"Dubliners" by James Joyce

Più 100 anni fa James Joyce, un giovane e brillante scrittore irlandese, compose quindici storie sulla gente di Dublino, in cui analizzò in che modo il desiderio di una vita diversa può essere soffocato dalle circostanze, dalle convenzioni e dalla routine.

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"Dubliners" by James Joyce

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Glossary Stampare

Glossary

+ middle-class: di classe media + impoverished: venuta a meno + to attend: assistere + to settle: stabilirsi + rejections: rifiuti + accounts: racconti + detached: distaccata + yearning: desiderio + hotbed: focolaio + to pull: spingere + heritage: eredità + throughout: nel corso di + to place: posizionare + counterpoint: contrappunto + tale: storia, racconto + stroke: ictus + priest: prete + to waste: sprecare + unspoken truth: verità non detta + to suggest: suggerire + survivors: sopravvissuti + to trap: intrappolare + to marry: sposare + on the one hand... on the other: da un lato ... dall’altro + entrapment: trappola + loss: mancanza + to oblige: obbligare + the saddest: il più triste + choice: scelta + to agree: essere d’accordo + hopes: speranze + marriage: matrimonio + docks: banchine + to lead: condurre + to everyone else: qualsiasi altra persona + to undermine: minare + to lament: piangere + to stage: mettere in scena + Tony-winning: vincitore di un premio Tony + reviews: recensioni + mixed: contrastanti

James Joyce was born in Dublin to a big middle-class + middle-class: di classe media family impoverished + impoverished: venuta a meno by his father’s drinking and poor financial sense. Academically brilliant, Joyce attended + to attend: assistere university in Dublin, but felt claustrophobic in the intimate city, finally leaving Ireland and settling + to settle: stabilirsi in multicultural Trieste in 1904. He wrote all fifteen of the stories in Dubliners between 1904 and 1907. It was finally published – after many rejections + rejections: rifiuti – in 1914.

ANONYMOUS

Joyce’s protagonists are young and old: women, men and boys. Most of the stories are narrated by an anonymous third person that gives detailed accounts + accounts: racconti in a detached + detached: distaccata voice. The stories have similar themes: tradition, routine, and the yearning + yearning: desiderio for escape. In the early 20th century Dublin was the second city in the British Empire. It was a hotbed + hotbed: focolaio of Irish nationalism, which was pulled + to pull: spingere in different directions by the country’s traditional Catholic heritage + heritage: eredità , and its desire for modernisation. Throughout + throughout: nel corso di Dubliners, Joyce places + to place: posizionare religion as a counterpoint + counterpoint: contrappunto to liberalism. 

RELIGION

In the first tale + tale: storia, racconto , The Sisters, a boy narrates the story of Father Flynn, who has a stroke + stroke: ictus and dies. But the story also suggests that the priest + priest: prete was mentally unstable. The idea of a life wasted + to waste: sprecare through ritual, and an uncomfortable unspoken truth + unspoken truth: verità non detta , is suggested + to suggest: suggerire by the story. 

Nannie went to the sideboard and brought out a decanter of sherry and some wine glasses. […] she poured out the sherry into the glasses and passed them to us. She pressed me to take some cream crackers also but I declined because I thought I would make too much noise eating them.

“[...] mentre Nannie andava alla credenza e tirava fuori una caraffa di sherry e alcuni bicchieri da vino. Li mise sul tavolo e ci invitò a prendere un bicchierino. Mi offrì con insistenza anche dei biscotti alla crema, ma li rifiutai perché pensavo che avrei fatto troppo rumore mangiandoli”.

MARRIAGE

Joyce’s characters can seem immoral – or are they just survivors + survivors: sopravvissuti ? In The Boarding House Mrs. Mooney traps + to trap: intrappolare Mr. Doran into marrying + to marry: sposare her daughter, with whom he has had a brief affair. Here, marriage offers promise and profit on the one hand + on the one hand... on the other: da un lato ... dall’altro , and entrapment + entrapment: trappola and loss + loss: mancanza on the other. But Mr. Doran feels obliged + to oblige: obbligare to honour the union.

“Going down the stairs his glasses became so dimmed with moisture that he had to take them off and polish them. He longed to ascend through the roof and fly away to another country where he would never hear of his trouble, and yet a force pushed him downstairs step by step.” 

“Mentre scendeva le scale gli occhiali gli si appannarono talmente che dovette toglierseli e pulirli. Moriva dal desiderio di salire in cielo attraverso il tetto e di volare via verso un altro paese dove non avrebbe mai più sentito parlare dei  suoi guai, eppure una forza lo spingeva dabbasso scalino per scalino”.

LOVE  LOST

One of the saddest + the saddest: il più triste stories is that of Eveline, a young woman who has a difficult choice + choice: scelta : stay at home like a good daughter, or leave Dublin for Buenos Aires with her lover, Frank. Eveline agrees + to agree: essere d’accordo to leave, but her hopes + hopes: speranze for a new life and the ‘freedom’ of marriage + marriage: matrimonio end on Dublin’s docks + docks: banchine in a terrible attack of doubt.

“All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her. She gripped with both hands at the iron railing... It was impossible. Her hands clutched at the iron in frenzy.”

“Tutti i mari del mondo le si rovesciarono intorno al cuore. La stava attirando dentro di essi: l’avrebbe affogata. Si aggrappò con entrambe le mani alla ringhiera di ferro”.

THE DEAD

The monotony of Dublin life leads + to lead: condurre Dubliners to live in a suspended state between life and death. In the most famous story The Dead, Gabriel Conroy writes a newspaper column and considers himself superior to everyone else + to everyone else: qualsiasi altra persona . Yet at a Christmas party his confidence is undermined + to undermine: minare by his wife’s confession that she still loves Michael Furey, a young revolutionary who died for her. Conroy watches the snow fall over Dublin, lamenting + to lament: piangere the absence of passion in his own life.

“[…] snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills […]  It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried.”

“[...] c’era neve in tutta l’Irlanda. Cadeva dovunque sulla scura pianura centrale, sullecolline senza alberi [...] Cadeva anche dovunque nel cimitero isolato sulla collina dove Michael Furey era sepolto”.

In film

The Dead is the longest story in Dubliners and has been most adapted for theatre and film. Joyce himself made a play out of it in 1918 called Exiles, but it wasn’t successful. In 1967, it was staged + to stage: mettere in scena again by Hugh Leonard, and then made into a film by John Huston in 1987. It even became a Tony-winning + Tony-winning: vincitore di un premio Tony Broadway musical in 1999. In 2012 a dramatisation of a selection of some of the other stories was created for the Dublin Theatre Festival, but reviews + reviews: recensioni were mixed + mixed: contrastanti . Perhaps Joyce’s genius is that each tale is so evocative and complex that it is difficult to capture off the page.

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