Embodied words upon the stage : W.B. Yeats, translation and theatre-making

Abstract

This thesis starts out with an analysis of Yeats's reception in Italy over a century, which shows how his dramatic production was relegated to a position of lesser importance, whereas his reputation as a poet gradually increased over the decades of the twentieth century, with some interest emerging also for his prose works. Cross-analysis of the main publications from 1905 to 2005 reveals how the Italian "rewriting" of Yeats, following Lefevere's definition, is affected by extra-literary reasons, such as those produced by political events in the 1940s, and the charm that Celtic Irish mythology exerted in Italy in the 1990s.