In 1937, two years following the American original, Pylon became the first novel by William Faulkner to be translated into Italian. The choice, however, is unexpected, given the critique of technology in Faulkner’s cautionary tale, which would seem to oppose the fascist ideology of Mussolini’s regime, then at its height. Like the futurists, whose ideas they appropriated, the fascists idealized technological progress, committing themselves to what Faulkner’s novel calls into question. The translation of foreign literature under fascism was a complex and dynamic field, as theorized by Cesare Pavese, who argued that American novels in Italian translation played a role in the domestic intellectual resistance. Against this background, the Italian translation of Faulkner’s novel may thus appear as an antifascist act. Indeed, the translator’s introduction to the work foregrounds the theme of technological critique and implicitly asserts its relevance for contemporary Italy. A closer examination of publisher and translator complicates the picture, revealing contradictory intentions and casting subversive aims into doubt. Nevertheless, an ambitious publishing project in the immediate postwar period, which sought to mobilize the novel for the purposes of national reconstruction, confirms the inherent antifascist potential of the translation.
This article argues that The Spanish Earth, as the first and only artistic collaboration between John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway, represents a unique fusion of their different aesthetics. In doing so, it aims to show that all the drama surrounding the production of the film has come to obscure the essential unity of the work itself. The following, then, shows that despite the fraught circumstances, Dos Passos and Hemingway were able to put their aesthetic differences aside for their mutual love of Spain, even as the production itself would paradoxically lead to their falling out.Key words: Dos Passos, Hemingway, The Spanish Earth, Spanish Civil War, film, aesthetics. ResumenEn este artículo se propone que The Spanish Earth, la primera y única colaboración artística entre John Dos Passos y Ernest Hemingway, representa una fusión excepcional de sus diferentes concepciones estéticas. Al hacer esta propuesta, esperamos demostrar que todo el dramatismo que rodeó la producción de la película ha venido a oscurecer la unidad esencial del trabajo en sí, ya que, a pesar de sus tensas circunstancias, creemos que tanto Dos Passos como Hemingway fueron capaces de dejar sus diferencias estéticas a un lado a favor de su común amor por España, incluso si la producción paradójicamente llevara a su desavenencia personal.
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