ABSTRACT
The translator works better when he and the author are simpatico, and by this he meant not just 'agreeable', or 'congenial', meanings which this Italian word is often used to signify, but also 'possessing an underlying sympathy'. The translator should not merely get along with the author, not merely find him likeable; there should also be an identity between them. From the chorus of theorists, critics, and translators it seems clear that the idea of simpatico translation is consistent with ideas about poetry that prevail today in British and American cultures, although they too were formulated centuries ago, perhaps most decisively with the emergence of romanticism in England. The canon of twentieth-century Italian poetry in English translation has not yet admitted his kind of writing, does not find it simpatico, and in fact constrained my attempts to publish my translations.
