the languages involved in translation and the notion of pure language. After a brief overview of the myth of the nymph Echo, this article examines the significance that this rhetorical figure assumes in Benjamin’s thought. It then turns to the concept of Resonanz (resonance), a central term in the work of philosopher and sociologist Hartmut Rosa. Although belonging to the same semantic field as Echo, Resonanz takes on a markedly different meaning in Rosa’s theoretical framework. Whereas the Echo suggests a mere and less effective repetition of an original, the concept of resonance emphasizes the active and constructive relationship established between the subjects involved. Rosa’s notion of resonance is thus adopted as a lens through which to reconsider literary translation – as an “encounter of poetics,” in the spirit of Emilio Mattioli’s teaching, and as an active, creative, and relational act: embedded and linguistically embodied.