Anna Carapellotti
on translating Giuseppe Ungaretti
Like many of Ungaretti's poems, the tone here is nostalgic, which I have attempted to capture. I chose to translate this poem because it is regarded as one of the poet's finest works, and I find it to be beautifully intimate.
about the author
Ungaretti (1888–1970) was an Italian poet born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt. He wrote his first volume of poetry in the trenches during World War I while serving in the Italian Army. He is known for breaking away from the traditional Italian form, and his works are characterized by obscure language and experimental meter. Ungaretti lived in Brazil from 1936 to 1942, where he taught Italian literature at the University of São Paolo. While living in Brazil, his nine-year-old son died from appendicitis, a tragedy which “Tu ti spezzasti” engages. Published in his collection Il dolore (1947), “Tu ti spezzasti” is full of dolore (“pain/grief”) as it describes a memory of his fragile son playing among the Araucaria trees in Brazil’s intense landscape.
about the translator
Anna Carapellotti is a senior at the University of Pennsylvania majoring in cognitive science. Her love of learning languages began at the Atlanta International School, where she studied Spanish, French, and Latin. Having grown up in an Italian American family, she was thrilled to have the opportunity to formally study Italian at Penn. Anna is a lover of Italian literature and a novice translator of poetry. She formerly worked as a translator for Watching America, an organization that provides foreign perspective on current American issues by making available in English articles written about the US by foreign news sources.
