“I shall never get you put together entirely:" The scattering of Ariel in the first Italian translations of Plath’s poems

Abstract

In Italy, Sylvia Plath’s poetry began to appear in scattered editions from 1968, largely through translations by prominent poet-translators. Although Ariel was never issued as a stand-alone volume, the impact of its 1966 US edition spurred the gradual dissemination of Plath’s work in Italian, as evidenced by a rare 1966 article by a New York correspondent for an Italian weekly magazine. Based on documents preserved in the Mondadori Historical Archive, this article retraces the publication history of Daria Menicanti’s first translation of Plath’s novel La campana di vetro (1968), which included six poems from Ariel, and of the two most influential selections, Giovanni Giudici’s Lady Lazarus e altre poesie (1976), and Amelia Rosselli and Gabriella Morisco’s Le muse inquietanti (1985). It examines their differing translation approaches and interpretive frameworks, determined in part by the limited availability of Plath’s works and criticism on her at the time. Finally, it highlights the contrasting editorial contexts, shaped by Olwyn Hughes’ decisive interventions, and the persistent publishing interest that Plath’s poetry has received over the decades.