T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets in Italy: Translations, Appropriations, Canonization (1944-2013)

What happened to Four Quartets in Italy? How were they read by Italian intellectuals? This volume traces the history of the Italian reception of Eliot’s masterpiece, from the early struggle for appropriation in literary magazines – where the poems were alternately framed as expressions of resignation or hope, Hermetic grammar or intimate music – to their eventual canonization and illustration. While two Neapolitan translators, influenced by Elio Vittorini, offered an ideological reading, Florentine poets sought to make Eliot’s verses sound precious and obscure. It was a woman poet who first provided a religious interpretation of the poem, a diplomat who finally published it in book form and an Argentinian artist who translated its words into images.