Italian to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Poetry & Literature
Italian term or phrase:...in ragione di...
This is the sentence:
Per l’io lacerato, moltiplicato, scombinato e sconnesso del nostro autore, ogni avverbio di luogo si declinerà sempre e soltanto in ragione di un altrove e di una estraniazione radicali.
My dictionary gives me the following translations for 'in ragione di': according to/at the rate of/to the amount of... but I'm not convinced by any of them in this context!
although I agree with Alfredo's comments, I think yr writer's painstakingly deliberate style - including his oh-so-clever non-sequiturs - should be rendered in the translation
I would just use *to inflect/decline* for *declinare* and start from there:
**... will be inflected according to a radical elsewhere **
or
** will be declined to reflect a radical elsewhere ...**
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 10 hrs (2006-01-31 00:55:00 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Why does this convoluted style make me think yr writer is a man ?
I wonder ... *g*
Thank you Linda! I really like your 'inflected' suggestion and am going to go with that. Thank you to everyone else too for their useful suggestions! 4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer
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Explanation: yes, well.... anyway .... it really does depend on how you take this to be meant.
This is the nearest I can get to conveying what they seem to think they might mean ....
Angela Arnone Italy Local time: 18:46 Specializes in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 54
Explanation: In fact, the dictionary's "according to" is a good starting point, and Angela's is another good suggestion.
The principal sentence, the one starting with "ogni avverbio di luogo" means, more or less:
the "rationale" for the way he uses adverbs of place is always, and can only be, a radical "elsewhere", a radical estrangement"
where:
1) I used "the rationale for" to underscore the analogy with "in ragione"; it might be clearer to say something like "the vantage point from which we may try to make some sort of sense of" for it.
2) I wrote "the way he uses" to keep it simple, but the verb "declinare" is meant (figuratively, since adverbs are notoriously undeclinable: a piece of witticism) in a grammatical sense, to indicate the various ways such adverbs are uttered and used in the writings of "our author".
I wish to underscore that: 1) mine is not a translation, but just an attempt at conveying meaning; 2) surely, this is rather narcissistic writing (I was writing highy narcissistic, but then I thought of the average academic Italian literary critic...). You may notice the paradoxical use or the verb "declinare" for adverbs, the rather forced (but not incorrect) use of an expression containing the word "ragione" in speaking of an author who is "scombinato e sconnesso" (i.e. irrational), the way the prose seems to mimic the "divided, multiple, disjonted and disconnected" nature of the author while always remaining, in fact, perfectly controlled...
"Our author", here, seems to be mostly a pretext for showing the writer's abilities
From another narcissistic writer, you may say... :-)
Alfredo Tutino Italy Local time: 18:46 Specializes in field Native speaker of: Italian PRO pts in category: 12
although I agree with Alfredo's comments, I think yr writer's painstakingly deliberate style - including his oh-so-clever non-sequiturs - should be rendered in the translation
I would just use *to inflect/decline* for *declinare* and start from there:
**... will be inflected according to a radical elsewhere **
or
** will be declined to reflect a radical elsewhere ...**
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 10 hrs (2006-01-31 00:55:00 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Why does this convoluted style make me think yr writer is a man ?
I wonder ... *g*
Linda 969 Italy Local time: 18:46 Native speaker of: Italian, English PRO pts in category: 75
Note from asker to answerer
Thank you Linda! I really like your 'inflected' suggestion and am going to go with that. Thank you to everyone else too for their useful suggestions!
The translation workplace 
peer agreement (net): +1
