Foreign Detective Fiction in Italy: Translations of Agatha Christie's Three Act Tragedy

外國偵探小説的義文翻譯：以阿嘉莎．克莉絲蒂的《三幕悲劇》為例

施喬佳(Giorgia SFRISO)

detective fiction ； Agatha Christie ； Fascism ； retranslation ； Three Act Tragedy ； 偵探小說 ； 克莉絲蒂 ； 法西斯主義 ； 重譯 ； 《三幕悲劇》

輔仁外語學報

17期（2021 / 07 / 31）

103 - 140

英文

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) has always enjoyed great success in Italy, and her works have been consistently published in Italian translation since their first releases. Since translations of Christie's early works appeared in Italy during the time in which the country was ruled by Mussolini's Fascist Party, they had to comply with the regime's requirements in order to avoid being censored. Therefore, unsurprisingly, Fascist-era translations are hardly ever complete; these translations were re-edited and reprinted multiple times throughout the years and were the only available choice to the Italian audience at least until the 1980s, when the publishing house that held the rights to Christie's novels commissioned new ones. In order to see whether and how the approach to translating Christie has evolved with time, this paper sets forth to examine three different Italian versions of Christie's 1935 novel Three Act Tragedy: the first translation published in 1937, a re-edition of that first translation published in 1986, and a retranslation released in 2019. The paper is divided into three sections, each of which analyzes one feature of the translations. The first is devoted to how mentions of premarital relationships and family are depicted in translation; the second discusses politics-related alterations, specifically references to Jewish characters and the Catholic Church; the third focuses on the stylistic interventions made by the translators and/or editors to the source text. The results show that the 1937 translation not only omitted elements that might have been deemed problematic to the Italian Fascist regime, it also worked to promote Fascist values regarding family. None of these alterations were rectified in the 1986 edition, despite the fact that editors did intervene in the original translation. Changes motivated by stylistic reasons can be identified in all the translations, yet only in the 2019 translation can these interventions be seen as relatively minor.

在義大利，阿嘉莎．克莉絲蒂（Agatha Christie, 1890－1976）一直都是位家喻戶曉的作家，其作品自首次發行以來便不斷有義文版本印刷出版。克莉絲蒂早期的作品開始被翻譯為義文時，義大利正處墨索里尼所帶領的法西斯政黨之統治，因此所有翻譯都必須遵從當局的要求，以免遭到審查。於此，可想而知，在法西斯時期所出版的義文譯本或多或少皆有所缺漏。這些譯本在過去幾十年中已歷經數次修訂並重新出版，且多年以來，一直都是義大利讀者唯一可取得的版本。直至1980年代，擁有克莉絲蒂小說版權的出版社著手進行小說重譯，才陸續有新版本問世。此研究欲了解克莉絲蒂小說的義文翻譯方式是否及如何隨時間改變，因此將深入分析克莉絲蒂於1934年發行的小說作品《三幕悲劇》之三個義文譯本，分別為1937年出版的第一版譯本、1986年出版的修訂本（基於第一版）及2019年出版的重譯版本。此篇研究分為三部分，分別探討不同的翻譯現象，第一部分探析譯文中關於婚前關係及家庭的描寫；第二部分討論在翻譯時，出於政治考量而對原文所做的竄改，其中討論重點將放在小說中的猶太角色和天主教會；第三部分則會探討因譯者或編輯的介入，所造成之文本風格改變。研究結果發現，1937年的譯本不僅刪減了可能會威脅到法西斯政權的內容，還幫忙宣傳法西斯主義的家庭觀；而在1986年的修訂版中，即便編輯調整了原翻譯的一部分，前述所提到的刪減和竄改都未見修正。此外，在所有譯本中雖然皆可發現因風格考量所致的差異，但只有2019版本的風格改變屬小幅度調整。

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