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, inuenced by Elio Vittorini, ofered an ideological reading, Florentine poets sought to make Eliot’s verses sound precious and obscure. It was a woman poet who rst provided a religious interpretation of the poem, a diplomat who nally published it in book form and an Argentinian artist who translated its words into images