Substitution as a poetry translator’s tool Pietro Marchesani and the poetry of Wisława Szymborska

Abstract

This article deals with the substitution, a popular and very difficult translator’s tool, which competently used allows to solve the problem of untranslatability and to blur the cultural and linguistic differences between the original text and the translation. Taking as the example very popular Italian translations of Wisława Szymborska’s poetry by Pietro Marchesani there is presented a characteristic and a general categorization of this transformation. We can specify the following types: lexical, grammatical, stylistic and metric. Thanks to the skillful use of the substitution Pietro Marchesani manages to keep the poetic essence of Szymborska’s poetry and at the same time to give the impression that her poetry is written in Italian.