In Search of a Symbol Adequate to the Predicament: Seamus Heaney’s Adaptation of Dante’s “Ugolino” as a Redress of Poetry
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24162/EI2019-8839Keywords:
Adaptation, Dante, Irish poetry, Redress of Poetry, Seamus HeaneyAbstract
Seamus Heaney has introduced the theory of redress of poetry as a personal means to elaborate his poetic abilities and to respond to the conflicts in his native land, Northern Ireland. This theory bears some resemblances to the postcolonial and postmodernist theory of adaptation put forth by Linda Hutcheon. This paper aims at representing the similarities of Heaney’s redress and Hutcheon’s adaptation by exploring the functioning of these ideas in Heaney’s translation of Dante’s story of Ugolino. The main subjects addressed in this study are the definition of these two terms in the mentality of Heaney and Hutcheon; the institutional mechanisms involved in Heaney’s adaptation of Dante’s narrative; adaptation as a tripartite process of indigenisation; the significance of “Ugolino” in comparison with Heaney’s earlier adaptations; the relation of this poem to the historical moment in which it is translated and the weaknesses and the strength of this technique.
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